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francebonapartiste · 10 months ago

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1er mars 1815 : Napoléon débarque à Golfe-Juan, c'est le début des Cent-Jours

Le 1er mars 1815, un événement historique majeur se produit lorsque Napoléon Bonaparte débarque à Golfe-Juan, marquant ainsi le début d’une période connue sous le nom des Cent-Jours. Ce jour-là, une petite flottille apparait au large des côtes françaises, mettant fin à la période d’exil de Napoléon sur l’île d’Elbe. Parti de l’île d’Elbe le 26 février, Napoléon est à bord de l’Inconstant, accompagné de six autres navires. Avec lui se trouvent ses proches et environ mille soldats de sa garde.

Aux côtés de l’Empereur se trouvaient les hommes qui formaient en quelque sorte son gouvernement sur l’île d’Elbe : le général Bertrand, chargé des affaires intérieures et l’un de ses plus proches conseillers, le général Drouot, assumant le rôle de ministre de la Guerre, et Peyrusse, trésorier de la Couronne. Se trouvaient également le général Cambronne, le Dr Fourreau de Beauregard mais aussi Pons de l’Hérault, ainsi que son personnel, incluant Marchand, son premier valet de chambre, et Saint-Denis, surnommé “le mamelouk Ali”.

Pendant la traversée, Napoléon s’était retiré dans sa cabine, plongeant dans l’élaboration des proclamations qui marqueraient son retour. Ces missives, soigneusement préparées à l’avance, étaient destinées à être distribuées dès son arrivée, toutes deux datées du 1er mars, jour symbolique de son débarquement et du renouveau.

Dans son discours adressé au peuple français, il justifiait son retour en expliquant les circonstances de son départ en 1814, attribuant son échec à la trahison des maréchaux Augereau et Marmont.

Aux soldats, il dévoile les voies de la gloire et prononce les paroles qui deviendront emblématiques :

“La victoire avancera au pas de charge. L’Aigle, arborant fièrement les couleurs nationales, planera de clocher en clocher jusqu’aux tours de Notre-Dame.”

Après trois jours de navigation, la flottille arrive enfin au mouillage dans l’anse du golfe Juan. Napoléon, arborant fièrement le drapeau tricolore français, décide de procéder au débarquement. Une escouade de grenadiers est envoyée en reconnaissance pour s’assurer que les côtes sont sûres. La côte est en effet sans défense, aucune batterie côtière n’étant présente à cet endroit, démontrant ainsi que les autorités n’ont à aucun moment envisagé que Napoléon tenterait un débarquement dans le sud de la France.

Le lendemain matin, Napoléon consulte une carte pour planifier la suite de son itinéraire vers Grenoble. Il décide de suivre la route des Alpes plutôt que de traverser la vallée du Rhône, où il a été conspué l’année précédente en se rendant à l’île d’Elbe. La troupe se remet en marche, avec Napoléon montant à cheval et ses hommes à pied.

Au cours de la journée, des contacts sont établis avec les autorités locales et la population. Certains habitants manifestent leur soutien à Napoléon en illuminant leurs maisons et en criant “Vive l’Empereur”, tandis que d’autres observent son passage avec une certaine indifférence.

Après avoir stationné quelques heures à Cannes, Napoléon repart à l’aube en direction de Grasse. Ainsi se clôt, sur le littoral français, la première étape de ce que l’on appellera plus tard le “vol de l’Aigle”, un périple qui devait mener l’Empereur jusqu’à Paris en vingt jours.

***

On March 1st, 1815, a major historical event occurred when Napoleon Bonaparte landed at Golfe-Juan, marking the beginning of a period known as the Hundred Days. That day, a small flotilla appeared off the French coast, ending Napoleon's exile on the island of Elba. Departing from Elba on February 26th, Napoleon was aboard the Inconstant, accompanied by six other ships, along with his close associates and about a thousand soldiers from his guard.

Alongside the Emperor were the men who formed his government on the island of Elba: General Bertrand, in charge of internal affairs and one of his closest advisors; General Drouot, serving as Minister of War; and Peyrusse, the Crown Treasurer. Also present were General Cambronne, Dr. Fourreau de Beauregard, as well as Pons de l'Hérault, along with his staff, including Marchand, his head valet, and Saint-Denis, nicknamed "the Mameluke Ali."

During the crossing, Napoleon retreated to his cabin, immersed in drafting proclamations that would mark his return. These carefully prepared messages were intended to be distributed upon his arrival, both dated March 1st, the symbolic day of his landing and renewal.

In his address to the French people, he justified his return by explaining the circumstances of his departure in 1814, attributing his failure to the betrayal of marshals Augereau and Marmont. To the soldiers, he unveiled the paths to glory and uttered words that would become iconic: "Victory will advance at a quick pace. The Eagle, proudly displaying the national colors, will soar from steeple to steeple to the towers of Notre-Dame."

After three days of sailing, the flotilla finally anchored in the bay of Golfe-Juan. Napoleon, proudly displaying the French tricolor flag, decided to proceed with the landing. A squad of grenadiers was sent out for reconnaissance to ensure the coast was secure. Indeed, the coast was undefended, with no coastal battery present, demonstrating that the authorities had never considered Napoleon attempting a landing in southern France.

The next morning, Napoleon consulted a map to plan the rest of his route to Grenoble. He chose to follow the Alpine route rather than crossing the Rhône Valley, where he had been reviled the previous year on his way to Elba. The troop resumed their march, with Napoleon riding on horseback and his men on foot.

Throughout the day, contacts were made with local authorities and the population. Some residents showed their support for Napoleon by lighting up their homes and shouting "Long live the Emperor," while others watched his passage with indifference.

After spending a few hours in Cannes, Napoleon set off again at dawn towards Grasse. Thus ended, on the French coast, the first stage of what would later be called the "Flight of the Eagle," a journey that would lead the Emperor to Paris in twenty days.

#france #napoleon #bonaparte #napoleon bonaparte #soldats #grande armée #Golfe-juan #débarquement #Cent-Jours #Vol de l'Aigle #Empereur #Empire

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royalty-nobility · 4 months ago

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Portrait of Napoleon III

Artist: Franz Xaver Winterhalter (German, 1805–1873)

Genre: Portrait

Depicted People: Napoleon III

Date: circa 1853

Medium: Oil on Canvas

Collection: Napoleonic Museum, Rome, Italy

Napoleon III (Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 1808 – 9 January 1873) was the first president of France from 1848 to 1852, and the last monarch of France as the second Emperor of the French from 1852 until he was deposed on 4 September 1870.

Prior to his reign, Napoleon III was known as Louis Napoleon Bonaparte. He was born in Paris as the son of Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland (r. 1806–1810), and Hortense de Beauharnais. Napoleon I was Louis Napoleon's paternal uncle, and one of his cousins was the disputed Napoleon II. Louis Napoleon was the first and only president of the French Second Republic, elected in 1848. He seized power by force in 1851 when he could not constitutionally be re-elected. He later proclaimed himself Emperor of the French and founded the Second Empire, reigning until the defeat of the French Army and his capture by Prussia and its allies at the Battle of Sedan in 1870.

Napoleon III was a popular monarch who oversaw the modernization of the French economy and filled Paris with new boulevards and parks. He expanded the French colonial empire, made the French merchant navy the second largest in the world, and personally engaged in two wars. Maintaining leadership for 22 years, he was the longest-reigning French head of state since the fall of the Ancien Régime, although his reign would ultimately end on the battlefield.

Napoleon III commissioned a grand reconstruction of Paris carried out by prefect of the Seine, Baron Georges-Eugène Haussmann. He expanded and consolidated the railway system throughout the nation and modernized the banking system. Napoleon promoted the building of the Suez Canal and established modern agriculture, which ended famines in France and made the country an agricultural exporter. He negotiated the 1860 Cobden–Chevalier Free Trade Agreement with Britain and similar agreements with France's other European trading partners. Social reforms included giving French workers the right to strike, the right to organize, and the right for women to be admitted to a French university.

In foreign policy, Napoleon III aimed to reassert French influence in Europe and around the world. In Europe, he allied with Britain and defeated Russia in the Crimean War (1853–1856). His regime assisted Italian unification by defeating the Austrian Empire in the Second Italian War of Independence and later annexed Savoy and Nice through the Treaty of Turin as its deferred reward. At the same time, his forces defended the Papal States against annexation by Italy. He was also favourable towards the 1859 union of the Danubian Principalities, which resulted in the establishment of the United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. Napoleon doubled the area of the French colonial empire with expansions in Asia, the Pacific, and Africa. On the other hand, the intervention in Mexico, which aimed to create a Second Mexican Empire under French protection, ended in total failure.

From 1866, Napoleon had to face the mounting power of Prussia as its minister president Otto von Bismarck sought German unification under Prussian leadership. In July 1870, Napoleon reluctantly declared war on Prussia after pressure from the general public. The French Army was rapidly defeated, and Napoleon was captured at Sedan. He was swiftly dethroned and the Third Republic was proclaimed in Paris. After he was released from German custody, he went into exile in England, where he died in 1873.

#portrait #french emperor #luis napoleon bonaparte #french president #franz xaver winterhalter #german painter #napoleon III #20th century art #french culture #french royals

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josefavomjaaga · 1 year ago

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Being the son of marshal Soult ...

