Also by Stephen Clarke

FICTION

A Brief History of the Future

A Year in the Merde

Merde Actually

Merde Happens

Dial M For Merde

The Merde Factor

NON-FICTION

Talk to the Snail: Ten Commandments for Understanding the French

Paris Revealed

1000 Years of Annoying the French

Dirty Bertie: An English King Made in France

EBOOK SHORT

Annoying the French Encore!

For further information on Stephen Clarke and his books, you can visit his website: www.stephenclarkewriter.com

or follow him on Twitter @SClarkewriter

APPENDIX 1

Napoleon’s verbal salvoes

Rather like a French Shakespeare, Napoleon spent much of his life producing quotable quotes – the difference between the two men being that most of Napoleon’s were about himself.

Here are a few Napoleonic sayings, not used elsewhere in the book, that give an insight into the Empereur’s inner workings.

‘This battle [Waterloo] was against the interests of his [Wellington’s] nation and the allies’ overall war plan; it violated all the rules of war … It was not in England’s interests … to expose itself so frivolously to a murderous struggle that could have cost it its only army and its purest blood.’

‘You English will weep that you won Waterloo! In the end, posterity, well-informed people, genuine statesmen and genuinely good men will bitterly regret that I did not succeed in all my undertakings.’

‘Europe will soon be weeping over the loss of balance to which my French empire was absolutely necessary. It is in great danger. At any moment, it may be flooded with Cossacks and Tartars.’

‘Every nation is the same. When you give them golden chains, they don’t dislike servitude.’

‘Good politics is making people believe that they are free.’

‘What I am striving for is greatness. Great things are always beautiful.’

‘Coldness is the best quality for a man who is destined to command.’

‘The cannon killed feudalism. Ink will kill modern society.’

‘I am more frightened of three newspapers than of 100,000 bayonets.’

‘Peace is a meaningless word. What we want is glorious peace.’

‘Trade brings men together, everything that brings men together binds them, so trade is essentially harmful to authority.’

‘For one woman who inspires us to do good, there are a hundred who make us behave like idiots.’

‘There is one thing that isn’t French – that a woman can do what she wants.’

‘Our ridiculous failing as a country is that the greatest enemy of our success and our glory is ourselves.’

‘It is in the French character to exaggerate, to complain and to distort everything when one is unhappy.’

‘You can stop when you are on the way up, but not on the way down.’

‘Death is nothing, but to die beaten and without glory is to die every day.’

APPENDIX 2

Contemporary views of Waterloo

Part of Napoleon’s speech to his soldiers on 15 June 1815, reminding them of the good old days (the text was printed and widely distributed in Belgium before the battle):

Soldiers! These same Prussians who are so arrogant today were three to one against you at Jena [in Germany, in 1806], six to one at Montmirail [in France, in 1814].

Those among you who were prisoners in England can tell their comrades what frightful torments they suffered on board the English hulks.

The Saxons, Belgians, Hanoverians, and the soldiers of the Rhine Confederation are sad to be forced to serve the cause of princes who are enemies of justice and people’s rights. They know that this coalition is insatiable. After devouring twelve million Italians, a million Saxons and six million Belgians, it will devour all the smaller states of Germany.

Madmen! One moment of prosperity has blinded them. The oppression and humiliation of the French people is beyond their capability. If they enter into France it will be to find a grave there!

Soldiers, we have forced marches to make, battles to fight, dangers to face; but with steadfastness, victory will be ours. The rights, the honour and the happiness of our homeland will be won back.

Excerpts from William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel Vanity Fair (published in 1847–8), showing how rumours of what was going on in Waterloo reached Brussels:

All that day from morning until past sunset, the cannon never ceased to roar. It was dark when the cannonading stopped all of a sudden. All of us have read of what occurred during that interval. The tale is in every Englishman’s mouth; and you and I, who were children when the great battle was won and lost, are never tired of hearing and recounting the history of that famous action. Its remembrance rankles still in the bosoms of millions of the countrymen of those brave men who lost the day. They pant for an opportunity of revenging that humiliation; and if a contest, ending in a victory on their part, should ensue, elating them in their turn, and leaving its cursed legacy of hatred and rage behind to us, there is no end to the so-called glory and shame, and to the alternations of successful and unsuccessful murder, in which two high-spirited nations might engage. Centuries hence, we Frenchmen and Englishmen might be boasting and killing each other still.

[…]

Several times during the forenoon Mr. Jos’s [servant] Isidor went from his lodgings into the town, and to the gates of the hotels and lodging-houses round about the Parc, where the English were congregated, and there mingled with other valets, couriers, and lackeys, gathered such news as was abroad, and brought back bulletins for his master’s information. Almost all these gentlemen were in heart partisans of the Emperor, and had their opinions about the speedy end of the campaign. […] It was agreed on all hands that Prussians and British would never return except as prisoners in the rear of the conquering army.

