THE REAL NAPOLEON
By John Tarttelin
Copyright 2011 John Tarttelin
Published by Souladream Productions
Smashwords Edition
DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF
BEN WEIDER
(1923-2008)
Founder of the International Napoleonic Society
“The great works and monuments that I have executed, and the code of laws that I formed, will go down to the most distant ages, and future historians will avenge the wrongs done to me by my contemporaries.”
Napoleon at Saint Helena
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
The Real Napoleon
Napoleon’s Acts of Generosity and Kindness
England’s Wars Against Napoleon
England’s Unlikely Hero – Napoleon
Coignet of the Guard - Early Life
Coignet of the Guard - Austerlitz and Jena
Coignet of the Guard - Poland
Coignet of the Guard - Russia
Coignet of the Guard - Waterloo
Napoleon and Russia
March Or Die - the Retreat of 1812
Ashes to Ashes - Volcanoes and Napoleon
Napoleon and the English Press Gang
This Septic Isle - Britain in the early C19th
Napoleon the Tambora Eruption and Waterloo
Hairsay and Heresy - The Murder of Napoleon
Important Names
Bibliography
PREFACE
“But be not afraid of greatness: some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” (William Shakespeare; Twelfth Night)
And one man was the product of all three.
Napoleon Bonaparte was both a man of his times and yet one who rose above the circumstances that prevailed around him. Compared to the other rulers of his day he was in a league of his own – the only one who promoted careers open to talent, the only one really open to the new ways of the Enlightenment. The fact he took 177 scientists and experts with him to Egypt proves that he was more than just another conqueror. Only a man with a mind like Napoleon, as he stood next to the Great Pyramid of Cheops in 1798, would speculate that it contained enough stone to build a wall around the whole of France.
Napoleon was born with a phenomenal memory, one of the greatest of all time, and he possessed an incredible ability to concentrate on the task in hand. His capacity to work astounded his ministers. He had visions beyond the ken of his contemporaries and the willpower and sheer application to make those visions come alive. As William Hazlitt said in his essay On the Disadvantages of Intellectual Superiority: “The chief disadvantage of knowing more and seeing farther than others, is not to be generally understood.” To this day, Napoleon is often seen as but a caricature of his real self. Many do not want to understand, they prefer the propaganda of their own nation and the self-delusion that they alone, and their valiant army or their heroic navy, were the ones that were always in the right.
In an age of persecution, it was Napoleon who first conceived the idea of a Jewish homeland in the Holy Land and only he allowed the Jews the same rights as every other person in his Empire. And he was the only ruler to employ those that disagreed with him. He once said to Caulaincourt: “I know you don’t like me, but you always tell me the truth”. 1
The truth was the last thing that George III, Tsar Alexander, Francis of Austria and Fredrick William of Prussia wanted to hear. Those feeble monarchs believed they had a divine right to rule - even though they all proved to be pretty incompetent at the task. Their forbears had found it easy enough to carve up Poland between them, and they expected to continue in the same old way. But they did not know what to do when, as they repeatedly attacked France, Napoleon defeated them time after time. There wasn’t enough gold in the vaults of even the Bank of England to buy Napoleon’s genius. Thus, in a military sense, did he have greatness thrust upon him.
On a personal level, he put those arrogant fools to shame. As Felix Markham has said, to his servants and secretaries: “he was naturally kind and considerate”.2 And he was perhaps the only exception to the rule that ‘no man is a hero to his valet’ as Marchand proved so admirably at Saint Helena and afterwards. He even allowed his staff and officials to get away with things that would have led to imprisonment or far worse with any other ruler. One example is a letter he wrote to Decrès, his Minister of Marine:
‘I regret that you should have lost your temper with me; but in a word, when once the anger is over, nothing remains; I hope, therefore, that you feel no ill-will towards me.’3
That was a letter from Napoleon to one of his staff. For decades in England, Charles James Fox was denied a place in the Cabinet because George III did not like him. Had Fox been in the English Cabinet, there would probably have been peace between England and France. Napoleon did his best to entice even former enemies into his government in order to do the best for France.
Napoleon was the epitomization of the New Age, a living example that through hard work and constant endeavour, even those from more humble beginnings could make it to the top. In this book he is shown for what he was, not as his enemies constantly portrayed him.
We shall see his passion for intellectual enquiry, the kindness he showed to men of all ranks and stations, and his ability to identify with and personify the hopes and dreams of his soldiers and the nation as a whole. With the aid of Coignet’s and Bourgogne’s testimony we shall see the Emperor up close and personal and how he came across to the common man.
In a review of his career as depicted in the recent English Press and by English ‘historians’ in general, we shall see how Napoleon has been constantly maligned and misinterpreted and a forthright rebuttal of their accusations duly follows.
Napoleon would have loved the Internet – so many facts available at the mere press of a button. Its overwhelming sweep has enabled me to glean information from ‘forgotten’ historians like Abbot and Runciman who have a completely different take on the supposed Corsican Ogre and many other germane facts from a multitude of websites. In particular, the information on the Tamboran eruption of 1815 ought to fascinate anyone who has ever argued over the details of that much debated battle - Waterloo.
Recently, information on the weather conditions prevailing during the year 1812, in particular the lack of sunspots, which indicate particular cold spells here on Earth, and even a study of the El Niño phenomenon – which also adds unusual turbulence to the global climate – show that in 1812, Napoleon was incredibly unlucky to have both these adverse weather conditions to contend with at the same time.4
In particular, I hope a new generation of readers will take a fresh look at the history of Napoleon Bonaparte, without that dead weight of bigoted tradition that smothers his achievements and his deserved claim to greatness.
John Tarttelin,
Conisbrough, South Yorkshire, England, 2011
NOTES
1. Felix Markham Napoleon (New York: Mentor 1963), 138
2. Ibid. 140
3. Ibid. 140
4. See http://www.elnino.noaa.gov/ and Cesar Caviedes book El Niño in History: Storming Through The Ages (University Press of Florida: 2001) Also http://www.unisci.com/stories/20013/0904016.htm
CHAPTER ONE
THE REAL NAPOLEON
“Will there ever be an adequate life of Napoleon?” wrote Lord Roseberry in 1900.1 Nearly a hundred years later, David Hamilton-Williams stated that: “History has yet to record her final judgment on Napoleon.”2 Stendhal enthused: “The more that the complete truth becomes known, the more that Napoleon’s greatness will be evident.”3 Yet, David Chandler called him a “great, bad man.”4
There appear, at first glance, to be many Napoleons, almost as many as that legion of writers who have executed a non-stop campaign over the past two centuries to blacken his name and destroy his reputation. Most have begun with obvious antipathy towards him and have not allowed facts to come between them and their bile. In their partial accounts they have barely scratched the surface of his complex personality and their angry pens have failed to drown his achievements under their lakes of bitter ink. Over eight generations, more than 300,000 books have been written about Napoleon, so wherein does his fascination lie and why do so many poor historians keep returning to the scene of their crimes, fascinated by the person they despise?