... may not always have been fun for young Napoléon Hector. Not only because growing up under such an overbearing personality could be considered quite challenging in the first place, but also because Soult senior, at all times of his career, had a real knack for making enemies all over the place. This was especially true for the last period of his life, that he spent as minister in the July Monarchy.

The July Monarchy, from my very layman perspective, seems to have been a compromise by its very nature: a bit of First Empire nostalgia for the bonapartists, a bit of constitution and parliamentary debates for the republicans, a bit of a Bourbon monarch for the royalists. And of course, as is always the case with compromises, everybody hated it.

On 13 May 1833, Marshal Soult, as minister of War, in parliament proposed some changes to the army administration: Conscripts were to serve for three years before returning to their homes and forming an army reserve that could be called upon in times of need. This proposal was vehemently critisized by the bonapartist party, namely one former colonel Armand de Bricqueville, who saw in this change a deliberate attempt to destroy what he called "regimental spirit", the lack of which in the long run would make the army nothing but an obedient tool in the hands of the government. (Which apparently was a horrible thing.) Bricqueville, you have to give it to him, managed to put into his speech every personal insult against Soult he could think of, from accusing him of trying to bring back the Restauration, of having supported the ultra-royalists, to having been the cause for the defeat at Waterloo, even hinting at Soult having betrayed Napoleon. Some excerpts:

[...] Ah, you're right, weaken the country's forces, because they're all against you! [Call to order] Break the national instruments, [...] bring about the Restoration, that is your task, and probably your goal! [Repeated call to order] [… About Napoleon’s army at Waterloo] Its leaders were tired of war and were no longer physically or morally fit to wage it. Staff were filled with traitors [...] The loss of the battle was mainly due to that inconceivable negligence that led to essential orders not reaching General Grouchy [...], which made everyone say that the victory would have been ours if Marshal Berthier had been the major-general. [Exclamations in the centre, Marshal Soult salutes]. Unfortunately, the man who replaced him had, in 1814, in the service of the Bourbons, mistreated the old army more than anyone else. [New exclamations] He had just become intimately acquainted with the Vendéens and the Chouans of Quiberon […] There are men who, in enemy territory, have made the French name abhorred by their exactions; I could name some who in their rout did not lose a single piece of the gold that victory had brought them; who, as friends of the fine arts, we must do them justice, brought admirable masterpieces to France, and finally brought back treasures on the backs of mules, but not a single caisson or barrel of cannon. [Murmurs]

The last part obviously alluding to Soult’s retreat from Portugal in spring 1809, but mixing it with the retreat from Andalusia in 1812 (that had been anything but a rout).

I guess the overall tone of that debate gets quite clear from those snippets. Interestingly, Soult actually seemed to want to answer, but two of his colleagues prevented him from honouring these personal insults with a reply.

And that’s where Napoléon Hector, the Marquis de Dalmatie, by now 30 years old, takes the stage. Because the next thing Bricqueville received (presumably after many congratulations from his bonapartist colleagues) was a challenge to a duel from Marshal Soult’s son. It was fought on 14 May, and the four witnesses (Clausel and Jacqueminot for Soult Junior, Exelmans and Bacot for Bricqueville) put this official protocol into the Journal de débats of 15 March:

The direct attacks of M. le colonel de Bricqueville against M. the marshal minister of war in his speech of Thursday 13 June in the Chambre des Députés, having made it essential for M. the marquis de Dalmatie to seek satisfaction, a meeting took place this morning in the Bois de Boulogne between these honourable adversaries, who chose the sword as their weapon, and began a fight which lasted more than ten minutes. M. de Dalmatie hit a stone and fell backwards. Monsieur de Bricqueville hurried to offer him his hand and put him back on the right ground. The fight started again. This time, M. de Bricqueville's sword, having become entangled in M. de Dalmatie's after a fairly long struggle, slipped out of his hands. He advanced straight towards his opponent, who eagerly gave him back his weapon. After a rest necessitated by such a vicious attack, the fight resumed; the adversaries rushed at each other and soon came to grips face to face. In this situation, the witnesses, who were, on one side for the Marquis de Dalmatie, Marshal Clausel and General Jacquéminot, and on the other side General Excelmans and Mr César Bacot, Member of Parliament, threw themselves between them and declared that, as men of honour, they should not allow such a stubborn engagement to continue. The two combatants submitted to this decision and went their separate ways, showing each other frank and loyal esteem. Paris, 14 June 1833.

To me this sounds a lot as if all four of the witnesses were mostly there in order to watch the two idiots stumble around a little and to make sure that nobody got really hurt. There are different reports about this incident, some even claiming that Bricqueville actually did injure the marquis de Dalmatie or that the latter was fighting in earnest. Anyway, the official report is the one above.

In how far Soult himself was behind or informed of the duel, I do not know. Gotteri seems to not mention this at all in her book, and Brun de Villeret at the time was not in Paris. Only why Soult himself did not make the challenge seems clear: He was already 64 years old in 1833 and rather not fit for hand-to-hand combat.

But this was not the only incident in which a dissatisfied officer expected the son to stand in for his father: a certain maréchal-de-camp Hulot d’Aussery (or d’Osery; a distant relative of one of Soult’s former aides) that same year asked for an interview with the marquis de Dalmatie and, as soon as he was received, challenged him to a duel, because Soult as minister of War had not made Hulot a lieuténant-général yet, as Soult’s predecessor Gérard had promised. Napoléon-Hector, presumably somewhat confused (he was neither involved in the affairs of the ministry nor was he even part of the military, but had become a diplomat) refused the challenge but promised to talk to his father about it. Soult senior sent one of his aides to Hulot who tried to talk some sense into him, but to no avail. (According to one anecdote, Soult did not take the whole thing very serious, telling Hulot: So sorry, but I only do duels with cannonfire.)

Disgruntled Hulot did not let it go. The minister of the Interior interfered next, telling Hulot to stop that nonsense. Hulot then sent two highly insulting letters to Soult junior, probably hoping Napoléon Héctor would feel offended enough to now accept the challenge. When both father and son Soult instead decided to sigh, shrug and ignore the whole matter, Hulot had the letters published in the republican journal La Tribune:

Marquis of Dalmatia, you are an insolent coward! Wherever I meet you, I will stamp your face with the seal of infamy! If life is dear to you, then live at this price...

Nope. Being the son of marshal Soult, probably not always fun.

#napoleon's marshals #jean de dieu soult #napoleon hector soult #paris 1833 #july monarchy

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brookstonalmanac · 7 months ago

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Events 5.26 (before 1940)

17 – Germanicus celebrates a triumph in Rome for his victories over the Cherusci, Chatti, and other German tribes west of the Elbe. 451 – Battle of Avarayr between Armenian rebels and the Sasanian Empire takes place. The Sasanids defeat the Armenians militarily but guarantee them freedom to openly practice Christianity. 946 – King Edmund I of England is murdered by a thief whom he personally attacks while celebrating St Augustine's Mass Day. 961 – King Otto I elects his six-year-old son Otto II as heir apparent and co-ruler of the East Frankish Kingdom. He is crowned at Aachen, and placed under the tutelage of his grandmother Matilda. 1135 – Alfonso VII of León and Castile is crowned in León Cathedral as Imperator totius Hispaniae (Emperor of all of Spain). 1293 – An earthquake strikes Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan, killing about 23,000. 1328 – William of Ockham, the Franciscan Minister-General Michael of Cesena, and two other Franciscan leaders secretly leave Avignon, fearing a death sentence from Pope John XXII. 1538 – Geneva expels John Calvin and his followers from the city. Calvin lives in exile in Strasbourg for the next three years. 1573 – The Battle of Haarlemmermeer, a naval engagement in the Eighty Years' War. 1637 – Pequot War: A combined English and Mohegan force under John Mason attacks a village in Connecticut, massacring approximately 500 Pequots. 1644 – Portuguese Restoration War: Portuguese and Spanish forces both claim victory in the Battle of Montijo. 1736 – The Battle of Ackia is fought near the present site of Tupelo, Mississippi. British and Chickasaw soldiers repel a French and Choctaw attack on the then-Chickasaw village of Ackia. 1783 – A Great Jubilee Day held at North Stratford, Connecticut, celebrates the end of fighting in the American Revolution. 1805 – Napoléon Bonaparte assumes the title of King of Italy and is crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy in Milan Cathedral, the gothic cathedral in Milan. 1821 – Establishment of the Peloponnesian Senate by the Greek rebels. 1822 – At least 113 people die in the Grue Church fire, the biggest fire disaster in Norway's history. 1864 – Montana is organized as a United States territory. 1865 – American Civil War: The Confederate General Edmund Kirby Smith, commander of the Confederate Trans-Mississippi division, is the last full general of the Confederate Army to surrender, at Galveston, Texas. 1868 – The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson ends with his acquittal by one vote. 1869 – Boston University is chartered by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 1879 – Russia and the United Kingdom sign the Treaty of Gandamak establishing an Afghan state. 1896 – Nicholas II is crowned as the last Tsar of Imperial Russia. 1896 – Charles Dow publishes the first edition of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. 1900 – Thousand Days' War: The Colombian Conservative Party turns the tide of war in their favor with victory against the Colombian Liberal Party in the Battle of Palonegro. 1903 – Românul de la Pind, the longest-running newspaper by and about Aromanians until World War II, is founded. 1908 – The first major commercial oil strike in the Middle East is made at Masjed Soleyman in southwest Persia. The rights to the resource were quickly acquired by the Anglo-Persian Oil Company. 1917 – Several powerful tornadoes rip through Illinois, including the city of Mattoon. 1918 – The Democratic Republic of Georgia is established. 1923 – The first 24 Hours of Le Mans is held and has since been run annually in June. 1927 – The last Ford Model T rolls off the assembly line after a production run of 15,007,003 vehicles. 1936 – In the House of Commons of Northern Ireland, Tommy Henderson begins speaking on the Appropriation bill. By the time he sits down in the early hours of the following morning, he had spoken for ten hours. 1938 – In the United States, the House Un-American Activities Committee begins its first session.

