Napoleonic Empire

1799 - 1815

1769Napoleon born in Ajaccio in Corsica

1784Entered Royal military school in Paris

1793Bonaparte family leave Corsica for France Napoleon promoted to Brigadier General

1794 Napoleon arrested as suspect ‘Robespierrist’ following collapse of Terror, but within weeks, cleared on all counts.

1795Napoleon made Commander in Chief

1796Bonaparte commands one of the armies in a pincer movement against the Austrians, victories in Italy and further triumphs in Austria follow

1798 Bonaparte marries Josephine de Beauharnais

1799 Nelson traps and destroys French fleet at the Nile. Egyptian campaign fails militarily but cultural ‘success’Napoleon overthrows the Directory & ‘elected’ First Consul

1801Concordant of 1801 restores relations between France and the Catholic Church

Napoleonic Timeline

1802Treaty of Amiens brings (temporary) peace between Britain & France. Napoleon voted Consul for Life

1804Napoleon proclaimed Emperor by the Senate & crowns himself

1805Battle of Trafalgar – First signifcant French Loss. Napoleon crowned King of Italy

1806French victory over Prussia. Berlin Decree initiates the Continental System

1808Spanish people rose up against France. Joseph Bonaparte crowned King of SpainAristocracy restored to France as ‘imperial nobility’

1811Napoleons baby son crowned King of Rome

1812Russian invasion begins… and falters

1814French forces defeated by Coalition Napoleon abdicated & exiled to Elba.Absolute Monarchy restored in France under Louis XVIII. Peace talks begin

1815Napoleon escapes from Elba & arrives in Paris. Beginning of the Hundred Days. Battle of Waterloo leads to French defeat. Napoleon exiled to St. Helena

1821Death of Napoleon

David, 1800

Napoleon Crossing The Alps

Napoleon Crossing The Alps (http://www.flickr.com/photos/25876167@N08/3695825824/) / Joaquín Martínez (http://www.flickr.com/photos/25876167@N08/) / CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)

Coalitions Against FranceThe 1st Coalition, 1792-1798Main States: Austria, Prussia, Great Britain, Spain, HollandMajor Campaigns: Italy

The 2nd Coalition, 1799-1801 Russia, Great Britain, AustriaMajor Campaigns: Egypt, Marengo

Both Collapsed following French victories

Peace of Amiens: 1802-1803Great Britain & France

The 3rd Coalition, 1805Austria, Great Britain, RussiaCollapsed in 1805 after Austrian withdrawal following defeat Major Campaigns: Trafalgar, Austerlitz

The 4th Coalition, 1806-1807Prussia, Austria, Great Britain, RussiaCollapse after Prussian and Russian defeat :

Major Campaigns: Conquest of Prussia, Conquest of Poland

5th Coalition, 1809Great Britain, AustriaCollapsed following Austrian defeat and withdrawal Major Campaigns: Peninsular wars, Austrian Campaigns

6th Coalition, 1812-14Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, Austria

Major Campaigns: Invasion of Russia, Liberation of Germany, Defeat of France

And on Napoleon’s return to power, 1814-1815: Battle of Waterloo

Thomas Morris: A Soldiers View

I was particularly fond of reading the heart-stirring accounts of sieges and battles; and the glorious achievements of the British troops in Spain... created in me an irrepressible desire for military service... and, oh! how proud did I feel when having gone through my course of drill, I was permitted to join the ranks.

Even now I often think of the delightful sensation I experienced… where our evolutions and martial exercises excited the admiration and wonder of crowds of nursery-maids and children, who invariably attended on such occasions.

Then, how delightful on our return home, to parade the streets in our splendid uniform, exhibiting ourselves as the brave defenders of our country, should the Corsican attempt to carry into effect his threatened invasion of England.

John Selby (ed.), Thomas Morris: The Napoleonic Wars, London, 1967, p 2

My dear Mother

We have safely received your parcels and letters which were very acceptable to us. I am now quite comfortably settled in my new house and feel as if I had taken up my station here for a constancy...

Thank you for the carpet: it is quite a luxury to us. Although we brought every thing absolutely necessary we have few conveniences; and though, if we were all huddled together in a barn, expecting the French to overtake us every instant we might be very well contented with ‘An open broken elbow chair’... Yet, living quietly like our neighbours we rather miss the conveniences we have been used to.’

Isaac Taylor, Memoirs and Poetical Remains of the late Jane Taylor, 1825, pp 74 - 5

Napoleon Crowns himself Emperor, 1804, Jacques Louis David

Coronation of Napoleon. Louis David’s huge painting of the coronation of Napoleon in Notre Dame Cathedral occupies the central space in the Salle Denon.

