Adam Zamoyski - Napoleon - The Man Behind the Myth

In order to do so I have concentrated on verifiable primary sources, treating with caution the memoirs of those such as Bourrienne, Fouché, Barras and others who wrote principally to justify themselves or to tailor their own image, and have avoided using as evidence those of the duchesse d’Abrantès, which were written years after the events by her lover the novelist Balzac. I also ignore the various anecdotes regarding Napoleon’s birth and childhood, believing that it is immaterial as well as unprovable that he cried or not when he was born, that he liked playing with swords and drums as a child, had a childhood crush on some little girl, or that a comet was sighted at his birth and death. There are quite enough solid facts to deal with.

I have devoted more space in relative terms to Napoleon’s formative years than to his time in power, as I believe they hold the key to understanding his extraordinary trajectory. As I consider the military aspects only insofar as they produced an effect, on him and his career or the international situation, the reader will find my coverage very uneven. I give prominence to the first Italian campaign because it demonstrates the ways in which Napoleon was superior to his enemies and colleagues, and because it turned him into an exceptional being, both in his own eyes and those of others. Subsequent battles are of interest primarily for the use he made of them, while the Russian campaign is seminal to his decline and reveals the confusion in his mind which led to his political suicide. To those who would like to learn more about the battles I would recommend Andrew Roberts’s masterful Napoleon the Great . The battle maps in the text are similarly spare, and do not pretend to accuracy; they are designed to illustrate the essence of the action.

The subject is so vast that anyone attempting a life of Napoleon must necessarily rely on the work of many who have trawled through archives and on published sources. I feel hugely indebted to all those involved in the Fondation Napoléon’s new edition of Napoleon’s correspondence. I also owe a great deal to the work done over the past two decades by French historians in debunking the myths that have gained the status of truth and excising the carbuncles that have overgrown the verifiable facts during the past two centuries. Thierry Lentz and Jean Tulard stand out in this respect, but Pierre Branda, Jean Defranceschi, Patrice Gueniffey, Annie Jourdan, Aurélien Lignereux and Michel Vergé-Franceschi have also helped to blow away cobwebs and enlighten. Among Anglo-Saxon historians, Philip Dwyer has my gratitude for his brilliant work on Napoleon as propagandist, and Munro Price for his invaluable archival research on the last phase of his reign. The work of Michael Broers and Steven Englund is also noteworthy.

I owe a debt of thanks to Olivier Varlan for bibliographic guidance, and particularly for having let me see Caulaincourt’s manuscript on the Prussian and Russian campaigns of 1806–07; to Vincenz Hoppe for seeking out sources in Germany; to Hubert Czyżewski for assisting me in unearthing obscure sources in Polish libraries; to Laetitia Oppenheim for doing the same for me in France; to Carlo De Luca for alerting me to the existence of the diary of Giuseppe Mallardi; and to Angelika von Hase for helping me with German sources. I also owe thanks to Shervie Price for reading the typescript, and to the incomparable Robert Lacey for his sensitive editing.

Although at times I felt like cursing him, I would like to thank Detlef Felken for his implicit faith in suggesting I write this book, and Clare Alexander and Arabella Pike for their support. Finally, I must thank my wife Emma for putting up with me and encouraging me throughout what has been a challenging task.

Adam Zamoyski

At noon on 10 December 1797 a thunderous discharge from a battery of guns echoed across Paris, opening yet another of the many grandiose festivals for which the French Revolution was so notable.

Although the day was cold and grey, crowds had been gathering around the Luxembourg Palace, the seat of the Executive Directory which governed France, and according to the Prussian diplomat Daniel von Sandoz-Rollin, ‘never had the cheering sounded more enthusiastic’. People lined the streets leading up to the palace in the hope of catching a glimpse of the hero of the day. But his reticence defeated them. At around ten o’clock that morning he had left his modest house on the rue Chantereine with one of the Directors who had come to fetch him in a cab. As it trundled through the streets, followed by several officers on horseback, he sat well back, seeming in the words of one English witness ‘to shrink from those acclamations which were then the voluntary offering of the heart’.1

They were indeed heartfelt. The people of France were tired after eight years of revolution and political struggle marked by violent lurches to the right or the left. They were sick of the war which had lasted for more than five years and which the Directory seemed unable to end. The man they were cheering, a twenty-eight-year-old general by the name of Bonaparte, had won a string of victories in Italy against France’s principal enemy, Austria, and forced her emperor to come to terms. The relief felt at the prospect of peace and the political stability it was hoped would ensue was accompanied by a subliminal sense of deliverance.

The Revolution which began in 1789 had unleashed boundless hopes of a new era in human affairs. These had been whipped up and manipulated by successive political leaders in a self-perpetuating power struggle, and people longed for someone who could put an end to it. They had read the Bulletins recounting this general’s deeds and his proclamations to the people of Italy, which contrasted sharply with the utterances of those ruling France. Many believed, or just hoped, that the longed-for man had come. The sense of exaltation engendered by the Revolution had been kept alive by overblown festivals, and this one was, according to one witness, as ‘ magnifique ’ as any.2

The great court of the Luxembourg Palace had been transformed for the occasion. A dais had been erected opposite the entrance, on which stood the indispensable ‘altar of the fatherland’ surmounted by three statues, representing Liberty, Equality and Peace. These were flanked by panoplies of enemy standards captured during the recent campaign, beneath which were placed seats for the five members of the Directory, one for its secretary-general, and more below them for the ministers. Beneath were places for the diplomatic corps, and to either side stretched a great amphitheatre for the members of the two legislative chambers and for the 1,200-strong choir of the Conservatoire. The courtyard was decked with tricolour flags and covered by an awning, turning it into a monumental tent.3

As the last echoes of the gun salute died away, the Directors emerged from a chamber in the depths of the palace, dressed in their ‘ grand costume ’. Designed by the painter Jacques-Louis David, this consisted of a blue velvet tunic heavily embroidered with gold thread and girded with a gold-tasselled white silk sash, white breeches and stockings, and shoes with blue bows. It was given a supposedly classical look by a voluminous red cloak with a white lace collar, a ‘Roman’ sword on a richly embroidered baldric, and a black felt hat adorned by a blue-white-red tricolour of three ostrich feathers.

The Directors took their place at the end of a cortège led by the commissioners of police, followed by magistrates, civil servants, the judiciary, teachers, members of the Institute of Arts and Sciences, officers, officials, the diplomatic representatives of foreign powers, and the ministers of the Directory. It was preceded by a band playing ‘the airs beloved of the French Republic’.4