#Events

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northernmariette · 1 year ago

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A beautiful dress suitable for wearing at Court, or for the receptions Napoléon expected his ministers and marshals to hold at home.

Formal Dress

1805

France

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (Accession Number: 22.665 )

#napoleonic fashion #napoleonic era

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histoireettralala · 4 years ago

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The Sacking of Joseph Fouché: The Dismissal (2/4)

" It is only after, on June 2, three hours after he gave this order, that he summons his ministers in Saint-Cloud, and that he abruptly and explicitly asks the Duke of Otrante if he is aware of some travels of the banker Ouvrard, and if it is him who sent him to Amsterdam. Fouché, surprised, but still far from understanding the trap he has fallen into, reacts the usual way, like every time he is surprised in flagrante delicto: just as before, under the Revolution with Chaumette, and the Directoire with Babeuf, he tries to get himself out of trouble by coldly dropping his accomplice. Ah! yes, Ouvrard! he is a pest who interferes into all sorts of things. Besides, the whole thing is completely meaningless, silly, childish! But Napoleon holds on firmly and he doesn't let him so easily elude him. "Those aren't meaningless maneuvers," he answers. "It is an extraordinary violation of duty to allow oneself to deal with the enemy behind one's sovereign back, on conditions he is ignorant of and probably won't even agree to. Ouvrard must be arrested at once." Then Fouché feels uncomfortable. That's all he needed: Ouvrard arrested! That one would let the cat out of the bag. So he tries, by all kinds of means, to dissuade the emperor from taking this action. But the emperor, who knows that now his personal policeman already "locked" the baker, only listens ironically to the one he unmasked. He now knows the true instigator of this reckless plot, and the papers seized at Ouvrard's soon unveil all of Fouché's game.

Then thunder bursts among the clouds of mistrust, for a long time gathering. The next day, a Sunday, Napoleon, after mass (although some years ago he had had the Pope arrested, he became pious again, as His Apostolic Majesty's son-in-law), summons all ministers and dignitaries of the Court for the morning reception. Only one person is missing: the Duke of Otrante. Although he is a minister, he wasn't summoned. The emperor invites his Council to take place around the table, and he asks pointblank the question: "What would you think of a minister who, abusing his position, would have, unbeknownst to his sovereign, opened communications with the enemy, started diplomatic negotiations on bases fathomed by him alone, and thus compromised the politics of the State ? What sentence is there in our Codes for such abuse of authority? " After this harsh question, the emperor looks around him, no doubt thinking that his advisers and his creatures will hurry to offer banishment or any other ignominious measure. But the ministers, although guessing at once against whom the blow is directed, shroud themselves into a painful silence. Deep down, they all approve Fouché for his forceful action in favour of peace, and, as true servants, they enjoy the bold trick he played on the autocrat. Talleyrand (who isn't Minister anymore, but who was called in this matter as an great dignitary) smiles inwardly; he remembers his own humiliation two years ago, and he revels in the embarrassment in which Napoleon and Fouché, neither of whom he likes, find themselves. Finally the Arch-Chancellor Cambacérès breaks the silence and says in a conciliating way: "It is unquestionably a fault, which deserves a severe punishment, unless the culprit was brought to make this mistake out of overzealousness." "Overzealousness!" says an angry Napoleon. He dislikes the answer, because he wants no excuse, but a harsh example, a punishment which would repress any independance. Animatedly, he tells the whole story, and asks the audience to suggest someone to replace Fouché.

Again, none of the ministers hurries to give his advice in such a thorny matter; the fear of Fouché comes, for all of them, right after the fear of Napoleon. Finally, Talleyrand, as ever in a difficult situation, finds a clever word to solve the problem. He adresses his neighbor, under his breath: "Without doubt, M. Fouché was very wrong, and I would give him a replacement, but only one: M. Fouché himself." Unhappy with his ministers whom he made, by his behaviour toward them, automatons and spineless mameluks, Napoleon adjourns the meeting and calls the Chancellor in his office: "Really, it is no use to consult these gentlemen. You see what useful proposals one can expect from them. But you can't believe I would seriously think to consult them without knowing myself what to expect. My choice is made: the Duke of Rovigo will be the Police minister." And, without the person involved being able to say whether he is ready or not to accept this unpleasant succession, the emperor greets him the very evening by this abrupt order: "You are Police minister. Make the oath, and start to work."

Fouché's dismissal instantly becomes the question of the day and public opinion immediatly sides with him. Nothing brought this double minister so many sympathies as, precisely, his resistance to boundless despotism- unsufferable by itself to the French people accustomed to freedom- from a man who rose to power thanks to the Revolution [...] All the parties, royalists, republicans, jacobins, as well as the foreign ambassadors unanimously regret, in the downfall of the last of Napoleon's ministers to have kept his independance, the obvious defeat of the idea of peace, and, even in his own palace, in his own bedroom, Napoleon finds in Marie-Louise, as once in his first wife Joséphine, a defensor of Fouché [..] Nothing voices more plainly the true state of mind of France at this time than the increase of prestige this man enjoys with the public, in the wake of his disgrace; and the new Police minister Savary sums up the impression produced by Fouché's dismissal in these words: "I believe the news of a plague wouldn't have scared more than my appointment to the Ministry." Really, what power did acquire, along the Emperor, during those last ten years, Joseph Fouché!

The echo of this impression no doubt reached Napoleon; in which way, we don't know. But, he barely chased Fouché from his position than he rushes to handle him carefully. Subsequently, the dismissal, just like the one of 1802, is presented under disguise, as to allow Fouché to be employed to other functions. To compensate the loss of the ministry, the honorific title of State Councillor is bestowed upon the Duke of Otrante, and he is made Ambassador of the French monarchy in Rome. Nothing characterizes the Emperor's state of mind, swinging between fear and anger, rebuke and gratitude, annoyance and conciliation, better than the dismissal letter, which is intended to Fouché's personal use only:

"Monsieur le Duc d'Otrante, I know all the services you provided me, and I believe in your dedication for my person and in your zeal for my service; however it is impossible for me, without failing myself, to leave you the portfolio. The position of Police Minister demands an entire and absolute trust, and this trust cannot exist since already, in important circumstances, you compromised my tranquillity and that of the State, which can't be excused, in my eyes, even by legitimate reasons. The singular way you have to envision the duties of a Police minister do not conform with the good of the State. Although I do no mistrust your attachment and your loyalty, I am yet forced to a continual overwatch which tires me and to which I cannot be held. This overwatch is required by many things you do on your own, without knowing if they conform with my will and my designs... I cannot hope that you change you way of doing, since, for several years, glaring examples and repeated evidence of my dissatisfaction didn't change you and since, satisfied with the purity of your intentions, you did not want to understand that one can do great wrong while intending to do great good. Besides, my trust in your talents and your loyalty is entire, and I wish to find opportunities to prove it to you and to use them to my service."

This letter discloses, like a secret code, the nature of the relations between Napoléon and Fouché; just carefully go over this little masterpiece to realize how, in every sentence, are opposed will and counter-will, appreciation and dislike, fear and a secret admiration. The autocrat wants a slave and is irritated to find an independant man. He wants to get rid of him, and yet he fears to make an enemy out of him. He regrets losing him while being happy to be free of this dangerous man."

Stefan Zweig- Fouché

#napoleonic #stefan zweig #fouché #joseph fouché #napoléon bonaparte #cambacérès #savary #r.i.p. savary who never asked for this #cambacérès and talleyrand true to themselves #oh there is so much to say about this #please what are your thoughts #napoléon and his ministers #his letter!!#and now of course everybody likes fouché #it's comedy gold

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empiredesimparte · 3 months ago

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Exclusive: the Official Portraits of Emperor Napoleon V and Empress Charlotte enter the Louvre

The atmosphere was solemn in the Grande Galerie of the Louvre, where the French Imperial Family gathered for the unveiling of the official portraits of Emperor Napoleon V and Empress Charlotte. This highly anticipated event, which captivated the attention of the public and the press, marks a key moment in the early reign of the imperial couple.

The grand setting of the Louvre is rich in history and artistic heritage. It thus provided an ideal backdrop for this event. The Emperor and the Empress, accompanied by the principal members of the Imperial Family, entered the gallery to the applause of the guests. The unveiling ceremony was led by the Minister of Culture, who emphasized the importance of this tradition in celebrating the continuity of the Empire.