“Here’s a man!” exclaimed Napoleon when he met Goethe at Erfurt in 1808.5 Having once favoured a literary career, for he himself was a novelist long before he was a warrior, Napoleon the life-long romantic, who had read Werther at least seven times, was happy to bestow upon its author the prestigious Legion of Honor.6 And when he parted from him the Emperor said: “Come to Paris!”7 Here was the man who, with a little help from Marshal Davout, destroyed the Prussian army at Jena-Auerstadt, honoring German culture by saluting its greatest living exponent. Simply a meglomaniac military dictator? Far from it. Napoleon was much deeper than that.
Goethe wore his ribbon proudly for the rest of his life. In Kolbe’s portrait of May 1822, the French rosette is prominent amongst Goethe’s other decorations – exactly a year after Napoleon perished in exile on Saint Helena.
Napoleon was a voracious reader and a discerning one. On campaign, if a book did not take his fancy, it was apt to be slung out of the window of his speeding berline. Such a missile was a hazard of war that his duty squadron of Guard cavalry learnt quickly to accept. Napoleon was fascinated by other great minds and learned men and he sought them out on the most unlikely occasions.
In 1812, the year after the passage of a spectacular comet, Napoleon was poised to conquer Lithuania, a whole Russian province, after barely firing a shot. Its capital Vilna lay at his feet. Yet half an hour before his triumphant entry into the city, he sent his aide Count Roman Soltyk on a mission to find one Jan Sniadecki, the Rector of the University. His reputation as a famous astronomer was well known to Napoleon and he wanted to talk with him. Sniadecki began to put on his silk stockings and dress for the occasion. Soltyk told him: “Rector, it does not matter. The Emperor attaches no importance to exterior things which only impress the common people. Science is the dress of the wise.”8 The Count knew his master well.
At the onset of his career, Napoleon exhibited both a passion for ancient history and the Orient. Although he admired Frederick of Prussia, his real hero was Alexander the Great. The Macedonian’s empire seemed to shine through the haze of centuries with particular fascination for the young French general and, in a real way, its brilliance could be said to have illuminated his own path and guided him to his own place upon the world stage. The French Revolution had swept away the barriers to men of innate talent and ability and Napoleon harboured romantic dreams of his own. To him it was ‘the best of times’ when anything might be possible to a man prepared to seize and control his own destiny.
The expedition to Egypt of 1798 demonstrated his intellectual grasp, his quest for knowledge and his love of adventure. It was a roll of the dice, for the British navy controlled the Mediterranean, but it was a gamble that was to bring prestige and honour to the whole of France. With this in mind, no less than 177 scientists were given places in the flotilla that set its sails for the mystical East, the land of the Arabian Nights. Napoleon had bemused the Directory by insisting that the expedition should seek to advance the “Progress of Knowledge and the Development of Science and the Arts.” As General Michel Franceschi has written: “what distinguished this military operation from all others was the cultural and scientific dimensions which few historians accord its proper value.”9
Talleyrand, who would later betray Napoleon time after time, played a pivotal role in getting the necessary political support in Paris for the whole project to be given the go ahead. It resulted in the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs, the study of Egyptology, and the eventual uncovering of Tutankhamun’s tomb.10 The rest, as they say, is history. Can anyone seriously consider Wellington, Kutozov or Archduke Charles engaging in such a mission? It wasn’t just as a military leader that Napoleon was in a league of his own.
The awe of the Orient held even the common soldier under its spell. At the first sight of the pyramids of Giza, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the French Army burst into a spontaneous round of cheers and applause. They were sons of the Enlightenment, some more sophisticated than others, but they were all adventurers and conquerors too, in the intellectual sphere as well as in the martial arena. Napoleon played to the national love of drama and spectacle when he declared on the eve of the Battle of the Pyramids: “From the top of these monuments, forty centuries are watching you!” They were each about to have their moment in history.
Many of Napoleon’s officers were intelligent, cultivated men, not at all the second-raters he was supposed to surround himself with according to some disparaging historians. Furthermore, Caulaincourt, his Grand Equerry, never spared the Emperor his most forthright opinions and he was respected all the more by Napoleon for it. Caulaincourt’s manner was so gracious that even the Tsar became his friend when he served as ambassador to Russia. Narbonne, the former Minister of War for Louis XVI and a major confidant, was another Napoleon listened to carefully. He nearly always asked for the opinions of his chief subordinates and even if he didn’t follow their advice, he weighed it all carefully. And his reading was so comprehensive that he knew of historical precedents for most of the paths he was to tread.
Napoleon inspired confidence in his men and in France at large. The outburst of popular joy at his return from Elba attests to this. Yet this support is often ignored by British historians who see his return simply as a declaration of war upon the Allies! The same Allies who were almost at war amongst themselves thanks to Castlereagh’s machinations and especially his betrayal of Prussia. This could have had calamitous consequences at Waterloo, because Gneisenau detested the British thanks to such treachery and only Blücher’s hatred of Napoleon and his sworn word to support Wellington at Mont Saint Jean led to over 40,000 Prussians engaging upon a very dangerous flank march between Grouchy at Wavre, and Wellington and Napoleon at Waterloo, just in time to save the Duke.
Blücher had been knocked off his horse at Ligny and Gneisenau wanted to retreat back to the Prussian homeland. Had his bruised and battered superior not turned up, Wellington would have been scuttling back to Brussels under cover of the 17,000 British troops he had posted at Hal for just such an eventuality. The man with the brass-plated smile nearly put the final nail in the coffin of Anglo-Prussian relations. His squalid suicide draws a veil over the unfortunate British Foreign Minister and the masque of Castlereagh.