These opinions in the course of the day were brought to operate upon Mr. Sedley. He was told that the Duke of Wellington had gone to try and rally his army, the advance of which had been utterly crushed the night before.

“Crushed, psha!” said Jos, whose heart was pretty stout at breakfast-time. “The Duke has gone to beat the Emperor as he has beaten all his generals before.”

“His papers are burned, his effects are removed, and his quarters are being got ready for the Duke of Dalmatia,” Jos’s informant replied. “I had it from his own maitre d’hotel. Milor Duc de Richemont’s people are packing up everything. His Grace has fled already, and the Duchess is only waiting to see the plate packed to join the King of France at Ostend.”

“The King of France is at Ghent, fellow,” replied Jos, affecting incredulity.

“He fled last night to Bruges, and embarks today from Ostend. The Duc de Berri [Louis XVIII’s nephew] is taken prisoner. Those who wish to be safe had better go soon, for the dykes will be opened to-morrow, and who can fly when the whole country is under water?”

“Nonsense, sir, we are three to one, sir, against any force Boney can bring into the field,” Mr. Sedley objected; “the Austrians and the Russians are on their march. He must, he shall be crushed,” Jos said, slapping his hand on the table.

“The Prussians were three to one at Jena, and he took their army and kingdom in a week. They were six to one at Montmirail, and he scattered them like sheep. The Austrian army is coming, but with the Empress and the King of Rome [Napoleon’s wife and son] at its head; and the Russians, bah! the Russians will withdraw. No quarter is to be given to the English, on account of their cruelty to our braves on board the infamous pontoons. Look here, here it is in black and white. Here’s the proclamation of his Majesty the Emperor and King,” said the now declared partisan of Napoleon, and taking the document from his pocket, Isidor sternly thrust it into his master’s face, and already looked upon the frogged coat and valuables as his own spoil.

Jos was, if not seriously alarmed as yet, at least considerably disturbed in mind.

Napoleon’s reaction after Waterloo

After the defeat, denial set in straight away. Here are some excerpts from Napoleon’s official report, the Bulletin de l’Armée, written on 20 June, as he was fleeing towards Paris. Note that he calls Waterloo ‘the Battle of Mont-Saint-Jean’.

He begins with some triumphalism over his success at Ligny:

At 7.30, we had captured forty cannons, many carriages, flags and prisoners, and the enemy was looking to save itself in hasty retreat. At ten o’clock, the battle was over, and we were masters of the battlefield.

General Lützow had been captured. Prisoners assured us that Fieldmarshal Blücher had been wounded. The elite of the Prussian army had been destroyed. Its losses cannot have been less than 15,000; ours were only 3,000 killed or wounded.

[…]

At 3 p.m. [on 18 June], the Emperor [Napoleon often referred to himself in his reports in the third person] decided to attack via the village of Mont-Saint-Jean, and thereby win a decisive victory; but thanks to an impatience that is very common in our military annals, and which has so often proved fatal to us, the reserve cavalry, seeing the English retreat to shelter from our artillery, which had caused them considerable damage, moved to the ridge at Mont-Saint-Jean and charged the infantry. This movement, if it had been executed at the right time, and supported, would have won the day, but it was carried out in isolation and, before matters came to a close on the right, became fatal.

[…]

There, for three hours, several charges overran English squares and won us six infantry flags, but these gains were outweighed by the losses incurred by our cavalry from grapeshot and musket volleys.

[Even so, the French attacks began to take effect and, in mid-afternoon …]

The battle was won; we were occupying all the positions that the enemy had occupied at the start of the battle; because our cavalry had been engaged too soon and wrongly, we could not hope for a more decisive victory, but Marshal Grouchy, having assessed the movement of the Prussian army, was pursuing them, thereby assuring us of a great victory the following day. After eight hours of firing and infantry and cavalry charges, the whole army was able to look with satisfaction upon a battle won and the battlefield in our possession.

[Then, however, something inexplicable happened. The advance of the Moyenne Garde was met with an unexpected attack from the flank and …]

The nearby regiments, who saw a few soldiers of the Garde retreating, thought that they were from the Vieille Garde, and weakened: shouts of ‘all is lost, the Garde has been pushed back!’ were heard. Some soldiers claim that there were agitators present, who shouted ‘every man for himself!’ Whether this is true or not, panic and terror instantly spread across the battlefield. Men fled in total disorder along our communication lines. Soldiers, artillerymen, ammunition carriers were trying to advance; even the Vieille Garde, who were in reserve, were swept away.

In an instant, the army was a confused mass, all its elements mixed up, and it was impossible to re-form a fighting force. Darkness prevented us from rallying the troops and showing them that they were mistaken. In this way, a completed battle plan, a day’s accomplishments, mistakes repaired, greater success ensured for the following day – all were lost in one moment of panic. Even the squadrons at the Emperor’s side were jostled and disorganised by the tumultuous rush, and could do nothing but follow the flood. […] We know what the bravest army in the world becomes when it is confused and loses its organisation.