The first two portraits revealed were individual representations of Their Majesties, both resplendent in their imperial attire. Napoleon’s portrait captured the Emperor in a pose reminiscent of his illustrious ancestor, Napoleon III, symbolizing the heritage of the Simparte dynasty. Charlotte’s portrait, equally imposing, highlighted her elegance and poise, with her expression embodying the grace and determination that have earned her the affection of the French people.

However, the highlight of the evening was undoubtedly the third and final portrait: a large representation of the Emperor and Empress together. This image of unity and serenity is meant to symbolize the strength and shared vision of the imperial couple for the years to come.

In a speech, Empress Charlotte spoke of the honor and pride she feels in serving as the consort of the Emperor. The event concluded with a moment of conviviality between the Imperial Family and the guests.

⚜ Traduction française

L'atmosphère était empreinte de solennité dans la Grande Galerie du Louvre, où la Famille Impériale française s'est rassemblée pour la découverte des portraits officiels de l'Empereur Napoléon V et de l'Impératrice Charlotte. Cet événement très attendu, qui a captivé l'attention du public et de la presse, symbolise un moment clé dans le début de règne du couple impérial.

Le cadre grandiose du Louvre au palais des Tuileries, demeure officielle de l'Empereur, est riche en histoire et en patrimoine artistique. Il offrait donc un décor idéal pour cet événement. L'Empereur et l'Impératrice, accompagnés par les principaux membres de la Famille Impériale, sont entrés dans la galerie sous les applaudissements des invités. La cérémonie de dévoilement a été dirigée par le ministre de la Culture, qui a souligné l'importance de cette tradition pour célébrer la continuité de l'Empire.

Les deux premiers portraits révélés étaient des représentations individuelles de Leurs Majestés, tous deux resplendissants dans leurs tenues impériales. Le portrait de Napoléon capturait l'Empereur dans une pose rappelant celle de son illustre ancêtre, Napoléon III, symbolisant l’héritage de la dynastie Simparte. Le portrait de Charlotte, tout aussi imposant, mettait en avant son élégance et sa prestance, son expression incarnant la grâce et la détermination qui lui ont valu l'affection du peuple français.

Cependant, le point culminant de la soirée a sans doute été le troisième et dernier portrait : une grande représentation de l'Empereur et de l'Impératrice ensemble. Cette image d'unité et de sérénité se veut le symbole de la force et de la vision partagées du couple impérial pour les années à venir.

A l'occasion d'un discours, l'Impératrice Charlotte a évoqué l'honneur et sa fierté de servir en tant que consort de l'Empereur. L'événement s'est achevé par un moment de convivialité entre la famille impériale et les invités.

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empirearchives · 8 months ago

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Napoleon and Nicolas Appert: The invention of canned food

“Although he [Napoleon] continued so far as possible the Revolutionary practice of having armies live off the land, he also did his best to develop an efficient commissariat. A famous part of his supply system was canned food, particularly meat, for the army. Nicholas Appert had started the food-canning industry in 1804, building a factory that employed fifty people. His method prescribed putting the food in glass jars, which were next carefully stoppered, and then cooked in boiling water for lengths of time varying with the type of food. The navy first used the canned food, with great success even on extended cruises. In 1810 the Minister of the Interior awarded Appert 12,000 francs on condition he make his process public.”

— Robert B. Holtman, The Napoleonic Revolution

The inventor of canning, Appert, deposited samples of his invention to the imperial government in 1809, specifically to the Society for the Encouragement of National Industry [Société d'Encouragement pour l'Industrie Nationale].

He published his findings in 1810, titled: Le livre de tous les ménages ou l'art de conserver pendant plusieurs années toutes les substances animales et végétales [English tr: The Art of Preserving All Kinds of Animal and Vegetable Substances For Several Years]. It was “a work published by the order of the French Minister of the Interior, on the report of the Board of Arts and Manufactures”.

For his discovery, the government paid him 12,000 francs and gave him free lodgings and a workshop in the Hospice des Quinze-Vingts. Every prefecture in the French Empire was supplied with a copy of his book, and the prefects were assigned the responsibility of disseminating the information widely. Two more editions were created under the empire, and another in 1831.

His factories were ransacked and destroyed during the invasions of France in 1814 and again in 1815. He was able to rebuild and won several gold medals from the Society for the Encouragement of National Industry and eventually became a member of the Society.

Appert is quoted as saying “I sacrificed everything for humanity, all my life”.

Additional Sources:

English translation of Appert’s 1810 publication

Nicolas Appert inventeur et humaniste, Jean-Paul Barbier, 1994 (Fondation Napoléon)

Collection A. Carême: Le conservateur 1842 (archive.org)

Defining Culinary Authority: The Transformation of Cooking in France, 1650-1830 by Jennifer J. Davis

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acrossthewavesoftime · 2 years ago

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Don't worry @microcosme11, I can help!

Here's the transcript:

Fouché: "Außer dem König ist noch niemand informiert. Kommt er ungehindert nach Paris durch, dann bin ich der Mann, der die Generale [sic] für ihn mobilisiert hat; stößt er unterwegs auf ernsthafte Schwierigkeiten, dann wird mich der König in der ersten Erregung an die Spitze seiner Regierung rufen. [chuckles] Minister des Kaisers, Minister des Königs--: Minister werde ich auf jeden Fall."

And here's the translation:

Fouché: "Nobody has been informed yet, except for the King. If he [Napoléon] gets through to Paris unchecked, then I am the man who shall have mobilised the generals for him; if he should meet with serious difficulties along the way, then the King shall, in his first excitation, call me to the head of his government. [chuckles] Minister of the Emperor, minister of the King--: I shall become a minister at any rate."

Hundert Tage movie: you can hear Gustaf Gründgens (Fouché) speak fast in German. The court of Louis XVIII just heard that Napoleon has landed in France. Fouché says something about "minister of the emperor, minister of the king"; that's all I understand except for some words here and there.

#reblog #microcosme11 #napoleon #fouché #history #19th century #films #Hundert Tage

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blackswaneuroparedux · 4 years ago

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Anonymous asked: I enjoyed reading your posts about Napoleon’s death and it’s quite timely given its the 200th anniversary of his death this year in May. I was wondering, because you know a lot about military history (your served right? That’s cool to fly combat helicopters) and you live in France but aren’t French, what your take was on Napoleon and how do the French view him? Do they hail him as a hero or do they like others see him like a Hitler or a Stalin? Do you see him as a hero or a villain of history?

5 May 1821 was a memorable date because Napoleon, one of the most iconic figures in world history, died while in bitter exile on a remote island in the South Atlantic Ocean. Napoleon Bonaparte, as you know rose from obscure soldier to a kind of new Caesar, and yet he remains a uniquely controversial figure to this day especially in France. You raise interesting questions about Napoleon and his legacy. If I may reframe your questions in another way. Should we think of him as a flawed but essentially heroic visionary who changed Europe for the better? Or was he simply a military dictator, whose cult of personality and lust for power set a template for the likes of Hitler?

However one chooses to answer this question can we just - to get this out of the way - simply and definitively say that Napoleon was not Hitler. Not even close. No offence intended to you but this is just dumb ahistorical thinking and it’s a lazy lie. This comparison was made by some in the horrid aftermath of the Second World War but only held little currency for only a short time thereafter. Obviously that view didn’t exist before Hitler in the 19th Century and these days I don’t know any serious historian who takes that comparison seriously.

I confess I don’t have a definitive answer if he was a hero or a villain one way or the other because Napoleon has really left a very complicated legacy. It really depends on where you’re coming from.

As a staunch Brit I do take pride in Britain’s victorious war against Napoleonic France - and in a good natured way rubbing it in the noses of French friends at every opportunity I get because it’s in our cultural DNA and it’s bloody good fun (why else would we make Waterloo train station the London terminus of the Eurostar international rail service from its opening in 1994? Or why hang a huge gilded portrait of the Duke of Wellington as the first thing that greets any visitor to the residence of the British ambassador at the British Embassy?). On a personal level I take special pride in knowing my family ancestors did their bit on the battlefield to fight against Napoleon during those tumultuous times. However, as an ex-combat veteran who studied Napoleonic warfare with fan girl enthusiasm, I have huge respect for Napoleon as a brilliant military commander. And to makes things more weird, as a Francophile resident of who loves living and working in France (and my partner is French) I have a grudging but growing regard for Napoleon’s political and cultural legacy, especially when I consider the current dross of political mediocrity on both the political left and the right. So for me it’s a complicated issue how I feel about Napoleon, the man, the soldier, and the political leader.

If it’s not so straightforward for me to answer the for/against Napoleon question then it It’s especially true for the French, who even after 200 years, still have fiercely divided opinions about Napoleon and his legacy - but intriguingly, not always in clear cut ways.

I only have to think about my French neighbours in my apartment building to see how divisive Napoleon the man and his legacy is. Over the past year or so of the Covid lockdown we’ve all gotten to know each other better and we help each other. Over the Covid year we’ve gathered in the inner courtyard for a buffet and just lifted each other spirits up.