Napoleon had a human touch, he was happiest when he was amongst his soldiers unlike the monarchs of the ancien regime who lauded it over all they surveyed with their arrogant adherence to the doctrine of divine right. On the eve of Austerlitz, Napoleon astounded his Marshals and aides by discussing – literature.
After a few hours’ sleep, he made the final inspection of his troops only to stumble on the way back to his tent. A startled grenadier lit a straw torch to reveal the mud-splattered Emperor standing before him. “Vive l’Empereur” rang out and soon dozens more torches were lit on either side, and the acclamation swelled to a crescendo. Napoleon smiled. “This is the most beautiful day of my life! You are my children!” he said, but then his expression changed. He knew that within hours, many of them would be dead.11
The victory at Austerlitz was total and complete. It was said after the battle that: “The English are merchants of human flesh. There can be no doubt, in the quarrel with England, France is right.”12 But this wasn’t said by Napoleon, it was the remark of the Austrian Emperor Francis II who had been lured into declaring war against France by a huge English bribe. Francis II knew that he had been duped by the British. It would not be the last time. Even when he was a grandfather to Napoleon’s child, he allowed the sparkle of English gold to outweigh both his common sense and his national interest.
Napoleon led from the front, he literally put his own life at risk alongside that of his men. This physical bravery they could all identify with. It was a matter of honor not to flinch when under enemy fire. At Borodino, French cavalry withstood an intense artillery barrage, without hope of retaliation, for hours, in order to hold the line - Napoleon’s Grand Army had been much reduced in numbers during its march into Russia. A third of the men and horses were blown away. Foot soldiers charged into battle for him under withering fire, to the accompaniment of admonishing cries by their officers with comments like: ‘Raise your heads lads, those are bullets not turds!’
At Fère-Champenoise in March 1814, Pacthod’s 3,000 men had been repeatedly assailed by 20,000 Allied cavalry. After covering four miles under constant artillery bombardment and repeated cavalry charges, what was left of his squares finally surrendered. It was a brilliant display of courage under fire, worthy of the 300 Spartans. Pacthod offered his sword to the Tsar who had been stupefied by what he had seen with his own eyes. Such an example of fortitude against overwhelming odds amazed him. When Alexander returned the sword as a mark of respect, his aide enquired: “Are you Napoleon’s Imperial Guard?” The reply will echo down the centuries: “No sir, you were lucky, we are only the National Guard!”13
After all, these men were fighting for Napoleon, their legitimate Emperor, acclaimed by the French people and sanctified by the Pope himself. The fact he wasn’t there in person that day did nothing to reduce their stalwart adherence to his cause.
The mere presence of Napoleon had an electrifying effect upon his troops. In 1812, lost in the snowy wastes of Russia, demoralized and freezing to death, Bourgogne and his friend Picart, the regimental marksman, were almost in despair. But they were men of the Guard. Picart said: “Cheer up, mon pays...if we are lucky enough to find the Emperor, it will be all right.”14 They did, and along with the other survivors of the Imperial Guard they fought at the Battle of Krasny where, as the Denis Davidov said: “The Guard with Napoleon passed through our Cossacks like a ship armed with a hundred guns passes through fishing boats.”15
Vastly outnumbered, exhausted, beleaguered, their courage never deserted them, for they fought for such a man, and he in turn, was lucky to enjoy such loyalty and devotion.
Napoleon was ever approachable by his men. Often his aides and superior officers were shocked at the familiarity he allowed them to express, especially his Guard. His ‘grognards’ – grumblers – could do no wrong and he seemed to know them all individually. Bourgogne records an episode in regard to a Sergeant Pierson. On July 4th 1812 at Vilna, Pierson was on guard over big ovens being constructed to bake bread for the Army. Napoleon came to see how things were getting on. Pierson took advantage of this to ask for a decoration. “Very well,” the Emperor replied, “after the first battle.” It wasn’t until March 16th 1813 that Pierson was able to remind him of his promise. “True,” Napoleon smiled, “at the works at Vilna.”16 Pierson did have a distinctive ugly face but Bourgogne adds: “What a memory the Emperor had!”17
Captain Coignet gives other examples of the closeness Napoleon felt towards his Guard. During the Waterloo campaign he was baggage-master-general and quartermaster of the palace – a big title for the smallest member of the Immortals. Sent on horseback to reconnoitre troops on a distant hill by Napoleon himself, he killed an English officer in a cavalry duel and returned to his Emperor. “Well, old grouser, I thought you would be captured...You have done well.” Turning to a Marshal he added: “ Make a note of this old grouser. After the campaign, we will see him.”18 Sent later on another mission to find General Gerard at Ligny, he is addressed as if he were a personal friend of the Emperor’s. This rapport with the common man was unheard off amongst the rulers of Europe at that time.
At the end of that long day of June 18th 1815, the last glimmer of twilight was fading on the brilliant empire of Napoleon Bonaparte. Coignet relates how Napoleon wanted to enter the square commanded by Cambronne, but the Generals protested: “What are you doing?” they cried...His design was to have himself killed. Why did they not allow him to accomplish it? They should have spared him much suffering, and at least we should have died at his side; but the great dignitaries who surrounded him were not anxious to make such a sacrifice.”19
It was like a throwback to the mythic times of the Dark Ages and the belief that a lord’s retainers should die with their master or else face unending shame. Little Coignet was prepared to die by Napoleon’s side. Such was the loyalty commanded by Napoleon, the one-time writer whose romantic nature and multi-faceted genius overawed his contemporaries. Here’s a man! The real Napoleon.
CHAPTER ONE
THE REAL NAPOLEON
NOTES
1.Lord RoseberyNapoleon The Last Phase (London: Arthur L. Humphreys, 1900),
2.David Hamilton-WilliamsThe Fall of Napoleon (London: Arms And Armour, 1994), 12
3.General Michel FranceschiBonaparte in Egypt(International Napoleonic Society publications, 2006). Quoted on inside back cover.
4.David Chandler said this in the Great Commanders video series about Napoleon. The original quotation comes from Clarendon’s description of Oliver Cromwell in his history of the English Civil War.
