Napoléon Le Petit (French Edition)

Napoleon-Le-Petit

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Napoleon abdicated rather than plunge France into a civil war. He was exiled to the tiny Mediterranean island of Elba in May.

Why We’d Be Better Off if Napoleon Never Lost at Waterloo

As Napoleon adjusted to life ruling a much-reduced domain, he kept a close eye on what was happening in France. They had not learned from the French Revolution and Napoleonic Empire that the French people had changed profoundly and now took for granted meritocracy, low direct taxation, secular education and a certain degree of military glory.

Nor had the Bourbons forgotten the expropriations and executions suffered by the royal family, the aristocracy and the Catholic Church during the Reign of Terror in the s. As a result, they returned to France ill-prepared to effect a grand settlement that could reconcile the contesting demands of the army, clergy, aristocracy, peasantry, merchants, Bonapartists, liberals, ex-revolutionaries and conservatives. Napoleon was emboldened to take the last and greatest gamble of his life.

On February 26, , he secretly boarded the largest ship in his tiny fleet and sailed to Golfe-Juan, on the south coast of France. Landing on March 1, Napoleon struck north with the Imperial Guardsmen he had brought with him, over mountain passes and through tiny villages, sometimes on foot when the paths were too steep and narrow to ride down. The route he took from Cannes to Grenoble—today mapped out as the Route Napoleon for tourists, hikers and cyclists—is one of the loveliest if more vertiginous trails in the country.

But the commanders, Marshals Nicolas Soult and Michel Ney, and their men switched sides the moment they came into contact with the charisma of their former sovereign. On March 20, Napoleon reached the Tuileries Palace in Paris—on the site of the Louvre today—and was acclaimed by the populace. The carriages enter, we all rush around them and we see Napoleon get out. The Allies reacted with shocked disbelief. They were gathered at a congress in Vienna when news of his escape reached them on March 7, but initially the representatives of Austria, Russia, Britain and Prussia had no idea where he had gone.

Once they established four days later that Napoleon had returned to France, they issued what has been called the Vienna Declaration: The Powers consequently declare that Napoleon Bonaparte has placed himself beyond the pale of civil and social relations, and that as an enemy and disturber of the tranquility of the world, he has delivered himself up to public vengeance.

Kraehe later put it. The Austrian chancellor, Prince Klemens von Metternich, softened the wording because Napoleon was still the son-in-law of the emperor of Austria, and the Duke of Wellington denounced the language as encouraging the assassination of monarchs. Nonetheless, the declaration clearly foreclosed any negotiation. Thus they made the Waterloo campaign as inevitable as it was ultimately unnecessary.

Napoleon well knew that after 23 years of almost constant war, the French people wanted no more of it.

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And so he resumed building various public works in Paris, including the elephant fountain at the Bastille, a new marketplace at St. At a concert at the Tuileries he kindled a romance with the celebrated year-old actress and beauty Anne Hippolyte Boutet Salvetat whose stage name was Mademoiselle Mars. All that Napoleon achieved in just 12 weeks after he returned to Paris—even as he prepared for the war the Allies had declared on him. Like the Bourbons, they were in no mood to forgive or forget.

In addition to their declared distrust, they had less-public motives for moving against him. The autocratic rulers of Russia, Prussia and Austria wanted to crush the revolutionary ideas for which Napoleon stood, including meritocracy, equality before the law, anti-feudalism and religious toleration.

Essentially, they wanted to turn the clock back to a time when Europe was safe for aristocracy. At this they succeeded—until the outbreak of the Great War a century later. The British had long enjoyed most of the key Enlightenment values, having beheaded King Charles I years before the French guillotined Louis XVI, but they had other reasons for wanting to destroy Napoleon. More gravely, Britain and France had fought each other for no fewer than 56 years in the preceding , and Napoleon himself had posed a threat of invasion before Lord Nelson destroyed the French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar in They were a homogeneous national force, and their morale was high, since they believed their commander was the greatest soldier since Julius Caesar.

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Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations. View or edit your browsing history. Get to Know Us. English Choose a language for shopping. Amazon Music Stream millions of songs. In September he graduated from the military academy, ranking 42nd in a class of Garrisoned at Valence , Napoleon continued his education, reading much, in particular works on strategy and tactics. He went back to Corsica in September and did not rejoin his regiment until June By that time the agitation that was to culminate in the French Revolution had already begun. A reader of Voltaire and of Rousseau , Napoleon believed that a political change was imperative , but, as a career officer, he seems not to have seen any need for radical social reforms.