Coronation of Napoleon (http://www.flickr.com/photos/justaslice/3520071752/) / █ Slices of Light █▀ ▀ ▀ (http://www.flickr.com/photos/justaslice/) / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/)

From The Imperial Catechism, 1806

Question: What are the duties of Christians toward those who govern them, and what in particular are our duties towards Napoleon I, our emperor?

Answer: Christians owe to the princes who govern them, and we in particular owe to Napoleon I, our emperor, love, respect, obedience, fidelity, military service, and the taxes levied for the preservation and defense of the empire and of his throne. We also owe him fervent prayers for his safety and for the spiritual and temporal prosperity of the state.

Question: Why are we subject to all these duties toward our emperor?

Answer: First, because God, who has created empires and distributes them according to his will, has, by loading our emperor with gifts both in peace and in war, established him as our sovereign and made him the agent of his power and his image upon earth. To honor and serve our emperor is therefore to honor and serve God himself. Secondly, because our Lord Jesus Christ himself, both by his teaching and his example, has taught us what we owe to our sovereign. Even at his very birth he obeyed the edict of Caesar Augustus; he paid the established tax; and while he commanded us to render to God those things which belong to God, he also commanded us to render unto Caesar those things which are Caesar's.

Question: Are there not special motives which should attach us more closely to Napoleon I, our emperor?

Answer: Yes, for it is he whom God has raised up in trying times to re-establish the public worship of the holy religion of our fathers and to be its protector; he has re-established and preserved public order by his profound and active wisdom; he defends the state by his mighty arm; he has become the anointed of the Lord by the consecration which he has received from the sovereign pontiff, head of the Church universal.

Question: What must we think of those who are wanting in their duties toward our emperor?

Answer: According to the apostle Paul, they are resisting the order established by God himself and render themselves worthy of eternal damnation.

Battle of Trafalgar 1805: The Cost of Victory

Gibraltar, Trafalgar cemetery (http://www.flickr.com/photos/martin55/4924251248/) / martin_vmorris (http://www.flickr.com/photos/martin55/) / CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/)

'The Death of Nelson' 1859-64, by Daniel Maclise (1806-70) (detail from)

liverpool walker art gallery Maclise death of nelson detail (http://www.flickr.com/photos/damiavos/6332665849/) / damian entwistle (http://www.flickr.com/photos/damiavos/) / CC BY-NC 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/)

The Plumb-pudding in danger; Gillray, 1805

Author’s own photo

The Continental System

FROM OUR IMPERIAL CAMP AT BERLIN, ,November 21, 1806. Napoleon, emperor of the French and king of Italy, in consideration of the facts:

That England does not recognize the system of international law universally observed by all civilized nations…That she regards as an enemy every individual belonging to the enemy's state, and consequently makes prisoners of war not only of the crews of armed ships of war but of the crews of ships of commerce and merchantmen, and even of commercial agents and of merchants travelling on business…That she extends to the vessels and commercial wares, and to the property of individuals, the right of conquest which is applicable only to the possessions of the belligerent power…

That this monstrous abuse of the right of blockade has no other aim than to prevent communication among the nations and to raise the commerce and the industry of England upon the ruins of that of the continent.

We have consequently decreed and do decree that which follows.

I. The British Isles are declared to be in a state of blockade.

II. All commerce and all correspondence with the British Isles is forbidden. Consequently, letters or packages directed to England, or to an Englishman, or written in the English language, shall not pass through the mails and shall be seized.

III. Every individual who is an English subject, of whatever state or condition he may be, who shall be discovered in any country occupied by our troops or by those of our allies, shall be made a prisoner of war. IV. All warehouses, merchandise, or property of whatever kind belonging to a subject of England shall be regarded as a lawful prize.

V. Trade in English goods is prohibited, and all goods belonging to England or coming from her factories or her colonies are declared a lawful prize.

VII. No vessel coming directly from England or from the English colonies, or which shall have visited these since the publication of the present decree, shall be received in any port.

VIII. Any vessel contravening the above provision by a false declaration shall be seized, and the vessel and cargo shall be confiscated as if it were English property.

X. The present decree shall be communicated by our minister of foreign affairs to the kings of Spain, of Naples, of Holland, and of Etruria, and to our other allies whose subjects, like ours, are the victims of the unjust and barbarous maritime legislation of England.

TIDDY-DOLL, the great French-Gingerbread-Baker, drawing out a new Batch of Kings. – his Man, Hopping Talley, mixing up the

Dough, Gillray, 1806

Author’s own photo

The Russian Campaign - A Humiliating Retreat

In 1812, by Illarion Prianishnikov, 1812

 

Russia_3577 - 1812 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/archer10/4166101638/in/photostream/) / Dennis Jarvis (http://www.flickr.com/photos/archer10/) / CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/)

WE were enjoying the breezes of a fine March morning when suddenly an officer issued from the palace and whispered to us that Bonaparte had landed! Had a thunderbolt fallen at our feet its effects could not have produced a more terrible sensation than did this unexpected intelligence on our hearts… Some could not conceal the terror the name of Napoleon always inspires; others, judging from their own loyal sentiments, exclaimed, "The hand of God is to be seen in this!" … On the 19th cries were heard of "Vive we Roi!" in the square of Louis XV. On the morning of the 20th they were supplanted by shouts of "Vive l'Empereur!"