5.Horst HohendorfThe Life and Times of Goethe (London: Paul Hamlyn, 1967) 52
6 The Sorrows of Young Werther was written by Goethe in 1774
7.Horst Hohendorf 52
8.Antony Brett-James1812 (London: Book Club Associates, 1966) 45-46
9.General Michel Franceschi op.cit. 15
10. Without Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt there would have been no real understanding of Egypt. His campaign made the Orient fashionable and turbans became all the rage for the ladies of Paris. More importantly, because of the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, Champollion was able to decipher hieroglyphics for the first time. The famous ‘forty centuries look down on you’ remark was said just before the Battle of the Pyramids. Franceschi Ibid. 30
11. General Michel FranceschiAusterlitz (INS publications: 2005) 26
12. Ibid. 35
13. David Hamilton-Williams op.cit. 91
14. Sergeant Bourgogne Retreat From Moscow (London: Folio, 1985) 128
15. Paul Britten-Austin 1812 The Great Retreat 179. Colonel Denis Davidov was a leader of Russian partisans.
16. Sergeant Bourgogne op. cit. 254
17. Ibid. 254
18. Jean-Roch CoignetCaptain Coignet (USA: Leonaur, 2007) 268
19. Ibid. 272
CHAPTER TWO
NAPOLEON’S ACTS OF GENEROSITY
AND KINDNESS
“I shall punish no one; I want to forget all such incidents.” (Napoleon before leaving Elba, 1815)*
It is often said that the child is the father of the man. As a small boy, Napoleon was pugnacious and feisty, but he had a marked sense of justice and a strong loyalty to his family. He was also very open-handed. Cronin remarks that: “He had a generous nature and would share his toys and sweets with other children without asking a return.”1 A lot of nonsense has been written about Napoleon having had few friends. In fact, he had many friends throughout his life and he never forgot them. Above all else, he never forgot a kindness shown towards him.
Eleanor Roosevelt said that: “The basis of all good human behaviour is kindness.”2 Napoleon instinctively knew that and, on many occasions, he demonstrated it with great liberality and genuine personal warmth.
For the women in Napoleon’s life the look of love became the luck of love, for he was generous to them all. To his old wet-nurse, Napoleon returned the milk of human kindness. Corsican Camilla had doted on him as a baby and became an honorary member of the Bonaparte clan. She was very religious and when Pope Pius VII came to Paris to crown Napoleon Emperor, she begged to see him. Napoleon dutifully arranged it. Camilla’s little Napoleone did her proud. How many divine right monarchs would have personally dealt with such a matter – and for a mere commoner?3
For his mother, Madame Mere, Napoleon had the utmost respect. She had already had thirteen children by the age of 34 when her husband Carlo died – only eight survived. She was faithful to his memory for the rest of her long life. Stern but loving, her nature was reflected in Napoleon’s own behaviour. She was also very careful with money, a trait her son shared.
When he heard of the death of Carlo, Napoleon wrote to console his mother:
“Dear Mother,
Only today has calmed my first sorrow a little, and I hasten to tell you how grateful I am for all the kindness you have shown us. Be consoled, dear mother, circumstances demand it. We shall redouble our attention and our kindness to you, and we shall be happy if by our obedience we can to some extent make up for your dreadful loss of a dear husband...
Your affectionate son Napoleon di Buonaparte.”4
The writer was just fifteen years old.
When he met Caroline du Colombier in Valence, the youthful Napoleon found that his young heart was bursting. Still very shy, it remained a platonic relationship. In 1792 she married a retired army captain and went to Lyon. He had not seen her for twenty years, then, in 1805 he got a letter from her. The once gauche young suitor was about to be crowned King of Italy. Nevertheless, he found time to meet her at Lyon on his way to Milan. As Kemble relates: “In later years her husband was granted an official government post, her brother a lieutenancy, and Caroline herself was appointed lady-in-waiting to Madame Mere. In 1810 her husband was made a Baron of the Empire.”5 Not a bad return for a few stolen kisses.
Another early flame was Mademoiselle de Lauberie de Saint-Germain. Many years later, she too was made a lady-in-waiting, this time to the Empress and her husband was made a Count. Napoleon liked to be surrounded by people he knew, and particularly dear to him were the friends and loves of his youth.6
His best friend at the École Militaire in Paris was Alexandre Des Mazis. He was a year older than Napoleon and his drill instructor. After the storming of the Bastille, Alexandre became an émigré. Years later, on 26 April 1802, Napoleon granted an amnesty to Frenchmen living abroad. Forty thousand émigrés returned, and Alexandre was amongst them. Cronin says: “Guessing he was penniless, Napoleon sent him a treasury bill for 10,000 francs and a word in his own hand: ‘Des Mazis, you lent me money once, now it is my turn.’ ”7
Napoleon demonstrated his physical bravery long before he went to war. In 1792, on a hot day in August, he was a witness to the massacre of the Swiss Guards at the Tuileries palace. The National Guard went on the rampage slaughtering up to 800 men. Sickened at the sight of well-dressed women abusing the bodies, Napoleon saw men from Marseille killing the survivors in cold blood. When one of them pointed a musket at a helpless victim, Napoleon intervened: “‘You’re from the south? So am I. Let’s save this wretch.’ The Marseillais either from shame or pity, dropped his musket, and on that day of blood one life at least was saved.”8
This courageous action encapsulates the essence of Napoleon. It demonstrates his sense of justice, his hatred of the mob, his feeling for his fellow man, and his incipient qualities of leadership. Despite all the slanderous words written about his supposed bloodthirsty nature, he was often deeply moved by the butcher’s bill after a great battle – usually caused by subsidies from the English Cabinet – and equally, at the plight of an individual caught in the crosshairs of a seeming implacable fate.
Robespierre was to opine that: “Clemency is barbarous,”9 while as First Consul and then Emperor, Napoleon offered clemency even to barbarians – men who would be classed as traitors and rebels by the majority of his fellow citizens.
In 1793, he was posted to Portet. He took part in an attack against National Guardsmen from Marseille who had seized Avignon. Frenchmen blasted away at their countrymen and civilians were killed. Such atrocities made a mockery of his youthful ideals of equality and liberty. Deeply upset, he had what, in effect, was a nervous breakdown and he went to Beaucaire to recuperate. There he wrote Le Souper de Beaucaire – a personal tract against the brutality of civil war.10
That same year, the British navy was supporting 18,000 foreign soldiers who had seized Toulon. Thanks to Napoleon’s well-placed cannon, the invaders withdrew. The bestial Stanislas Fréron had purged Marseille, now the reptilian Fouché was let loose on the unfortunate inhabitants of Toulon.