[…]

The enemy’s losses must have been great, to judge by the flags that we captured and the retreats they were forced to make […] The artillery, as usual, covered itself in glory. Thus ended the Battle of Mont-Saint-Jean, glorious for the French army, and yet so disastrous.

Wellington’s account

Some excerpts from Wellington’s report, written the day after the battle and published in The Times and the London Gazette Extraordinary on Thursday, 22 June 1815.

The report is addressed to Britain’s Secretary for War, Earl Bathurst, and gives the view of events that Wellington had thus far managed to piece together from his own experiences and those of his officers. It was obviously written before anyone had decided what exactly to call the battle, though Wellington was staying in the nearest small town to the battlefield and therefore headed his report ‘Waterloo, June 19th 1815’.

This excerpt retains Wellington’s own spellings, including the British refusal to spell Napoleon’s surname the way he wanted.

He begins with an account of the fighting on the days leading up to 18 June, and then moves on to what we now call Waterloo:

[…] The enemy collected his army, with the exception of the third corps, which had been sent to observe Marshal Blucher, on a range of heights to our front, in the course of the night of the 17th and yesterday morning: and at about ten o’clock he commenced a furious attack upon our post at Hougoumont […] I am happy to add, that it was maintained throughout the day with the utmost gallantry by these brave troops, notwithstanding the repeated efforts of large bodies of the enemy to obtain possession of it.

This attack upon the right of our centre was accompanied by a very heavy cannonade upon our whole line, which was destined to support the repeated attacks of cavalry and infantry occasionally mixed, but some times separate, which were made upon it. In one of these the enemy carried the farm house of La Haye Sainte, as the detachment of the light battalion of the legion which occupied it had expended all its ammunition […]

The enemy repeatedly charged our infantry with his cavalry, but these attacks were uniformly unsuccessful, and they afforded opportunities to our cavalry to charge, in one of which Lord E. Somerset’s brigade, consisting of the life guards, royal horse guards, and first dragoon guards, highly distinguished themselves, as did that of Major General Sir W. Ponsonby, having taken many prisoners and an eagle.

These attacks were repeated until about seven in the evening, when the enemy made a desperate effort with the cavalry and infantry, supported by the fire of artillery, to force our left centre near the farm of La Haye Sainte, which after a severe contest was defeated, and having observed that the troops retired from this attack in great confusion, and that the marc[h] of General Bulow’s corps by Euschermont upon Planchernerte and la Belle alliance, had begun to take effect, and as I could perceive the fire of his cannon, and as Marshal Prince Blucher had joined in person, with a corps of his army to the left of our line by Ohaim, I determined to attack the enemy, and immediately advanced the whole line of infantry, supported by the cavalry and artillery. The attack succeeded in every point; the enemy was forced from his position on the heights, and fled in the utmost confusion, leaving behind him, as far as I could judge, one hundred and fifty pieces of cannon, with their ammunition, which fell into our hands. I continued the pursuit till long after dark, and then discontinued it only on account of the fatigue of our troops, and because I found myself on the same road with Marshal Blucher, who assured me of his intention to pursue the enemy throughout the night; he had sent me word this morning that he had taken sixty pieces of cannon belonging to the Imperial Guard, and several carriages, baggage, &c, belonging to Buonaparte, in Genappe […]

Your Lordship will observe, that such a desperate action could not be fought, and such advantages could not be gained, without great loss; and I am sorry to add, that ours has been immense.

[…]

It gives me the greatest satisfaction to assure your Lordship, that the army never, upon any occasion, conducted itself better […] and here is no Officer or description of troops that did not behave well.

[…]

I should not do justice to my feelings or to Marshal Blucher and the Prussian army, if I do not attribute the successful result of this arduous day, to the cordial and timely assistance I received from them.

The operation of General Bulow, upon the enemy’s flank, was a most decisive one; and even if I had not found myself in a position to make the attack, which produced the final result, it would have forced the enemy to retire, if his attacks should have failed, and would have prevented him from taking advantage of them, if they should unfortunately have succeeded.

I send, with this despatch, two eagles, taken by the troops in action, which Major Percy will have the honour of laying at the feet of his Royal Highness.

I beg leave to recommend him to your Lordship’s protection. I have the honour, &c,

Wellington.

Napoleon’s farewell messages

On 22 June 1815, a deputation of French MPs came to express their support for Napoleon (while ‘congratulating’ him on the wisdom of his decision to abdicate for the second time). He told them:

I thank you for the sentiments that you have expressed towards me; I desire that my abdication should bring happiness to France, but I doubt that it will; it leaves the state without a head, without political existence. The time wasted overturning the monarchy could have been used to ensure that France was in a fit state to crush the enemy. I recommend that the House [of representatives] should reinforce the army promptly; whoever wants peace should prepare for war. Do not put this great nation at the mercy of foreigners. Beware of disappointed hopes. Whatever happens to me, I will always be happy if France is happy.