One of my neighbours, a crusty old ex-general in the army who has an enviable collection of military history books that I steal, liberate, borrow, often discuss military figures in history like Napoleon over our regular games of chess and a glass of wine. He is from very old aristocracy of the ancien regime and whose family suffered at the hands of ‘madame guillotine’ during the French Revolution. They lost everything. He has mixed emotions about Napoleon himself as an old fashioned monarchist. As a military man he naturally admires the man and the military genius but he despises the secularisation that the French Revolution ushered in as well as the rise of the haute bourgeois as middle managers and bureaucrats by the displacement of the aristocracy.

Another retired widowed neighbour I am close to, and with whom I cook with often and discuss art, is an active arts patron and ex-art gallery owner from a very wealthy family that came from the new Napoleonic aristocracy - ie the aristocracy of the Napoleonic era that Napoleon put in place - but she is dismissive of such titles and baubles. She’s a staunch Republican but is happy to concede she is grateful for Napoleon in bringing order out of chaos. She recognises her own ambivalence when she says she dislikes him for reintroducing slavery in the French colonies but also praises him for firmly supporting Paris’s famed Comédie-Française of which she was a past patron.

Another French neighbour, a senior civil servant in the Elysée, is quite dismissive of Napoleon as a war monger but is grudgingly grateful for civil institutions and schools that Napoleon established and which remain in place today.

My other neighbours - whether they be French families or foreign expats like myself - have similarly divisive and complicated attitudes towards Napoleon.

In 2010 an opinion poll in France asked who was the most important man in French history. Napoleon came second, behind General Charles de Gaulle, who led France from exile during the German occupation in World War II and served as a postwar president.

The split in French opinion is closely mirrored in political circles. The divide is generally down political party lines. On the left, there's the 'black legend' of Bonaparte as an ogre. On the right, there is the 'golden legend' of a strong leader who created durable institutions.

Jacques-Olivier Boudon, a history professor at Paris-Sorbonne University and president of the Napoléon Institute, once explained at a talk I attended that French public opinion has always remained deeply divided over Napoleon, with, on the one hand, those who admire the great man, the conqueror, the military leader and, on the other, those who see him as a bloodthirsty tyrant, the gravedigger of the revolution. Politicians in France, Boudon observed, rarely refer to Napoleon for fear of being accused of authoritarian temptations, or not being good Republicans.

On the left-wing of French politics, former prime minister Lionel Jospin penned a controversial best selling book entitled “the Napoleonic Evil” in which he accused the emperor of “perverting the ideas of the Revolution” and imposing “a form of extreme domination”, “despotism” and “a police state” on the French people. He wrote Napoleon was "an obvious failure" - bad for France and the rest of Europe. When he was booted out into final exile, France was isolated, beaten, occupied, dominated, hated and smaller than before. What's more, Napoleon smothered the forces of emancipation awakened by the French and American revolutions and enabled the survival and restoration of monarchies. Some of the legacies with which Napoleon is credited, including the Civil Code, the comprehensive legal system replacing a hodgepodge of feudal laws, were proposed during the revolution, Jospin argued, though he acknowledges that Napoleon actually delivered them, but up to a point, "He guaranteed some principles of the revolution and, at the same time, changed its course, finished it and betrayed it," For instance, Napoleon reintroduced slavery in French colonies, revived a system that allowed the rich to dodge conscription in the military and did nothing to advance gender equality.

At the other end of the spectrum have been former right-wing prime minister Dominique de Villepin, an aristocrat who was once fancied as a future President, a passionate collector of Napoleonic memorabilia, and author of several works on the subject. As a Napoleonic enthusiast he tells a different story. Napoleon was a saviour of France. If there had been no Napoleon, the Republic would not have survived. Advocates like de Villepin point to Napoleon’s undoubted achievements: the Civil Code, the Council of State, the Bank of France, the National Audit office, a centralised and coherent administrative system, lycées, universities, centres of advanced learning known as école normale, chambers of commerce, the metric system, and an honours system based on merit (which France has to this day). He restored the Catholic faith as the state faith but allowed for the freedom of religion for other faiths including Protestantism and Judaism. These were ambitions unachieved during the chaos of the revolution. As it is, these Napoleonic institutions continue to function and underpin French society. Indeed, many were copied in countries conquered by Napoleon, such as Italy, Germany and Poland, and laid the foundations for the modern state.

Back in 2014, French politicians and institutions in particular were nervous in marking the 200th anniversary of Napoleon's exile. My neighbours and other French friends remember that the commemorations centred around the Chateau de Fontainebleau, the traditional home of the kings of France and was the scene where Napoleon said farewell to the Old Guard in the "White Horse Courtyard" (la cour du Cheval Blanc) at the Palace of Fontainebleau. (The courtyard has since been renamed the "Courtyard of Goodbyes".) By all accounts the occasion was very moving. The 1814 Treaty of Fontainebleau stripped Napoleon of his powers (but not his title as Emperor of the French) and sent him into exile on Elba. The cost of the Fontainebleau "farewell" and scores of related events over those three weekends was shouldered not by the central government in Paris but by the local château, a historic monument and UNESCO World Heritage site, and the town of Fontainebleau.

While the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution that toppled the monarchy and delivered thousands to death by guillotine was officially celebrated in 1989, Napoleonic anniversaries are neither officially marked nor celebrated. For example, over a decade ago, the president and prime minister - at the time, Jacques Chirac and Dominque de Villepin - boycotted a ceremony marking the 200th anniversary of the battle of Austerlitz, Napoleon's greatest military victory. Both men were known admirers of Napoleon and yet political calculation and optics (as media spin doctors say) stopped them from fully honouring Napoleon’s crowning military glory.

Optics is everything. The division of opinion in France is perhaps best reflected in the fact that, in a city not shy of naming squares and streets after historical figures, there is not a single “Boulevard Napoleon” or “Place Napoleon” in Paris. On the streets of Paris, there are just two statues of Napoleon. One stands beneath the clock tower at Les Invalides (a military hospital), the other atop a column in the Place Vendôme. Napoleon's red marble tomb, in a crypt under the Invalides dome, is magnificent, perhaps because his remains were interred there during France's Second Empire, when his nephew, Napoleon III, was on the throne.

There are no squares, nor places, nor boulevards named for Napoleon but as far as I know there is one narrow street, the rue Bonaparte, running from the Luxembourg Gardens to the River Seine in the old Latin Quarter. And, that, too, is thanks to Napoleon III. For many, and I include myself, it’s a poor return by the city to the man who commissioned some of its most famous monuments, including the Arc de Triomphe and the Pont des Arts over the River Seine.

It's almost as if Napoleon Bonaparte is not part of the national story.

How Napoleon fits into that national story is something historians, French and non-French, have been grappling with ever since Napoleon died. The plain fact is Napoleon divides historians, what precisely he represents is deeply ambiguous and his political character is the subject of heated controversy. It’s hard for historians to sift through archival documents to make informed judgements and still struggle to separate the man from the myth.

One proof of this myth is in his immortality. After Hitler’s death, there was mostly an embarrassed silence; after Stalin’s, little but denunciation. But when Napoleon died on St Helena in 1821, much of Europe and the Americas could not help thinking of itself as a post-Napoleonic generation. His presence haunts the pages of Stendhal and Alfred de Vigny. In a striking and prescient phrase, Chateaubriand prophesied the “despotism of his memory”, a despotism of the fantastical that in many ways made Romanticism possible and that continues to this day.

The raw material for the future Napoleon myth was provided by one of his St Helena confidants, the Comte de las Cases, whose account of conversations with the great man came out shortly after his death and ran in repeated editions throughout the century. De las Cases somehow metamorphosed the erstwhile dictator into a herald of liberty, the emperor into a slayer of dynasties rather than the founder of his own. To the “great man” school of history Napoleon was grist to their mill, and his meteoric rise redefined the meaning of heroism in the modern world.

The Marxists, for all their dislike of great men, grappled endlessly with the meaning of the 18th Brumaire; indeed one of France’s most eminent Marxist historians, George Lefebvre, wrote what arguably remains the finest of all biographies of him.

It was on this already vast Napoleon literature, a rich terrain for the scholar of ideas, that the great Dutch historian Pieter Geyl was lecturing in 1940 when he was arrested and sent to Buchenwald. There he composed what became one of the classics of historiography, a seminal book entitled Napoleon: For and Against, which charted how generations of intellectuals had happily served up one Napoleon after another. Like those poor souls who crowded the lunatic asylums of mid-19th century France convinced that they were Napoleon, generations of historians and novelists simply could not get him out of their head.

The debate runs on today no less intensely than in the past. Post-Second World War Marxists would argue that he was not, in fact, revolutionary at all. Eric Hobsbawm, a notable British Marxist historian, argued that ‘Most-perhaps all- of his ideas were anticipated by the Revolution’ and that Napoleon’s sole legacy was to twist the ideals of the French Revolution, and make them ‘more conservative, hierarchical and authoritarian’.