The latter wrote in a veritable ecstasy to the Committee of Public Safety in Paris: “We have only one way of celebrating this victory; this evening 213 insurgents fall under our thunderbolt. Adieu, my friend, tears of joy flood my soul...we are shedding much impure blood, but for humanity and for duty.”11 Years later, Fouché tried to arrange for Napoleon to be captured by the vengeful Allied armies after Waterloo. He nearly succeeded. Back in 1793, Napoleon for his part was demonstrating his humanity.
A family of noble birth called de Chabrillan were imprisoned by fanatical revolutionaries in Toulon and their prospects were grim. Napoleon brought up some empty ammunition boxes in which he secreted the terrified victims and sent them to Hyeres from where they emigrated. Had their absence been discovered, citizen Bonaparte might well have taken their place.12
With the Whiff of Grapeshot in 1795, Napoleon effectively saved the gains made by the Revolution. As a reward he was given command of the Army of the Interior. “Now our family shall lack nothing,” he wrote. He gave his mother 50,000 louis (a million francs); had Joseph made a Consul in Italy; Lucien a Commissioner in the Army of the North; Louis became his aide-de-camp; and Jerome went to a good school. Napoleon wrote to Joseph: “You know, I live only for the pleasure I can give my family.”13
Eventually, he made his brothers and sisters kings, queens, princes and princesses. Joseph, the eldest, became King of Naples and then King of Spain. Napoleon was proud of his family even though they all let him down in one way or another. Joseph, for example, abandoned Paris at a crucial time in 1814, leaving the city in the scheming paws of Talleyrand. As always, Napoleon forgave his siblings. He told Las Casas at Saint Helena: “Joseph would be an ornament to society wherever he might happen to reside; Lucien, an ornament to any political assembly; Jerome, had he come to years of discretion, would have made an excellent ruler; I had great hopes for him. Louis would have been popular, and a remarkable man anywhere.”14
Nepotism yes, but loving one’s family is not a crime; forgiving their errors is a mark of maturity and compassion. And his brothers and sisters were far better rulers than the odious Bourbons they usually replaced. And what was the former monarchy if not nepotism enshrined?
Napoleon was also generous to strangers and even enemies. In 1800, he crossed the Alps via the Great Saint Bernard Pass on a mule guided by Pierre Nicholas Dorsaz. The mule slipped and nearly took him over the edge of a precipice – but Dorsaz saved him. Finding that the peasant’s dream was to own a farm, a field and a cow, enough for him to get married, Napoleon ordered 1,200 francs paid to him for his “zeal and devotion to his task.” The normal fee for a guide was three francs.15
In a review at the captured Austrian palace of Schoenbrunn in 1809, he recognized a soldier who, nine years before at the siege of Acre in Syria, had risked his life to recover Napoleon’s hat. He was given 50 francs.16
When Captain Goedeck, a popular commander of the garrison of Wrietzen, was given a gift by thankful citizens, he suggested that the money be spent on five paroled Prussian officers who were in extreme want. When Napoleon heard of this he said: “Express to him my satisfaction and let me know what I may do for him.”17
Nothing impresses a generous man like the generosity of another.
After the great victory of Austerlitz, the Emperor adopted the orphans of dead soldiers. He arranged for places to be found for the boys when they grew up and marriages were arranged for the girls, their dowries paid for by the state. When the Bourbons returned to power in 1814, they shut down the Invalides because it cost 700 francs a year to provide for each veteran, and sent them back to their own villages with 250 francs instead. Similarly, the orphans were kicked out of their boarding schools and sent packing. Of course, many of the children had no homes to go to. Such was the beneficence of the great house of Bourbon. They really knew how to take the biscuit.18
At Wagram in 1809 Napoleon promised impressed Austrian boatmen 6,000 francs each for ferrying a scouting party across the Danube, then in spate. When his men returned with three Austrian prisoners, Napoleon doubled the reward - 12,000 francs, a colossal sum in those days. He ordered their release remarking: “that it might not be said that any soldiers, even enemies, had spoken to the Emperor of the French without receiving some benefit.”19
In his will, he left ‘20,000 francs to a brave inhabitant of Bocagnano’ in Corsica who rescued him from brigands during his time there in 1792-93.20
Bravery always impressed Napoleon. When the siege of Mantua in Italy ended in 1797, in Cronin’s words: “The Directors wanted Napoleon to shoot Wurmser, a Frenchman who had taken (up) arms against France, but Napoleon, who respected Wurmser’s courage, disregarded the order, and allowed him to return to Austria.”21 Not for the last time, Napoleon was magnanimous in victory. This was a quality that the so-called Allies utterly lacked.
Time after time, they attacked him: “In 1800, 1805, 1806, 1807, 1809, and 1814 his enemies struck first...”22 After he had destroyed their armies, Napoleon replaced the arrogant, divine right monarchs back on their corrupt thrones. As Runciman states: “The Allies pursued Napoleon to his downfall. Their attitude during the whole course of his rule was senselessly vindictive...The exile of St. Helena acted differently...He made what he wished to be lasting peace, and allowed the sovereigns to retain their thrones. How often did he carry out this act of generosity towards Prussia and Austria...”. When defeated, they became “grovelling supplicants for mercy, which he never witheld.”23
As Napoleon himself said to Caulaincourt, his ambassador in 1814: “These people will not treat; the position is reversed; they have forgotten my conduct to them at Tilsit. Then I could have crushed them; my clemency was simple folly.”24
Even those who betrayed him spoke of Napoleon’s generosity. Elting mentions that: “In his Judas memoirs, Marmont confessed that Napoleon never forgot any kindness done or service rendered him.”25
To his own soldiers, he could be very tolerant. When Lannes spent 300,000 francs too much on uniforms, suckered by the criminality of the clothing contractors, Napoleon forced him to repay the money himself. Augereau bailed him out, but he was still disgraced. Napoleon, having made his point, then sent Lannes to Portugal as his ambassador, a very lucrative role indeed. Jean Lannes swore at Napoleon on occasion and the Emperor liked him all the more for it. But His Majesty was a great stickler where money was concerned as his old friend Bourrienne found out when he embezzled funds.