On 25 June, Napoleon dictated a farewell letter to his troops:

Soldiers, as I surrender to the necessity which forces me away from my brave French army, I take with me the happy certainty that it will perform the duties that the homeland asks of it, and thereby earn the praise that even our enemies cannot deny us.

Soldiers, I will follow your movements, even in my absence. I know each regiment, and I will recognise the courage that each of them has shown every time they win an advantage over the enemy. You and I have been slandered. Men who are unworthy of judging your efforts have interpreted your loyalty to me as excessive zeal, of which I was the only object. May your future successes show them that by obeying me you were above all serving our homeland, and that, if I have earned your affection, it is only because of my passionate love for France, our common motherland.

Soldiers, with just a little more effort, the coalition will be dissolved. Napoleon will know you by the blows that you strike. Save the honour and independence of the French people. Stay as I have known you for twenty years and you will be invincible.

Napoleon’s letter was never published, or read out: his treacherous head of secret police Joseph Fouché found it, and hid it.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

There have to date been an estimated 80,000 books written about Napoleon, though that number is of course changing all the time. Apparently one new book or article gets published every week.

However, most history books quote the same basic sources, especially the accounts written by veterans of the battle. All the rest – including this book – is opinion and interpretation.

Here is a short list of the most useful, interesting, and (not always deliberately) amusing sources that I have read.

The French veterans’ accounts are mostly available on the Bibliothèque Nationale’s excellent website, gallica.fr.

The dates in brackets indicate the publication date of the edition consulted.

All quotations from French sources used in this book are my own translations. The same goes for the German. As for the lines from the Polish national anthem quoted in Chapter 8, I was forced to trust someone else.

Anonymous, Relation fidèle et détaillée de la dernière campagne de Buonaparte, terminée par la bataille de Mont-Saint-Jean, dite de Waterloo ou de la Belle-Alliance, par un témoin oculaire (1815)

Blanqui, Jérôme-Adolphe, Voyage d’un jeune Français en Angleterre et en Ecosse pendant l’automne de 1823 (1824)

Chapuis, Colonel, Notice sur le 85e de ligne pendant la campagne de 1815 (1838)

Charras, Jean-Baptiste-Adolphe, Histoire de la Campagne de 1815 – Waterloo (1857)

Coignet, Capitaine, Les Cahiers 1799-1815 (1883)

Cronin, Vincent, Napoleon Bonaparte: an Intimate Biography (1971)

Damamme, Jean-Claude, La Bataille de Waterloo (1999)

Duthilt, Pierre-Charles, Mémoires du Capitaine Duthilt (1909)

Fleischmann, Hector, Victor Hugo, Waterloo, Napoléon, documents recueillis (1912)

Gallo, Max, Napoléon, l’Immortel de Sainte-Hélène (1997)

Home, George, The Memoirs of an Aristocrat (1838)

Houssaye, Henry, Napoléon homme de guerre (1904)

Hugo, Victor, ‘L’Expiation’ (poem from Les Châtiments, 1853)

—— Les Misérables, Deuxième Partie, Livre 1 (1862)

Larreguy de Civrieux, Sylvain, Souvenirs d’un cadet, 1812-1823 (1912)

Las Cases, Emmanuel de, Le Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène (1823)

Lemonnier-Delafosse, Marie Jean Baptiste, Campagnes de 1810-1815 ou Souvenirs Militaires (1850)

Macdonald, Etienne-Jacques-Joseph-Alexandre, Souvenirs du Maréchal Macdonald, duc de Tarente (1892)

Marq, François, Descriptions des campagnes de guerre faites par moi (1817)

Martin, Jacques-François, Souvenirs d’un ex-officier, 1812-1815 (1867)

Mauduit, Hippolyte de, Histoire des derniers jours de la Grande Armée, ou Souvenirs, documents et correspondance inédite de Napoléon en 1814 et 1815 (1854)

Mercer, General Cavalié, Journal of the Waterloo Campaign, Kept throughout the Campaign of 1815 (1870)

Rogniat, Considérations sur l’art de la guerre (1816)

Scott, Sir Walter, The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, Emperor of the French (1827)

Shelley, Frances, The Diary of Frances Lady Shelley (1912)

Thackeray, William Makepeace, Vanity Fair (1847–8)

Villepin, Dominique de, Les Cent Jours ou l’Esprit du Sacrifice (2001)

To everyone who makes my books possible –
with their thoughts, words, deeds and cups of coffee.

‘It wasn’t Lord Wellington who won; his defence was stubborn, and admirably energetic, but he was pushed back and beaten.’