This contrasts deeply with the view William Doyle holds of Napoleon. Doyle described Bonaparte as ‘the Revolution incarnate’ and saw Bonaparte’s humbling of Europe’s other powers, the ‘Ancien Regimes’, as a necessary precondition for the birth of the modern world. Whatever one thinks of Napoleon’s character, his sharp intellect is difficult to deny. Even Paul Schroeder, one of Napoleon’s most scathing critics, who condemned his conduct of foreign policy as a ‘criminal enterprise’ never denied Napoleon’s intellect. Schroder concluded that Bonaparte ‘had an extraordinary capacity for planning, decision making, memory, work, mastery of detail and leadership’. The question of whether Napoleon used his genius for the betterment or the detriment of the world, is the heart of the debate which surrounds him.

France's foremost Napoleonic scholar, Jean Tulard, put forward the thesis that Bonaparte was the architect of modern France. "And I would say also pâtissier [a cake and pastry maker] because of the administrative millefeuille that we inherited." Oddly enough, in North America the multilayered mille-feuille cake is called ‘a napoleon.’ Tulard’s works are essential reading of how French historians have come to tackle the question of Napoleon’s legacy. He takes the view that if Napoleon had not crushed a Royalist rebellion and seized power in 1799, the French monarchy and feudalism would have returned, Tulard has written. "Like Cincinnatus in ancient Rome, Napoleon wanted a dictatorship of public salvation. He gets all the power, and, when the project is finished, he returns to his plough." In the event, the old order was never restored in France. When Louis XVIII became emperor in 1814, he served as a constitutional monarch.

In England, until recently the views on Napoleon have traditionally less charitable and more cynical. Professor Christopher Clark, the notable Cambridge University European historian, has written. "Napoleon was not a French patriot - he was first a Corsican and later an imperial figure, a journey in which he bypassed any deep affiliation with the French nation," Clark believed Napoleon’s relationship with the French Revolution is deeply ambivalent.

Did he stabilise the revolutionary state or shut it down mercilessly? Clark believes Napoleon seems to have done both. Napoleon rejected democracy, he suffocated the representative dimension of politics, and he created a culture of courtly display. A month before crowning himself emperor, Napoleon sought approval for establishing an empire from the French in a plebiscite; 3,572,329 voted in favour, 2,567 against. If that landslide resembles an election in North Korea, well, this was no secret ballot. Each ‘yes’ or ‘no’ was recorded, along with the name and address of the voter. Evidently, an overwhelming majority knew which side their baguette was buttered on.

His extravagant coronation in Notre Dame in December 1804 cost 8.5 million francs (€6.5 million or $8.5 million in today's money). He made his brothers, sisters and stepchildren kings, queens, princes and princesses and created a Napoleonic aristocracy numbering 3,500. By any measure, it was a bizarre progression for someone often described as ‘a child of the Revolution.’ By crowning himself emperor, the genuine European kings who surrounded him were not convinced. Always a warrior first, he tried to represent himself as a Caesar, and he wears a Roman toga on the bas-reliefs in his tomb. His coronation crown, a laurel wreath made of gold, sent the same message. His icon, the eagle, was also borrowed from Rome. But Caesar's legitimacy depended on military victories. Ultimately, Napoleon suffered too many defeats.

These days Napoleon the man and his times remain very much in fashion and we are living through something of a new golden age of Napoleonic literature. Those historians who over the past decade or so have had fun denouncing him as the first totalitarian dictator seem to have it all wrong: no angel, to be sure, he ended up doing far more at far less cost than any modern despot. In his widely praised 2014 biography, Napoleon the Great, Andrew Roberts writes: “The ideas that underpin our modern world - meritocracy, equality before the law, property rights, religious toleration, modern secular education, sound finances, and so on - were championed, consolidated, codified and geographically extended by Napoleon. To them he added a rational and efficient local administration, an end to rural banditry, the encouragement of science and the arts, the abolition of feudalism and the greatest codification of laws since the fall of the Roman empire.”

Roberts partly bases his historical judgement on newly released historical documents about Napoleon that were only available in the past decade and has proved to be a boon for all Napoleonic scholars. Newly released 33,000 letters Napoleon wrote that still survive are now used extensively to illustrate the astonishing capacity that Napoleon had for compartmentalising his mind - he laid down the rules for a girls’ boarding school on the eve of the battle of Borodino, for example, and the regulations for Paris’s Comédie-Française while camped in the Kremlin. They also show Napoleon’s extraordinary capacity for micromanaging his empire: he would write to the prefect of Genoa telling him not to allow his mistress into his box at the theatre, and to a corporal of the 13th Line regiment warning him not to drink so much.

For me to have my own perspective on Napoleon is tough. The problem is that nothing with Napoleon is simple, and almost every aspect of his personality is a maddening paradox. He was a military genius who led disastrous campaigns. He was a liberal progressive who reinstated slavery in the French colonies. And take the French Revolution, which came just before Napoleon’s rise to power, his relationship with the French Revolution is deeply ambivalent. Did he stabilise it or shut it down? I agree with those British and French historians who now believe Napoleon seems to have done both.

On the one hand, Napoleon did bring order to a nation that had been drenched in blood in the years after the Revolution. The French people had endured the crackdown known as the 'Reign of Terror', which saw so many marched to the guillotine, as well as political instability, corruption, riots and general violence. Napoleon’s iron will managed to calm the chaos. But he also rubbished some of the core principles of the Revolution. A nation which had boldly brought down the monarchy had to watch as Napoleon crowned himself Emperor, with more power and pageantry than Louis XVI ever had. He also installed his relatives as royals across Europe, creating a new aristocracy. In the words of French politician and author Lionel Jospin, 'He guaranteed some principles of the Revolution and at the same time, changed its course, finished it and betrayed it.'

He also had a feared henchman in the form of Joseph Fouché, who ran a secret police network which instilled dread in the population. Napoleon’s spies were everywhere, stifling political opposition. Dozens of newspapers were suppressed or shut down. Books had to be submitted for approval to the Commission of Revision, which sounds like something straight out of George Orwell. Some would argue Hitler and Stalin followed this playbook perfectly. But here come the contradictions. Napoleon also championed education for all, founding a network of schools. He championed the rights of the Jews. In the territories conquered by Napoleon, laws which kept Jews cooped up in ghettos were abolished. 'I will never accept any proposals that will obligate the Jewish people to leave France,' he once said, 'because to me the Jews are the same as any other citizen in our country.'

He also, crucially, developed the Napoleonic Code, a set of laws which replaced the messy, outdated feudal laws that had been used before. The Napoleonic Code clearly laid out civil laws and due processes, establishing a society based on merit and hard work, rather than privilege. It was rolled out far beyond France, and indisputably helped to modernise Europe. While it certainly had its flaws – women were ignored by its reforms, and were essentially regarded as the property of men – the Napoleonic Code is often brandished as the key evidence for Napoleon’s progressive credentials. In the words of historian Andrew Roberts, author of Napoleon the Great, 'the ideas that underpin our modern world… were championed by Napoleon'.

What about Napoleon’s battlefield exploits? If anything earns comparisons with Hitler, it’s Bonaparte’s apparent appetite for conquest. His forces tore down republics across Europe, and plundered works of art, much like the Nazis would later do. A rampant imperialist, Napoleon gleefully grabbed some of the greatest masterpieces of the Renaissance, and allegedly boasted, 'the whole of Rome is in Paris.'

Napoleon has long enjoyed a stellar reputation as a field commander – his capacities as a military strategist, his ability to read a battle, the painstaking detail with which he made sure that he cold muster a larger force than his adversary or took maximum advantage of the lie of the land – these are stuff of the military legend that has built up around him. It is not without its critics, of course, especially among those who have worked intensively on the later imperial campaigns, in the Peninsula, in Russia, or in the final days of the Empire at Waterloo.

Doubts about his judgment, and allegations of rashness, have been raised in the context of some of his victories, too, most notably, perhaps, at Marengo. But overall his reputation remains largely intact, and his military campaigns have been taught in the curricula of military academies from Saint-Cyr to Sandhurst, alongside such great tacticians as Alexander the Great and Hannibal.

Historians may query his own immodest opinion that his presence on the battlefield was worth an extra forty thousand men to his cause, but it is clear that when he was not present (as he was not for most of the campaign in Spain) the French were wont to struggle. Napoleon understood the value of speed and surprise, but also of structures and loyalties. He reformed the army by introducing the corps system, and he understood military aspirations, rewarding his men with medals and honours; all of which helped ensure that he commanded exceptional levels of personal loyalty from his troops.

Yet, I do find it hard to side with the more staunch defenders of Napoleon who say his reputation as a war monger is to some extent due to British propaganda at the time. They will point out that the Napoleonic Wars, far from being Napoleon’s fault, were just a continuation of previous conflicts that arose thanks to the French Revolution. Napoleon, according to this analysis, inherited a messy situation, and his only real crime was to be very good at defeating enemies on the battlefield. I think that is really pushing things too far. I mean deciding to invade Spain and then Russia were his decisions to invade and conquer.

He was, by any measure, a genius of war. Even his nemesis the Duke of Wellington, when asked who the greatest general of his time was, replied: 'In this age, in past ages, in any age, Napoleon.'

I will qualify all this and agree that Napoleon’s Russian campaign has been rightly held up as a fatal folly which killed so many of his men, but this blunder – epic as it was – should not be compared to Hitler’s wars of evil aggression. Most historians will agree that comparing the two men is horribly flattering to Hitler - a man fuelled by visceral, genocidal hate - and demeaning to Napoleon, who was a product of Enlightenment thinking and left a legacy that in many ways improved Europe.