Bourrienne was given a second chance but let Napoleon down again, after which he wrote some very unreliable memoirs about his former master for royalist readers, before going mad. Bourrienne is often quoted today as telling the gospel truth and is loved by one-sided British historians. Elting thought him so unreliable he refused to use any of his ‘memoirs’ which are “mendacious and worthless.”26
Napoleon gave new generals 20,000 francs, and 1,000,000 francs to all the marshals in the 1809 Austrian campaign. He also gave gifts to deserving soldiers. Elting adds: “Part was natural generosity: a man who lived simply and saved his money, Napoleon could be imperially munificent.”27 Sadly, those to whom he gave the most, were usually the ones that betrayed him. But even Ney, who led the marshals’ rebellion in 1814 was given another chance at Waterloo, despite him bragging to Louis XVIII about bringing Napoleon back to Paris in an iron cage. Before Mont Saint-Jean, it was Ney’s talent that had gone rusty and he threw the French cavalry away.
The rapport Napoleon had with the common soldier is legendary. At a review, a corporal of the Guard stepped forward and asked his Emperor for an advance in pay of 300 francs for the benefit of his sick mother. Napoleon suggested 1,000 francs instead, in the form of a treasury order. French bureaucracy being what it was, his old mother might be dead long before she saw a sou of it the corporal inferred. With some choice language, the Emperor of 20 million French and the overlord of tens of millions of others, dug into his own pockets, grabbed a handful of gold coins and told him to be off.28
Before he died, Napoleon remembered everyone in his Will who had ever done him a favour and all the children and families of those that had died in his service.29 And with the utmost self-control, tolerance and generosity, when still in charge of his vast domains, he refused to execute men like Talleyrand, Fouché and Bernadotte, self-seeking, grasping traitors that were not fit to be in the same room as him. Even though he had evidence of their double-dealing and treachery, Napoleon let them live. Why? Because Bernadotte was married to Desiree Clary whom Napoleon had once loved, and her sister was married to his brother Joseph – so ‘Pretty-Legs’ Bernadotte was a member of his family, and gained sanctuary thereby. Talleyrand had once been his friend and had helped him in his early career. And even Fouché who, if kept in solitary confinement in a locked room, would have started to scheme and plot against himself, had done his duty on occasion.
So, Napoleon stayed his hand – and those three brought him down. The common soldier and the mass of the French population could hardly believe it. It is hard to believe even to this day.
CHAPTER TWO
NAPOLEON’S ACTS OF GENEROSITY AND KINDNESS
NOTES
*Vincent CroninNapoleon (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin Books, 1971) 491
1.Ibid. 18
2.Quotation from a flier for the new Oxford History of Quotations Folio Edition 2008.
3.James KembleNapoleon Immortal (London: John Murray, 1959) 22
4.Ibid. 23Napoleon’s letter of March 28, 1785, Paris.
5.Ibid. 37
6.Ibid. 38
7.Cronin op.cit. 254
8.Ibid. 74
9.Ibid. 3
10. Ibid. 83-84
11. Ibid. 91
12. Ibid. 91
13. Ibid. 104
14. Walter Runciman Drake, Nelson and Napoleon (London: T. Fisher Unwin Ltd., 1919) 128
From http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/15299 128 (When printed off)
15. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Nicholas_Dorsaz
16. John EltingSwords Around a Throne (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989) 596
17. Ibid. 596
18. Ibid. 596 and 635-636
19. Ibid. 572
20. Kemble 66
21. Cronin 150
22. Elting 529
23. Runciman 136
24. Ibid. 136Runciman himself quotes Napoleon here.
25. Elting 596
26. Ibid. 735
27. Ibid. 178
28. Ibid. 205
29Alex de Jonge Napoleon’s Last Will and Testament (London: Paddington Press, 1969) See this for a lot more details of his generosity from beyond the grave.
CHAPTER THREE
ENGLAND’S WARS AGAINST NAPOLEON
John Abbott said he “admires Napoleon because he abhorred war, and did everything in his power to avert that dire calamity...”1 What to some may seem revisionism can, nevertheless, be the truth. The misnamed Napoleonic wars were caused, fostered and prosecuted by England against Napoleon. Not only were they expensive in terms of human life and British gold, they were not even necessary. Napoleon wanted peace with England and he tried repeatedly to get the British Cabinet to come to terms. But fate shot Napoleon’s Fox. Had that illustrious statesman lived a little longer, England and France would have become friends and allies.
Abbott remarks that: “The reason is obvious why the character of Napoleon should have been maligned. He was regarded justly as the foe of aristocratic privilege. The English oligarchy was determined to crush him. After deluging Europe in blood and woe, during nearly a quarter of a century, for the accomplishment of this end, it became necessary to prove to the world, and especially to the British people, who were tottering beneath the burden of taxes which these wars engendered, that Napoleon was a tyrant, threatening the liberties of the world, and that he deserved to be crushed.”2
Abbott, an American, was writing in early 1850s at a time when many of the people who had known Napoleon had only recently died. Marmont, who went over to the Allies in 1814, and gave the word ‘raguser’ – to betray – to the French language, died in 1852. Soult, who wasn’t up to Berthier’s former job as Chief of Staff at Waterloo, died in 1851. Many of Napoleon’s Young Guard and the ‘Marie Louises’ who fought in the 1814 campaign of France, were only middle-aged. Abbott’s aim, his mission indeed, was “to rescue one of the greatest and noblest of names from unmerited obloquy.”3
The campaign of slander and vilification engaged upon by Napoleon’s detractors has gone on for over two centuries. The warmongering of Pitt and Canning, and the lies spoken by both have yet to be brought fully out into the open. Most English people know nothing about the seedy, low machinations of the British Cabinet, the pathological hatred for the French people felt by Pitt and Nelson, nor the dire, merciless retribution prosecuted upon the Bonapartists by Lord Liverpool after the Battle of Waterloo.
Just like the Japanese still refuse to teach their children about the atrocities of their soldiers during WWII, so British historians ignore, deny and obfuscate the truth about Anglo-French relations at the beginning of the C19th. Napoleon wanted peace, the British Cabinet did not.
Colonel John Elting’s book Swords Around a Throne (1989) was the product of thirty years of research. He comments upon the doomed Treaty of Amiens: “England repudiated the Treaty of Amiens (signed March 27, 1802) and declared war on France, following the ancient and very profitable English practice of authorizing its warships to seize French merchant vessels before issuing the formal declaration.”4 So much for the supposed British virtue of ‘fair play’.
Elting mentions ‘ “la perfide Albion” (treacherous England)’5 and notes that “the English spent lavishly to hire and bribe.”6 He points out that “After the Treaty of Luneville with Austria (February 9, 1801) much of the French Army had been put on peace footing.”7 So much then, for Napoleon being an inveterate megalomaniac crazed by a lust for conquest. Had Britain not reneged on the Treaty of Amiens, there could have been peace between the two nations.