– Captain Marie Jean Baptiste Lemonnier-Delafosse,
French veteran of Waterloo, in his Souvenirs Militaires

‘This defeat shines with the aura of victory.’

– France’s former Prime Minister Dominique
de Villepin, in a recent book about Napoleon

‘John Bull was beat at Waterloo!

They’ll swear to that in France.’

– Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802–39),
British politician and poet

EPILOGUE

AS I FINISH writing this book, France is in a mood of crushing pessimism. Most of this is caused by day-to-day economic gloom and the fear of terrorist attacks, but a fair proportion is more deeply rooted in a painful combination of wounded pride and vicious self-criticism. With its declining influence in world affairs, the replacement of French by English as a global language, as well as its current economic problems, France seems to be more aware than ever that it has frittered away all the gloire that Napoleon earned for it 200 years ago.

This negativity is exactly the kind of mood that Napoleon could have cured – with a quick war to annex Luxembourg, perhaps – and one that is alleviated today by regular bouts of Napoleonic nostalgia.

One of these therapy sessions we have already heard about – the November 2014 auction in the ‘imperial town’ of Fontainebleau of Napoleonic memorabilia at which one of the Emperor’s hats was sold for 1.8 million euros. During the sale, France’s core psychological problems were highlighted by two key slips of the tongue.

First, while talking about a historian who had researched the provenance of Napoleon’s possessions in the sale, one of the auctioneers committed a hugely revealing Freudian slip. Instead of ‘un historien’, he called the man ‘un hystérien’, thereby inventing a piercingly accurate description of Napoleon’s most nostalgic admirers.

A second, and even more telling, mistake came when the main auctioneer was reciting Edmond Rostand’s lines of poetry about Napoleon’s hat. As I pointed out in Chapter 8, he completely fluffed the last two lines. But most revealingly of all, he omitted one vital word. Rostand wrote that the sound to be heard inside Napoleon’s shell-like hat was that of ‘une grande nation’ on the march – but the auctioneer forgot to say ‘grande’. Subconsciously, while surrounded by the relics of Napoleon’s legendary career, he was admitting that modern France just isn’t ‘great’ any more.

This is why French people today seem to feel that they need Napoleon. Or at least a Napoleon. The politicians try to emulate him, but they all fall absurdly short (which is not a height-related pun). When France’s Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, travelled to London in October 2014, he was ostensibly coming to convince both the City of London and French tax exiles that his Socialist regime was not hostile to business; but it soon became clear that his was a different mission, and one that probably set Napoleon’s cendres spinning in his sarcophagus.

Monsieur Valls told his audience of businesspeople (in French of course), ‘Every day I read your press, I hear and I see what is being said about France. Too often in some of your newspapers I see bias, prejudices and attacks.’ Yes, in reality he had come to London to complain about le French-bashing, a piece of English vocabulary that is so hurtful to the French national psyche that they have actually adopted it into their language.

In short, in 2014 a French Prime Minister crossed the Channel to complain to les Anglais that they were saying nasty things about France. Two centuries earlier, Napoleon and all his troops, right up to the highest-ranked marshals, had stood impassively on the battlefield as British cannonballs were fired at their heads, and now a French politician was whinging about a few insults? At the very least he could have unleashed a decent retort of ‘Merde!’ instead of pleading for the barrage of French-bashing to stop. It was a defeat 200 times more humiliating than Waterloo (if, of course, Waterloo was a defeat, etc., etc.).

In the face of such defeatism among their political leaders, it is no wonder that the French are gearing up for several years of Napoleonic celebration. It seems to be the only way to restore a mood of national pride.

The biggest of a series of Napoleon-themed projects in the offing is the proposed Parc Napoléon at Montereau, 80 kilometres from Paris, the site of one of Napoleon’s final victories in 1814. This 200-million-euro theme park, due to be completed by 2020, is the brainchild of the town’s MP. It aims to attract 400,000 visitors in the first year, rising to two million in year ten, and will apparently include hotels, a conference centre and of course a battlefield for regular Napoleonic re-enactments (which, given the location, will no doubt all result in French victories). The project has already attracted promises of funding from the French state as well as investment from China and the Emirates, with plenty more money in the pipeline, we are told. Such far-reaching, and expensive, recognition is the Bonapartists’ dream, even if a theme park does seem to place Napoleon at the same cultural level as Mickey Mouse.

Meanwhile, thousands of kilometres away in the South Atlantic, there is a similar plan to turn the island of Saint Helena into a kind of exiled Parc Napoléon. France owns 17 hectares of land on the British island. These French properties cover three locations: The Briars (the garden pavilion where Napoleon spent his first few weeks of exile on the island in 1815), the land around Napoleon’s last residence at Longwood, and his original grave – his body was of course later repatriated to France. Longwood and the grave site were bought for the French nation by Emperor Napoléon III in 1857, while The Briars was gifted to France in 1959 by the English family that had owned it since 1815. The original grave, by the way, was just a square slab of stone on a lawn, but has since been fenced off to prevent Bonapartists prostrating themselves and sobbing loud enough to startle the seagulls.