But Paoli had no sympathy for the young man, whose father had deserted his cause and whom he considered to be a foreigner. Disappointed, Napoleon returned to France, and in April he was appointed first lieutenant to the 4th regiment of artillery, garrisoned at Valence. He at once joined the Jacobin Club , a debating society initially favouring a constitutional monarchy, and soon became its president, making speeches against nobles, monks, and bishops.

In September he got leave to go back to Corsica again for three months. Elected lieutenant colonel in the national guard, he soon fell out with Paoli, its commander in chief. When he failed to return to France, he was listed as a deserter in January But in April France declared war against Austria, and his offense was forgiven. Apparently through patronage, Napoleon was promoted to the rank of captain but did not rejoin his regiment.

Instead he returned to Corsica in October , where Paoli was exercising dictatorial powers and preparing to separate Corsica from France. Napoleon Bonaparte, as he may henceforth be called though the family did not drop the spelling Buonaparte until after , rejoined his regiment at Nice in June In his Le Souper de Beaucaire Supper at Beaucaire , written at this time, he argued vigorously for united action by all republicans rallied round the Jacobins, who were becoming progressively more radical, and the National Convention , the Revolutionary assembly that in the preceding fall had abolished the monarchy.

Bonaparte was promoted to major in September and adjutant general in October. He received a bayonet wound on December 16, but on the next day the British troops, harassed by his artillery, evacuated Toulon. On December 22 Bonaparte, age 24, was promoted to brigadier general in recognition of his decisive part in the capture of the town.

Corsica has a complicated history – and some great ice cream

He was freed in September but was not restored to his command. The post seemed to hold no future for him, and he went to Paris to justify himself. Despite his efforts in Paris, Napoleon was unable to obtain a satisfactory command, because he was feared for his intense ambition and for his relations with the Montagnards , the more radical members of the National Convention. He then considered offering his services to the sultan of Turkey.

Bonaparte was still in Paris in October when the National Convention, on the eve of its dispersal, submitted the new constitution of the year III of the First Republic to a referendum, together with decrees according to which two-thirds of the members of the National Convention were to be reelected to the new legislative assemblies.

The royalists, hoping that they would soon be able to restore the monarchy, instigated a revolt in Paris to prevent these measures from being put into effect. Bonaparte became commander of the Army of the Interior and, consequently, was henceforth aware of every political development in France.

He became the respected adviser on military matters to the new government, the Directory. From every point of view, a new life was opening for Bonaparte. Having proved his loyalty to the Directory, he was appointed commander in chief of the Army of Italy in March He had been trying to obtain that post for several weeks so that he could personally conduct part of the plan of campaign adopted by the Directory on his advice.

Arriving at his headquarters in Nice, Bonaparte found that his army, which on paper consisted of 43, men, numbered scarcely 30, ill-fed, ill-paid, and ill-equipped men. On March 28, , he made his first proclamation to his troops:. Soldiers, you are naked, badly fed. Soldiers of Italy, will you be wanting in courage and steadfastness? He took the offensive on April 12 and successively defeated and separated the Austrian and the Sardinian armies and then marched on Turin. Bonaparte continued the war against the Austrians and occupied Milan but was held up at Mantua.

While his army was besieging this great fortress, he signed armistices with the duke of Parma, with the duke of Modena, and finally with Pope Pius VI. At the same time, he took an interest in the political organization of Italy. Thereafter, Bonaparte, without discarding the Italian patriots altogether, restricted their freedom of action. Then he sent an expedition to recover Corsica, which the British had evacuated. Austrian armies advanced four times from the Alps to relieve Mantua but were defeated each time by Bonaparte. After the last Austrian defeat, at Rivoli in January , Mantua capitulated.

Next he marched on Vienna. He was about 60 miles km from that capital when the Austrians sued for an armistice. By the preliminaries of peace, Austria ceded the southern Netherlands to France and recognized the Lombard republic but received in exchange some territory belonging to the old Republic of Venice, which was partitioned between Austria, France, and Lombardy. Bonaparte then consolidated and reorganized the northern Italian republics and encouraged Jacobin—radical republican—propaganda in Venetia.

Meanwhile, Bonaparte grew uneasy at the successes of the royalists in the French elections in the spring of and advised the Directory to oppose them, if necessary, by force. The Directory was displeased, however, because the treaty ceded Venice to the Austrians and did not secure the left bank of the Rhine for France. Only the war at sea, against the British, continued. The directors, who wanted to launch an invasion of the British Isles , appointed Bonaparte to command the army assembled for this purpose along the English Channel. After a rapid inspection in February , he announced that the operation could not be undertaken until France had command of the sea.

This proposal, seconded by Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, the foreign minister, was accepted by the directors, who were glad to get rid of their ambitious young general. The expedition, thanks to some fortunate coincidences, was at first a great success: Malta , the great fortress of the Hospitallers , was occupied on June 10, , Alexandria taken by storm on July 1, and all of the delta of the Nile rapidly overrun.