The next morning I determined to see Napoleon, but when our carriage arrived at the Pont Royal thousands were collected there... An unusual silence prevailed, interrupted only by the cries of the children, whom the parents were thumping with energy for crying "Vive le Roi!" instead of "Vive l'Empereur!" which some months before they had been thumped for daring to vociferate! …from the window I saw and heard for the first time the scourge of the Continent… His square face and figure struck me with involuntary emotion. I was dazzled, as if beholding a supernatural being. There was a sternness spread over his expansive brow, a gloom on the lids of his darkened eye, which rendered futile his attempts to smile. Something Satanic sported round his mouth, indicating the ambitious spirit of the soul within!

Account of Napoleon’s return to Paris, March, 1815, by an English woman.

As quoted in www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1815napoleon100days.asp

‘A View of the Grand Triumphal Pillar’, Rowlandson, 1815

Author’s own photo

I had my own notions of Bonaparte too. One day at dessert, when my father was talking anxiously to my mother about the expected invasion, for which preparations were made all along the Norfolk coast, I saw them exchange a glance, because I was standing staring, twitching my pinafore with terror.

My father called me to him, and took me on his knee, and I said 'But, papa, what will you do if Boney comes?' 'What will I do?' said he, cheerfully, 'Why, I will ask him to take a glass of Port with me,' - helping himself to a glass as he spoke. That wise reply was of immense service to me. From the moment I knew that 'Boney' was a creature who could take a glass of wine, I dreaded him no more. Such was my induction into the department of foreign affairs

Harriet Martineau, Autobiography, 1855,this edition, Virago, 1983 p 23

Napoleon comes to the fore as a soldier. The principles of political warfare do not interest him. He destroys republican idealism, first in the army, then, with the help of the army, in the State.

He is the complete egoist, for whom human sympathy does not exist, for whom men are despised tools, pieces on a chess board. He is a foreigner among the French. Having no faith and no fatherland, he pursues no other purpose than his own greatness. He is the sly Machiavellian, who promises peace, but who, when once power is in his hands, can do nothing but make war. He is a man for whom religion and literature mean nothing, except in so far as they minister to his greatness or his power, and under whom both must wither.

In short he is the tyrant.

The views of Madame de Stael, exiled by Napoleon in 1803, as quoted in Peter Geyl's Napoleon: For and Against, 1949

Napoleon was not just another despot, enlightened or otherwise.

He was not a dictator in the strict sense, for he issued constitutions. He claimed legitimacy, like revolutionary governments, by the will of the people. For Napoleon, equality meant the equal subjection of every citizen to state power. Apart from equality before the law the Napoleonic regime made few concessions to equality.

What characterized the Napoleonic government above all was strong government, under the control of a single charismatic figure, who appointed and dismissed ministers, generals, prefects, and bishops, commanded armies, directed foreign policy, codified the laws, and reorganized the systems of education, religious worship and administration.

R. Gildea, Barricades and Borders, Europe 1800 – 1914, 1996

Napoleon was at various times a revolutionary dictator and a populist dictator, an enlightened despot and an outsider from Corsica determined to make his fortune at any cost.

He was as anti-revolutionary as he was anti-royalist, determined to suppress criticism and opposition from both revolutionaries and royalists.

Whether he revived a specific feature of the ancien regime or embraced some characteristics of the Republic he had overthrown, he acted without admiration for the principles of either. If its aims were personal liberty and social equality then the Revolution was betrayed by Napoleon.

If the Revolution is viewed as aiming at governmental efficiency and the legal equality of all citizens, then Napoleon can be reasonably seen as its heir

F.L.Ford, Europe 1780-1830, 1989

Let me charge you to respect liberty; and above all equality. With regard to liberty, it might be possible to restrain it in a case of extremity, but heaven forbid that we should ever infringe upon equality! It is the passion of the age; and I wish to continue to be the man of the age!

The great battle of the century had been won and the Revolution accomplished; now all that remained was to reconcile it with all that it had not destroyed. That task belonged to me.

I became the arch of the alliance between the old and the new, the natural mediator between the old and the new orders. I closed the gulf of anarchy and cleared away the chaos.

I purified the Revolution.

Extract from Napoleon's Memoirs, written in exile on St Helena, 1816- 1821, quoted in Andrina Stiles, Napoleon, France and Europe, 1993