Recently, Longwood has been renovated by the French at a cost of some 2.3 million euros, 1.5 million of which came from 2,500 private and corporate donors, and the rest from the French state. This sizeable sum did not cover the restoration of the furniture, and over thirty pieces were sent back to France’s national workshops to be refurbished before their return to Longwood.

This costly renovation of Napoleon’s prison island is part of a Bonapartist masterplan, starting with a grande inauguration of the new-look Longwood on 15 October 2015 (the bicentenary of Napoleon’s arrival on Saint Helena), followed by a series of visits throughout 2016 by French groups, and a grand tour of the island by the International Napoleonic Society in 2017, with the excitement coming to a climax on the 200th anniversary of Napoleon’s death on 5 May 2021.

Meanwhile, there has been some harsh French criticism of the Brits for not playing their part in this bonanza of Napoleonic activity on Saint Helena. In 2014 L’Histoire magazine reproached the islanders for their ‘insufficient hospitality: just 40-odd hotel rooms and six restaurants, all of poor standard’. Usually, of course, Bonapartists criticise les Anglais for their rampant commercialism, but when it comes to glorifying Napoleon, commercialism is clearly acceptable.

The French memorial ceremony on Saint Helena in May 2021 is going to be a major event. No doubt French politicians will be flocking to pay their respects in front of the cameras, praying that they can scoop up a few crumbs of Napoleonic gloire for themselves. And we can be sure that the island will be echoing to the Bonapartists’ cries of ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ even as they commemorate his death.

By then, a five-star Hotel Napoleon, a Longwood Luncheonette and a Bonaparte Brasserie had better be ready on Saint Helena, or there will be some serious Anglais-bashing on the menu. Because this will be the modern Bonapartists’ great moment, the focus of all their energy for at least the past century. They are currently bringing Napoleonic nostalgia to a climax, whipping re-enactors and auction-goers to new heights of hysteria, spreading the Bonaparte gospel as far as Asia, and attracting investors for his theme park from all over the world. Napoleon is as recognisable an icon today as he ever was, and is well on his way to being even bigger than Mickey Mouse. So the threat is very real: if les Anglais don’t show enough respect to l’Empereur on the bicentenary of his entry into immortality, his worshippers might just annex the whole island and declare it the capital of a new Napoleonic empire …

Index

The page references in this index correspond to the printed edition from which this ebook was created. To find a specific word or phrase from the index, please use the search feature of your ebook reader.