Napoleon was, of course, no libertarian, and no pluralist. He would tolerate no opposition to his rule, and though it was politicians and civilians who imposed his reforms, the army was never far behind. But comparisons with twentieth-century dictators are well wide of the mark. While he insisted on obedience from those he administered, his ideology was based not on division or hatred, but on administrative efficiency and submission to the law. And the state he believed in remained stubbornly secular.

In Catholic southern Europe, of course, that was not an approach with which it was easy to acquiesce; and disorder, insurgency and partisan attacks can all be counted among the results. But these were principles on which the Emperor would not and could not give ground. If he had beliefs they were not religious or spiritual beliefs, but the secular creed of a man who never forgot that he owed both his military career and his meteoric political rise to the French Revolution, and who never quite abandoned, amidst the monarchical symbolism and the court pomp of the Empire, the republican dreams of his youth. When he claimed, somewhat ambiguously, after the coup of 18 Brumaire that `the Revolution was over’, he almost certainly meant that the principles of 1789 had at last been consummated, and that the continuous cycle of violence of the 1790s could therefore come to an end.

When the Empire was declared in 1804, the wording, again, might seem curious, the French being informed that the `Republic would henceforth be ruled by an Emperor’. Napoleon might be a dictator, but a part at least of him remained a son of the Enlightenment.

The arguments over Napoleon’s status will continue - and that in itself is a testament to the power of one of the most complex figures ever to straddle the world’s stage.

Will the fascination with Napoleon continue for another 200 years?

In France, at least, enthusiasm looks set to diminish. Napoleon and his exploits are scarcely mentioned in French schools anymore. Stéphane Guégan, curator of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, which, among other First Empire artworks, houses a plaster model of Napoleon dressed as a Roman emperor astride a horse, has described France's fascination with him as ‘a national illness.’ He believes that the people who met him were fascinated by his charm. And today, even the most hostile to Napoleon also face this charm. So there is a difficulty to apprehend the duality of this character. As he wrote, “He was born from the revolution, he extended and finished it, and after 1804 he turns into a despot, a dictator.”

In France, Guégan aptly observes, there is a kind of nostalgia, not for dictatorship but for strong leaders. "Our age is suffering a lack of imagination and political utopia,"

Here I think Guégan is onto something. Napoleon’s stock has always risen or fallen according to the vicissitudes of world events and fortunes of France itself.

In the past, history was the study of great men and women. Today the focus of teaching is on trends, issues and movements. France in 1800 is no longer about Louis XVI and Napoleon Bonaparte. It's about the industrial revolution. Man does not make history. History makes men. Or does it? The study of history makes a mug out of those with such simple ideological driven conceits.

For two hundred years on, the French still cannot agree on whether Napoleon was a hero or a villain as he has swung like a pendulum according to the gravitational pull of historical events and forces.

The question I keep asking of myself and also to French friends with whom I discuss such things is what kind of Napoleon does our generation need?

Thanks for your question.

#question #ask #napoleon #french #french history #history #military history #bonaparte #france #historiography #republic #historians #personal

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nordleuchten · 3 years ago

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heyy, so, could you talk about what Laf did/fight for while he was into politics? both before and after the french revolution?

and also, a completly unrelated/random question to the one above, but do we have much information Lafayette's mannerisms? like, how he acted and stuff like that?

Thank youu <3<3

Dear msrandonstuff,

I am terrible sorry that it took me so long to answer you but here I am now, with a long and hopefully satisfying answer. (As I know there are some other “older” asks from different people - I will come to them, I promise! I never ever delete asks and I will answer each and every one of them eventually, but it may take me a bit of time.)

La Fayette always had been political - that is to say, he always was opinionated. But in France prior to the French Revolution, there were not too many places where one could actively work on a political agenda. There was no Senate or House of Representatives. That does not meant however, that there was no chance for political manoeuvring - it was simply less straight forward. La Fayette, as a young man, was very much in disfavour of the court in Versailles so he was not one to participate in Court politics for example.

La Fayette’s first real political undertaking was to go to America and join the War for Independence. Not fighting in the war, no, going to America was in and on itself a political statement. Britain and France were at peace at the time - on the paper at least. It was an incredibly fragile peace and both parties knew that it would probably not hold up for too long. La Fayette’s solo action was seriously frowned upon, because due to his and his families position at court his actions could be interpreted as the unofficial policy of the King and that in turn could have provoked war. France had already been sympathizing with America and war was more or less unavoidable in the end, but that did not mean that Louis XVI was any more pleased by La Fayette and what he had done.

The American War of Independence and his war-service served very much to mature La Fayette. He learned and developed a lot during these years. One of his greatest contributions for the Revolution was certainly his lobbying for America in France. He really started his “charm offensive” after he was wounded at Brandywine. He suddenly had a lot of free time at his hand and otherwise nothing to do. He also had been in America long enough to get an overview, assess the situation, meet different people. After his wounding, La Fayette now had the two things he needed to pursue politics. A defined aim (help America gain her freedom) and the influence that was needed to achieve said aims (a dashing young General, from a noble lineage, a beautiful wife and influential family, wounded in a battle against France’s arch-enemy).

In 1779 La Fayette returned to France, to see his family again and to push Americas interests even further. There is this absolutely lovely quote from the Count de Maurepas, the French prime minister at the time, during a meeting of the royal council.

It is fortunate for the King that Lafayette does not take it into his head to strip Versailles of its furniture to send to his dear Americans, as his majesty would be unable to refuse it.

You see, La Fayette was not subtle, he was not scheming. On the contrary, he was painfully obvious at times. America was at the heart of his every intentions and everybody and their dog was quite aware of it. It was also around this time that La Fayette started to pay more mind to the way he himself was represented. La Fayette knew what he wanted and he also was starting to come about to achieve it. See, La Fayette wanted glory for himself. As a younger man he often denied it or played it down, but as he grew older, he readily admitted it (even to Napoléon, in one of the best letters he ever wrote). Even if he denied it, his friends and the people around him knew it just as well. If La Fayette had a Dollar for every letter from a friend who warned him not to let his desire for glory get the better of him - well, La Fayette’s finances probably would not have been as dire as they had been at times. His tendency for glory seeking would have certainly made him a highly displeasing individual to be around, would he not have been seeking glory for “the right causes”. He supported the ideas of freedom and liberty, of the emancipation of enslaved people, giving more power to the poor and underrepresented, he even supported certain aspects of the early women-rights movement. He supported all these ideas whole-heartedly, he wanted to be their champion and they should champion him - for La Fayette it was the perfect bargain. James Madison phrased it so wonderfully in a letter to Thomas Jefferson from October 17, 1784:

The time I have lately passed with the M. has given me a pretty thorough insight into his character. With great natural frankness of temper he unites much address with very considerable talents, a strong thirst of praise and popularity. In his politics he says his three hobby horses are the alliance between France and the United States, the union of the latter and the manumission of the slaves. The two former are the dearer to him as they are connected with his personal glory. The last does him real honor as it is a proof of his humanity

But back to France in 1780. The French King promised to send troops to America and La Fayette wanted to be named commander of the combined French troops - something that was not going to happen. There were far more senior and experienced and better suited Generals for this undertaking so La Fayette had to return to being “just” an American General.

Soon after the Battle of Yorktown, La Fayette returned to France and helped in the negotiation of the Treaty of Paris, the treaty that would bring a formal end to the conflict in America. His previous experiences in politics were letter writing and lobbying, negotiating with the enemy after a campaign and the bit of petty rank-games that took place in the Continental Army. The Treaty of Paris now was altogether a far greater occasion. Not only that, it is also around this time that La Fayette’s involvement and … zeal really starts to get on peoples nerves. Samuel Osgood wrote to John Adams on December 7, 1783:

The Marquis LaFayette has zealously interested himself in all our important Matters. He assumes the Language of a true born American, & is a very popular Character in the Country. But if I Mistake not he is deeply immersed in European Politicks, which are the worst that can possibly exist for America. When he last left this Country he went with an evident Design to assist our Commissioners in negotiating the Peace. It was pretty plainly intimated that he wish’d to be one of the Number. Had he been added to them, it would not have been more extraordinary, than some other Matters that have taken Place. An Instruction however to you, to consult and advise with him, was carried. I do not apprehend you were much the wiser for the Information you might have obtain’d from that Quarter. Few Americans are worthy to be trusted in some of the most important concerns of the United States—& not a single Foreigner.

As already mentioned in the letter, the American ambassadors to the different European courts were instructed to confer with La Fayette - and not everybody liked that.

Nevertheless, La Fayette continued to pursue politics. His political career can be divided into several different sections. His politics prior to 1789 were more unfocused. He was not the member of a political body where he could introduce and vote on a specific political bill. His role was more that of an influencer. He was a well-known and well-regarded figure of public life. He hosted salons and had his “American Dinners” on Mondays. Like minded people came together and exchanged and cultivated their ideas. People were quite thrilled to be invited by the La Fayette’s (unless they were American, then they were sometimes less thrilled). La Fayette also acted on his political ideas, namely on the “manumission of the slaves”. He bought a plantation and started to implement reforms. I wrote in detail about La Fayette and his plantation here.