He proceeded to introduce Western political institutions, administration, and technical skills in Egypt; but Turkey, nominally suzerain over Egypt, declared war on France in September. To prevent a Turkish invasion of Egypt and also perhaps to attempt a return to France by way of Anatolia, Bonaparte marched into Syria in February His progress northward was halted at Acre , where the British withstood a siege, and in May Bonaparte began a disastrous retreat to Egypt. The French armies in Italy were defeated in the spring of and had to abandon the greater part of the peninsula.

These defeats led to disturbances in France itself. Bonaparte did not take long to make up his mind. He would leave his army and return to France—in order to save the republic, of course, but also to take advantage of the new circumstances and to seize power. The Directory had, in fact, ordered his return, but he had not received the order, so that it was actually in disregard of his instructions that he left Egypt with a few companions on August 22, Their two frigates surprisingly escaped interception by the British, and Bonaparte arrived in Paris on October By this time French victories in Switzerland and Holland had averted the danger of invasion, and the counterrevolutionary risings within France had more or less failed.

But it was Bonaparte who was henceforth the master of France. Not much was known about his personality, but people had confidence in a man who had always been victorious the Nile and Acre were forgotten and who had managed to negotiate the brilliant Treaty of Campo Formio. He was indeed exceptionally intelligent, prompt to make decisions, and indefatigably hardworking but also insatiably ambitious. He seemed to be the man of the Revolution because it was due to the Revolution that he had climbed at so early an age to the highest place in the state.

He was not to forget it; but, more than a man of the Revolution, he was a man of the 18th century, the most enlightened of the enlightened despots , a true son of Voltaire. He did not believe in the sovereignty of the people, in the popular will, or in parliamentary debate. He believed that an enlightened and firm will could do anything if it had the support of bayonets; he despised and feared the masses; and, as for public opinion , he considered that he could mold and direct it as he pleased.

It gave immense powers to the first consul, leaving only a nominal role to his two colleagues. The first consul—namely, Bonaparte—was to appoint ministers, generals, civil servants, magistrates, and the members of the Council of State and even was to have an overwhelming influence in the choice of members for the three legislative assemblies, though their members were theoretically to be chosen by universal suffrage.

Submitted to a plebiscite , the constitution won by an overwhelming majority in February At the head of the government was the Council of State , created by the first consul and often effectively presided over by him; it was to play an important part both as the source of the new legislation and as an administrative tribunal. The judicial system was profoundly changed: The police organization was greatly strengthened.

The financial administration was considerably improved: Education was transformed into a major public service; secondary education was given a semimilitary organization, and the university faculties were reestablished. Primary education, however, was still neglected. Personally, he was indifferent to religion: Yet he considered that religious peace had to be restored to France.

As early as , when he was concluding the armistice in Italy with Pope Pius VI , he had tried to persuade the pope to retract his briefs against the French priests who had accepted the Civil Constitution of the Clergy , which in practice nationalized the church. Pius VII , who succeeded Pius VI in March , was more accommodating than his predecessor, and, 10 months after negotiations were opened with him, the Concordat of was signed reconciling the church and the Revolution.

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The pope recognized the French republic and called for the resignation of all former bishops; new prelates were to be designated by the first consul and instituted by the pope; and the sale of the property of the clergy was officially recognized by Rome. The concordat, in fact, admitted freedom of worship and the lay character of the state. The codification of the civil law , first undertaken in , was at last completed under the Consulate.

The code, promulgated on March 21, , and later known as the Napoleonic Code , gave permanent form to the great gains of the Revolution: It maintained divorce but granted only limited legal rights to women. The army received the most careful attention. The first consul retained in outline the system instituted by the Revolution: Nevertheless, the creation of the Academy of Saint-Cyr to produce infantry officers made it easier for the sons of bourgeois families to pursue a military career.

Yet Bonaparte was not concerned about introducing new technical inventions into his army. The first consul spent the winter and spring of — reorganizing the army and preparing for an attack on Austria alone, Russia having withdrawn from the anti-French coalition. With his usual quick assessment of the situation, he saw the strategic importance of the Swiss Confederation, from which he would be free to outflank the Austrian armies either in Germany or in Italy as he might see fit.

His past successes made him choose Italy.

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Taking his army across the Great St. Bernard Pass before the snow melted, he appeared unexpectedly behind the Austrian army besieging Genoa. Great Britain alone remained at war with France, but it soon tired of the struggle. Preliminaries of peace, concluded in London in October , put an end to hostilities, and peace was signed at Amiens on March 27, General peace was reestablished in Europe. In May it was decided that the French people should vote in referendum on the following question:

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