abattoirs, 208

Achard, Franz Karl, 220

Acte Additionnel, 41

‘Age of Bronze’ (Byron), 185

Albert of Monaco, Prince, 222

Alexander I, Czar, 14, 21, 30, 34, 35, 42

America, 13

Andrieux, Clement-Auguste, 112

anti-Bonapartists, 6, 15, 41

anti-royalists, 7

anti-war writing, 176

Appel du dix-huit juin, 96

Arc de Triomphe, xii, 112, 152, 171

aristocracy, 29, 235

Armée d’Italie, 145

armies against Napoleon, 42

Army of the North, 49

arsenic, 149

art, 242–3

collection, 208–9

stolen, 210

ashes, return of Napoleon’s, 159

Aube, 147

Austerlitz, Battle of, 66

Austrians, xii, 5, 27, 30, 42

baccalauréat, 216

baguette, 219

Balmain, Aleksandr, 141

Balzac, Honoré de, 153, 169, 169–70, 176, 241

Barrail, Capitaine du, 88

Barral, Georges, 167

Bataille de Waterloo, La 112

Battle of Champaubert, 28

Battle of Jena, 186

Battle of Ligny, 166

Battle of Marengo, 49, 68, 184, 221

battle re-enactments, 224–8

Baudin, Pierre-François, 74

Becquey, Louis, 235

Bédoyère, Colonel Le, 39

Beethoven, works, 189–91

Belgium, xiii, 6, 49, 196

liberation, 166–7

and rain, 54

Belgo-Dutch troops, 77

Bell, Charles, 106

Belle Poule, 153, 154, 155

Bellerophon, HMS, 127–8, 130, 132, 133, 144, 165

Berezina, River, 17

Berlin, 4

Bernadotte, 206

Berthier, Louis-Alexandre, 68

Bertrand, General, 132

Bessières, Marshal Jean-Baptiste, 68

Bijou, 80–1

‘Bivouac de Napoléon, Le’, exhibition, 10

Blanqui, Adolphe, 236

Blocus Continental, 12, 17, 220

bloodiest day of Napoleonic wars, 19

Blücher, General Gebhard, 3, 29, 67, 84–7, 98, 243

almost died, 50

army, 49

and Bourmont, 65

French-hater, 101–2

at Leipzig, 25

and prisoners, 93

Bonaparte, Jérôme, 11, 60, 70, 74–5

Bonaparte, Joseph (King of Spain), 24, 119

Bonaparte, Josephine, 6, 7, 23, 34

Bonaparte, Louis-Napoléon, 158, 172 see also

Napoleon III, Emperor

Bonaparte, Lucien, 122

Bonaparte, Marie-Louise, 23

Bonaparte, Napoleon, xii, xiii, xv, 8, 16, 69, 90, 121, 126, 134, 166, 175

100 day return to power, 43

abdication and resignation, 30, 125

administration and logic, 9, 10, 211

after the battle, 94

breakfast party, 69

camp bed, 10, 34, 58, 59, 63

camper-van, 19

charisma, 136, 165

compared to Hitler, 189

condemnation of his rule, 207, 230

culture, 238

death, 148

defenders of, 5, 46

defending Paris, 29

dictator, xv, 121, 177, 231, 234

Elba, 32–7

escape, 36

exile, xii, 32–6, 133

federal European system, 42

final speech, 31–2

first abdication, 17

fled, xi, 119, 123

and French law, 211–12

funeral, remains and tomb, 152–4, 156–7, 199–201

furniture, 11

generals and commanders, xiv, 64

and Hugo, 53–4, 60, 156–7, 174, 175, 211

image of, xiv, 130, 144, 163, 164

imprisonment, 142, 143

influence on life in France, xv, 4, 205, 219

invaded Italy, 5

legacy, 208

letter to Prince Regent, 6–7, 42, 123

march north to Paris, 37–40

military tactics, 18, 25, 47, 91

modernisation of the army, 10

night before Waterloo, 58–9

and peace, 4, 6, 42

and pension, 35

piles and other afflictions, 60–1

proposed scientific exploration, 126–7

report of Waterloo, 46

return to Paris from Moscow, 22–3

route through Alps, 39

Saint Helena, 139–48, 150, 229

snowball fight, 9

statues, monuments etc., 148, 194, 197, 209

surrender to the British, 122, 127, 231

uniform, 203–5

Bonapartes, banned from France, 211

Bonapartist propaganda, 161

Bonapartists massacred, 147

Bondarchuk, Sergei, 82

book trade, 241

boots, 56 see also shoes

Bordeaux, 24, 231

Borodin, Battle of, 19

boulevards see streets

Boulogne, 165

Bourbons, 35

Bourmont, General Louis-Auguste, 64–5

Brienne le Château, 28

British, see also English

army, 42, 102

cannons, 75, 79

‘cheated’, xiv, 46, 51, 52, 88, 102

flags, 97

Guards, 74, 89

Napoleonic debt, 12

occupying forces, 35

press, 124, 132

squares, 80

troops, xii, 77

British Corsican exiles, 141

Brussels, xii

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward, 184

Byron, Lord George Gordon, 181–5

Caillou, Le, 59, 69, 93

Cambronne, General Pierre, 92, 107, 110–11, 179, 180, 243

Campagne de France, 27

Campbell, Colonel Neil, 37

Canning, George, 13

Canova, Antonio, 209

capitalism, and the French, 236–7

Carriere, Jean-Claude, Dictionnaire des Révélations Historiques et Contemporaines, 92