It was not just with England, that Napoleon wanted peace. Of 1812, and conflict with Tsar Alexander, Elting says: “Napoleon did not want war, but it obviously lay in his path.”8 And in regard to Austria in 1809: “Anxious to avoid war, Napoleon told him (Davout) to keep his cavalry several miles west of the (Austrian) border.”9 (My italics). As for the English, Colonel Elting adds: “England in 1805 hired Russia and Austria to attack France from the east...”10 Then there were the “repeated attempts by the Royalists (with British assistance) to assassinate Napoleon.”11
What was Napoleon’s response to all this? He wrote to George III on January 2nd 1805:
“My dear brother
Since I was called to the throne of France by Providence and by the suffrage of the Senate, the people, and the Army, my foremost and most earnest desire has been for peace. France and England are squandering their prosperity. Their struggle may continue for centuries. But are their governments discharging their most sacred duty? Is not their conscience troubled by such a useless effusion of blood with no real end in view? I count it no dishonour to be taking the first step in this matter. (My italics). I fancy I have shown the world that I am nowise daunted by the hazards of war; indeed, war holds no terrors for me. Peace is the dearest wish of my heart, but war has never diminished my deputation. I charge Your Majesty not to reject the happy opportunity of yourself conferring peace upon the world...”12
Napoleon was almost beseeching George III when he adds: “If the moment passes, how can this war reach an end, when all my efforts have failed to bring it to a conclusion?”13
This impassioned plea went unacknowledged and unanswered. The British Cabinet wanted war, and war duly followed, paid for with British gold.
William Napier, who wrote the History of the War in the Peninsula, sets the record straight in the first sentence of his account: “The hostility of aristocratic Europe forced the republican enthusiasm of France into a course of military policy, outrageous in appearance, in reality one of necessity; for up to the treaty of Tilsit, her wars were essentially defensive.”14 He goes on to add that it was “a deadly conflict to determine whether aristocracy or democracy should predominate, equality or privilege be the principle of European civilization.”15
Napier, probably the foremost English historian of his day (he, like Wellington, was actually born in Ireland), speaks of “the wonderful genius of Napoleon” and how “the privileged classes of Europe consistently transferred their implacable hatred of the French revolution to his person; for in him they saw innovation find a protector, and felt that he only was able to consolidate the hateful system...”16
Napoleon was a steady beacon around which chaos swirled. He alone was strong enough to bring order, to quell the anarchy all around him. He was the light at the edge of the world to which all moderate men turned. Napoleon forged republican and émigré, peasant and soldier, into one people, one nation. With his foresight, application, and sheer strength of character, he tamed the disparate political forces and brought peace and security to the people as a whole. Beyond Louis XIV’s wildest dreams, Napoleon was France. Above all, having lived through the horrors of the Terror, he wanted peace at home and abroad.
Returning to the country that remained his inviolable foe, here is Runciman on Nelson and Napoleon: “It would be futile to draw a comparison between the two men. The one was a colossal human genius, and the other, extraordinary in the art of his profession, was entirely without the faculty of understanding or appreciating the distinguished man he flippantly raged at from his quarterdeck.”17
Runciman, writing in 1917-1919, believed that the Allies’ vendetta against Napoleon led directly to the inexorable rise of Prussia and to Kaiser Wilhelm’s maniacal policies that resulted in World War One. Runciman also warned writers of history of the pitfalls that so many other British historians have fallen into: “The historian has a great deal to do with the manner in which the fame of a great man is handed down to posterity, and it should never be forgotten that historians have to depend on evidence which may be faulty, while their own judgment may not always be sound.”18
When historians have imputed only infamy and evil to Napoleon, consciously ignoring his achievements and denigrating his actions, is it a wonder that the myth of the Corsican Ogre persists to this very day?
Runciman extols Nelson’s bravery and seamanship yet he adds: “Nelson was a true descendant of a race of men who had never faltered in the traditional belief that the world should be governed and dominated by the British.”19
Nelson’s blinkered view of the world and his naivety when it came to politics had only one outcome: “Both he and many of his fellow-countrymen regarded the chosen chief on whom the French nation had democratically placed an imperial crown as the embodiment of a wild beast.”20
Runciman draws another telling contrast: “He had a wholesome dislike of the French people and of Bonaparte, who was their idol at that time...Napoleon, on the other hand, had no real hatred of the British people, but during his wars with their government his avowed opinion was that ‘all the ills, and all the scourges that afflict mankind, came from London.’ ”21 Runciman thinks that they were both wrong and simply failed to understand each other’s point of view. But then, all those assassination attempts were concocted in London.
He also says that: “The British were not only jealous and afraid of Napoleon’s genius and amazing rise to eminence – which they attributed to his inordinate ambition to establish himself as the dominating factor in the affairs of the universe - but they determined that his power should not only not be acknowledged, but destroyed, and their policy after twenty years of bitter war was completely accomplished.”22
Now we see why George III did not bother to reply to Napoleon’s offer of peace in 1805. Napoleon was the phoenix borne aloft by the flames of Revolution, dazzling Paris with his brilliance. The British Government was terrified by his apparition, mortified by his greatness, yet determined to destroy him at all costs.
In London, the Prince of Wales was a bird of a very different feather: “He was known to be a cheat, a liar, and a faithless friend to men and to women, while in accordance with the splendid ethic of this type of person, he believed himself to be possessed of every saintly virtue.”23 While Napoleon commanded the Grand Army, the Prince Regent couldn’t even command respect.
Runciman takes no prisoners when he compares the Emperor with other contemporary rulers: “His traducers proclaimed him an atheist, and we hear the same claptrap from people now who have not made themselves acquainted with the real history of the man and his times.” (My italics) He goes on: “We do not say he was a saint, but he was a better Christian, both in profession and action, than most of the kings that ruled prior to and during his period. In every way he excels the Louis of France, the Georges of Great Britain and Hanover, the Fredericks of Prussia, and the Alexanders of Russia. The latter two he puts far in the shade, both as a statesman, a warrior, and a wise, humane ruler...”24
After the Battle of Marengo in 1800, Napoleon wrote to the Emperor of Austria asking for peace – taking the first step again. He wrote: “The English threaten the balance far more than does France, for they have become the masters and tyrants of commerce, and are beyond the reach of resistance.”25 However, just two days before news of his victory, England concluded a new peace with Austria, lavish as ever with a loan bearing no interest whilst war continued.26
A separate peace was thus made impossible.