cartridges, wet, 62–3

Catholic missionaries, 147

Caulaincourt, Louis de, 121

cemetries, 208

Cent Jours, Les, 43

‘c’est la Bérézina’, 16

Chaboulon, Pierre Alexandre Fleury de, 167

Chambre des Députés, 41

Chambre des Pairs, 41

Champaubert, Battle of, 28

Champs-Elysées, xii

Chapelle de Saint-Jérôme, 198

Chapelle Expiatoire, 199

Chaptal, Jean-Antoine, 238

Chapuis, Colonel, 67

Charleroi, 164

Charles X, 151

Charras, Jean-Baptiste-Adolphe, 60, 61–2, 103, 162

Charte constitutionelle, 234–5

Château de Fontainebleau, 31

Château de Vincennes, 104

Chateaubriand, Céleste de, 114, 146

Chateaubriand, Viscount François-René, 177

Château-Thierry, 28

Chatrian, Alexandre, 112

Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, 183

citizen king (Louis-Philippe), 152

Civirieux, Larreguy de, 75, 105

Code Civil, 211

Code Napoléon, 211–14

Coignet, Captain, 91, 93

colonies, 7

Comédie Française, 14, 239

Comédie Humaine, 169

Communards, 207

Conscript of 1813, The, 112

conscripts, 99

Constant, Louis Rilliet de, 106, 147

co-propriété, 212

Corrèze, 104

Corsica, 140

Cossacks, 18, 19, 34

coup d’etat 1799, 5, 145

Craonne, 29

‘Creation’ (Haydn), 6

Czech Republic, 193–4

Damamme, Jean-Claude, xii, 5, 6, 27, 49–50, 89, 90, 164, 165

animal abuse, 80

on British officers, 100

his distaste for England, 135

on Wellington, 94

Daublé, Julie-Victoire, 216

deaths, in battle, 232

defeat, 92, 114

de Gaulle, see Gaulle

déjeuner à la fourchette, 48

Delort, General, 78

Denon, Dominique Vivant, 210

d’Erlon, Jean-Baptiste, 81

Desaix, Louis Charles, 68

d’Escola, Edouard, xii

Dessales, General Victor-Albert, 58

Dictionnaire Napoléon, Le, 231

Dino, Duchesse de, 156

doctors 31 see also surgeons

Don Juan, 185

droits réunis, 230

Drouot, General Antoine, 70, 90

drummer boys, 40

Dumoulin, Louis, xiii, 196

Dupuy, Victor, 98

‘Duroc, Baron’, 141

Duroc, Marshal Michel, 68

Durutte, General Pierre François Joseph, 91

Dutch, paid by British, 6

Duthilt, Captain Pierre-Charles, 57, 90

eagles, 97, 195, 204, 205, 264

Ecole Militaire, 23, 41

Ecole Normale Supérieure, 217

Ecole Polytechnique, 217

economic model, 235–8

economic tranquillity, 243

education, discipline in, 217–18

Edward VII, 198

Elba, 32–6

elections, 41

elite, French, 235

embargo against Britain, 12

England, Napoleon’s invasion plans, 165

English, see also British

army supplies, 57

cannons, 77

centre, 85

charge, 89

‘Entrevue d’Erfurt’, 14

Erckmann, Emile, 112

Exelmans, Rémy, 125

factories of Wolverhampton, 236

Fauveau, Carabinier Antoine, 203

Fayette, Marquis de La, 122

film of Waterloo, 82

films, French, 115

Finland, 14

Fitzgerald, Lady Charlotte, 135

folk tales, 11

Fondation Napoléon, 161

Fontainebleau, 222, 245

adieux at, 32, 178

food supplies, 20

foreign occupation, 112

Fouché Joseph, 119–21, 125

Fox, James, 7, 8

fox-hunting, 100

Foy, General Maximilien, 48, 55, 93, 97

France, exhausted by war, 232

François, Prince, 155

Franco-Russian treaty, 14

Franz I, 23, 32

freedom

individuals, 212–13

press, 39, 41, 235, 241

religion, 235

speech, 8

French

actors, 239–40

army, 19, 34, 48, 103–4

casualties, 29, 106–7

cavalry, xiii, 78, 79

crafts, 237

education system, xv, 215–18

Empire in June 1812, 17

films, 115

fleet, 13

government, xv

and the Industrial Revolution, 114

language, 245

law, 211–12

luxury industry, 237

national theatre, 239

navy, 231

Parliament, 40

ports, 6

Presidents, xv, 214

Prime Minister, 214–15

Resistance, 113

revisionism, xiv, 96

Revolution, 5, 7, 186

royalists, 106, 231

Socialist Party, 117–18

soldiers, 56, 57, 93, 103, 105, 106

spirit, xv, 175, 245

Friedland, 49

Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia, 4, 220

Fröhliche Wissenschaft, 188

full-frontal assault, 77

Gallo, Max, 18, 59, 61

Garde Impériale, 87–92, 99, 107, 109, 173

Gaulle, Charles de, 96, 117, 229

Genappe, 93

George III, 7, 13

Gérard, Etienne-Maurice, 83, 84

German princedoms, 11

Gironde, MP for, 230

gloire, 102

Gneisenau, General August Neidhardt von, 123

God and Napoleon, 54

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 189

gold, Napoleon’s, 23

Gourgaud, General Gaspard, 180

Grace, Princess, 223

Grande Armée, 11, 34, 69, 71, 170, 223

march to Paris 36–8

monument, 207

and Moscow, 18–22

veterans, 55, 169

grapeshot, 76, 81

Grimm brothers, 11

Grouchy, Emmanuel de, 69, 98, 99, 119, 125, 206

beat Prussians, 118

inactivity, 88

marching away from battle, 83–5

strawberry breakfast, 66–7

Halles, Les, 208

Hamilton, Monsieur, 86

Harrow, 181

Haxo, General François-Nicolas, 74

Haydn, 6

Haye Sainte, La 85

Hegel, Georg, 186–7

Heymès, Colonel, 65, 87

Histoire de France, 4

Histoire de la Campagne de 1815 - Waterloo, 60, 103

Histoire des derniers jours de la Grand Armée, 53

Hitler, Adolf, 113, 205

HMS, see under name

Holland, 5, 17

Hollert, Maître, 67

Home, Midshipman George, 128–34

Hotham, Admiral William, 130

Hougoumont, 73, 75, 89