As Abbott remarks: “The consolidation of democratic power in France was dangerous to king and noble. William Pitt, the soul of the aristocratic government of England, determined still to prosecute the war. France could not harm England. But England, with her invincible fleet, could sweep the commerce of France from the sea.” He continues: “Fox and his coadjutors with great eloquence opposed the war. Their efforts were, however, unavailing. The people of England, notwithstanding all the efforts of the government to defame the character of the First Consul, still cherished the conviction that, after all, Napoleon was their friend.”27
Napoleon himself later remarked: “Pitt was the master of European policy. He held in his hands the moral fate of nations. But he made ill use of his power...But that for which posterity will, above all, execrate the memory of Pitt, is the hateful school, which he has left behind him; its insolent Machiavellism, its profound immorality, its cold egotism, and its utter disregard of justice and human happiness.”28
If only Fox, despised by George III, had been the Prime Minister – Napoleon adds: “The death of Fox was one of the fatalities of my career. Had his life been prolonged, affairs would (have) taken a totally different turn. The cause of the people would have triumphed, and we should have established a new order of things in Europe.”29
Finally, Napoleon was able to make peace with the Austrians at Luneville on February 9th 1801. England now rampaged alone. Sir Walter Scott stated that: “On every point, the English squadrons annihilated the commerce of France, crippled her revenues, and blockaded her forts.”30 Like a spoilt brat, or the proverbial bull in a china shop, the British Government destroyed order in Europe.
Runciman speaks wisdom when he says: “We had no real grounds of quarrel with France nor with her rulers. The Revolution was their affair, and was no concern of ours, except in so far as it might harmfully reflect on us, and of this there was no likelihood if we left them alone.”31 As he explains: “Had we approached Napoleon in a friendly spirit and on equal terms, without haughty condescension, he would have reciprocated our cordiality and put proper value on our friendship.”32
When the preliminaries of peace between England and France were finally signed on October 1st 1801, the French Ambassador’s carriage was pulled along by the London mob. This was too much for Nelson who fumed: “that our damned scoundrels dragged a Frenchman’s carriage...The villains would have drawn Buonaparte if he had been able to get to London to cut the king’s head off.”33
This is England’s ‘hero’ speaking, lamenting bitterly that the British people were tired of war and wanted peace with France. Those historians who castigate Napoleon for being a ‘warmonger’ please take note.
The most outrageous incident of British arrogance and callous disregard for human life came with the 1807 bombardment of the city of Copenhagen. Thomas Munch-Petersen in Defying Napoleon draws parallels with the invasion of Iraq in 2003: “Britain’s operation against neutral Denmark was prompted by fear that her navy might fall into the hands of Napoleon and be turned against Britain.”34
The operation was based on faulty ‘intelligence’. Denmark had been scrupulously neutral before 1807 and, indeed, her neutrality was guaranteed by Tsar Alexander of Russia. This did not prevent the cowardly sneak attack by a combined English land and sea force. Some 2,000 innocent civilians were butchered, killed in their homes by ‘shock and awe’. It was the first occasion that Congreve rockets were employed against civilian targets: “the first example in modern history of terror bombardment bring used against a major European city.”35
When Canning learnt that he had been supplied with faulty information, he refused to clarify the matter in Parliament. Britain stole the Danish fleet of twenty ships of the line and rendered ALL her other vessels useless.
Canning had expected the Danes to give up their fleet instantly – the pride and soul of the Danish nation. If not: “her overseas trade would be destroyed, her colonies would be seized and her detained merchant shipping would be confiscated.”36
The Danes refused, the British created a bloodbath in Copenhagen, and the result? They drove the Danish into an alliance with Napoleon, the very thing they had tried to prevent. Runciman is right to bewail the asinine political nous of Canning and his ilk.
Runciman came across a scrap of manuscript in Pitt’s papers. Here is Pitt describing Napoleon: “I see various and opposite qualities...I see all the captious jealousy of conscious usurpation, dreaded, detested, and obeyed, the giddiness and intoxication of splendid but unmerited success, the arrogance, the presumption, the selfwill of unlimited and idolized power, and more dreadful than all in the plentitude of authority, the restless and incessant activity of guilt, but unsated ambition.”37
Pitt must have been looking in a mirror. Here is a case of physician heal thyself, of the Greek ‘know thyself’, and perfidious Albion being described in the apparent ravings of a lunatic.
CHAPTER THREE
ENGLAND’S WARS AGAINST NAPOLEON
NOTES
1.John AbbottThe History of Napoleon Bonaparte (1851) From Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. See Preface. This history came out in instalments and was later published as a book in 1855. See www.yamaguchy.netfirms.com/7897401/abbott/napoleon_index.html
2.Ibid. See Preface
3.Ibid. See Preface
4.Elting 59
5.Ibid. 119
6.Ibid. 119
7.Ibid. 59
8.Ibid. 63
9.Ibid. 118
10. Ibid. 236
11. Ibid. 189
12. Christopher LeeNelson and Napoleon (London: Headline, 2005) Quoted on 160-161.
13. Ibid. 161.
14. William NapierHistory of the War in the Peninsula (1828) Chapter One, 1 at: www.yamaguchy.netfirms.com/7897401/abbott/napoleon_index.html
15. Ibid. 1
16. Ibid. 1
17. Runciman See Preface, 3 (when printed off) From http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/15299
18. Ibid. 11 (when printed – there are no page numbers on the screen)
19. Ibid. 26
20. Ibid. 26
21. Ibid. 27
22. Ibid. 27
23. Ibid. 38
24. Ibid. 53-54
25. Abbott 16-17 of Part One (when printed off) See: www.fullbooks.com/Napoleon-Bonaparte1.html
26. Ibid. 21
27. Ibid. 22
28. Ibid. 22
29. Ibid. 23
30. Ibid. 26Sir Walter Scott is quoted here by Abbott himself.
31. Runciman 67
32. Ibid. 67
33. Ibid. 70-71
34. Thomas Munch-PetersonDefying Napoleon (Stroud, England: Sutton Publishing, 2007) on dustjacket
35. Ibid. on dustjacket
36. Ibid. 218
37. Runciman 127
CHAPTER FOUR