The French Revolution marked a new phase in La Fayette’s political life, one where he could directly impact the politics of the day. He first became a Delegate of the Assembly of Notables that was formed in 1788 to establish a general tax, without calling in the Estates General. La Fayette supported the tax reform. Soon the Assembly was deadlocked and more or less useless and the Estates General were formed in 1789 and La Fayette again became a delegate. He represented the second estate, the nobility and while there were some nobles who purposely chose to represent the third estate, there is little indication that La Fayette ever contemplated such an idea as well. He was however highly sympathetic towards the third estate and supported their call for a voting system where every single delegate had one vote and not every estate as a whole. He also supported the reforms from August 4-5, 1789 - the abolishing of the feudal rights and the abolishing of the privileges of the nobility. This last proposal was actually first made by La Fayette’s brother-in-law, Louis Marie Antoine de Noailles, the Viscount de Noailles.

La Fayette was at heart a centrist. He supported the reforms and thought them necessary but he would have never dreamed of abolishing the monarchy in France. He presented himself in equal parts a Revolutionary, with regard to his service in America, and a loyal subject who wanted to uphold the status of the king. There was no contradiction in that for La Fayette, loyal to both the Monarchy and the Revolution. The more extreme and violent the Revolution became, the more he was criticized for this approach. Although many of his closest friends had similar point of view, there were even political groups calling themselves the Fayettists, some thought him too moderate (or too radical). One of these gents was the Marquis de Concordent. He asked a mutual friend to go to La Fayette and do the following:

(…) take along in your pocket a little vial of Potomac water and a sprinkler made from the wood of an Continental Army rifle (…) to exorcize the devil of aristocracy (…).”

With the onset of the French Revolution and La Fayette’s eager participation in reforms, his standing at the court soured. Things were still rather well at the begin and many of La Fayette’s friends and other nobles joined in. But the situation, as we all know, became more and more heated with time. It became increasingly harder to follow a middle ground and you were either a Royalist or a Revolutionary. After the Woman’s March to Versailles in 1789, when La Fayette entered the palace he had to passed a hall with courtiers. One of them shouted, “There goes Cromwell.” La Fayette was visible shaken by this statement but replied calmly “Cromwell, Cromwell would not have entered here alone!”

At this point in the French Revolution, a great deal of the court saw La Fayette as a French Cromwell. There were all sorts of rumours, that La Fayette wanted to make himself King for example. Different factions at court even went so far as to actively undermine La Fayette’s bid for the position of Mayor in Paris, in 179x. In hindsight a La Fayette in power would have been far better for them then a, let’s say Robespierre, in power but at the time the aristocracy could not know that. They simply did not understood his motives. Add to that La Fayette’s position as commander in chief of the National Guard - although the guard was at times famously unreliable, they also could be tremendously loyal. More than once was La Fayette accused of using the guard as his own private army. After slowly but surely losing the favour and the trust of the court, La Fayette also lost greatly in the eyes of the public. The Champ de Mars Massacre and the Flight of the Royal Family to Varennes did his reputation much harm.

You could fill whole books with La Fayette’s role during the French Revolution but I want to bring this particular chapter of his political career to an end, in order to move on. La Fayette completely underestimated the French Revolution. He though France could just do what America had done and all would be well - he did not realised that the situation was so very different. He furthermore tried to be everywhere at once. Be the commander of the National Guard, a delegate to all the different assemblies, the mayor of Paris, a general with a field command - he probably would have fared much better, if he had been more focused with his actions. Indeed, he was among the founders of different political groups/parties that later would become quite radical in the absence of La Fayette and other more conservative people.

The years right after his imprisonment were largely devoid of active politics. He had more important things to do. Caring for his ill wife Adrienne, finding a way to pay off his enormous debts, regain some of his property, regain his status as a French citizen, find a new occupation … but he was still opinionated. During this time La Fayette participated less in politics than he embodied political manoeuvring himself. He and his family could not return to France after his release, because his and his families name was still on the list of émigrés. He was exiled and in the search of a new home he turned his mind towards America - naturally. While La Fayette himself gave voice to some reasons while he could not simply migrate to America, America also, subtly, remarked that from a political point of view La Fayette’s arrival in America would not have been good for them. The Marquis went to the duchy of Holstein, then a part of Denmark. Relatives of his wife had settled there and it therefore seemed reasonable to move to Holstein (Wittmold to be precise) as well. There were many French Royalists living in and around that area and most of them were not amused by the arrival of La Fayette - in their eyes, he was the personified Revolution. In the end, to avoid conflict, La Fayette moved his family further away to Lehmkuhlen and in the end he settled in the Netherlands to be closer to France.

La Fayette used the turmoil during Napoléon’s Coup d’État in 1799 to slip back into France. His name and the names of many of his family members were still on the list of émigrés so legally they could not return to France. But then La Fayette did so anyway and Napoléon was not amused. Adrienne, La Fayette’s wife who was able to return to France legally, had a hard time convincing Napoléon that the return of her husband was no big deal. Napoléon eventually restored La Fayette’s citizenship in March of 1800. La Fayette was banned from attending the memorial service for the American General George Washington who died on December 14, 1799. George Washington had been a close friend, confident and father figure for La Fayette. Despite all this, La Fayette’s and Napoléon’s relationship still was rather friendly. They actually had a certain respect for each other as Generals but especially Napoléon was from the start quite wary around the Marquis. La Fayette had been vastly popular in France and still was. His popularity had greatly suffered during the second half of the French Revolution but his time in prison and the actions of his wife had partly helped to restore it. La Fayette had no political ambitions when he returned to France and his popularity was still tarnished but he nevertheless could have posed a threat to Napoléon if he really, really would have wanted that. The two of them met a few times at social functions and also exchanged letters but their relationship deteriorated more and more with time. They were similar in one aspect though, they both longed for glory – but their approach was different.

Napoléon hoped to gain La Fayette’s support for his government but La Fayette refused to serve in the Senate and to become the French ambassador to his beloved America, although Napoléon suggested and offered both positions to him through different sources. La Fayette was also offered to be made a member of the Legion of Honour. He again refused. He had no interest of being overly entangled with Napoléon. Although not being outspoken in public La Fayette would not keep his opinions for himself if somebody asked him about his opinions. Actually, there was no need asking him about his opinions, La Fayette was one of the most well-known men in France, everybody even remotely interested in politics knew his stance. Bayard Tuckerman records in his book The Life of Lafayette a conversation between La Fayette and Napoléon from the spring of 1802:

‘I [Napoléon] must tell you, General Lafayette, and I see with regret that, by your manner of expressing yourself on the acts of the government you give to its enemies the weight of your name.’ Lafayette replied, ‘What better can I do? I live in retirement in the country, I avoid occasions for speaking; but whenever anyone comes to ask me whether your regime conforms to my ideas of liberty, I shall answer that it does not; for, General, I certainly wish to be prudent, but I shall not be false.’

La Fayette did not trust Napoléon and did not wish to be part of his government. La Fayette voted against the consulship for life and this decision was at least from Napoléon’s point of view the final nail in the coffin of their relationship. La Fayette explained to Napoléon himself in a letter from May 20, 1802:

General – When a man who is deeply impressed with a sense of the gratitude he owes you, and who is too ardent a lover of glory to be wholly indifferent to yours, connects his suffrage with conditional restrictions, those restrictions not only secure him from suspicion, but prove amply that no one will more gladly than himself behold in you the chief magistrate for life, of a free and independent republic.

But La Fayette was still somewhat out of Napoléon’s reach. But his son, who joined the military in 1800, and his son-in-law, Louis de Lasteyrie, were not. Although both of them and especially Georges, distinguished themselves in battles, they were not promoted. Whenever a promotion for one of them was up for debate, it was vetoed. La Fayette’s son and son-in-law therefor left the army in September of 1807 – there was just no point in serving any longer.

During the 100 Days, Napoléon’s brief return to power after his exile on St. Helena and prior to his exile on Elba, La Fayette became outspoken once again. He had been elected to the Chamber of Representatives (not to be confused with the Chamber of Deputies; both were the lower chambers of the French Parliament but the Chamber of Deputies was active during the Bourbon Restoration, the Chamber of Representatives was only active during The Hundred Days) in 1814. He had previously argued that too little people in France were eligible to vote the members of the Chamber of Deputies that such a political body could never represent France. Anyway, La Fayette was pretty silent as a Representative until June 21, 1815, after Napoléon’s defeat at Waterloo. The Chamber meet early that day to discuss the general state of affairs. La Fayette rose and proposed the following:

Representatives! For the first time during many years you hear a voice, which the old friends of liberty will yet recognize. I rise to address you concerning the dangers to which the country is exposed. The sinister reports which have been circulated during the last two days, are unhappily confirmed. This is the moment to rally round the national colours—the Tricoloured Standard of 1788—the standard of liberty, equality, and public order. It is you alone who can now protect the country from foreign attacks, and internal dissensions. It is you alone who can secure the independence and the honour of France.

Permit a veteran in the sacred cause of liberty, in all times a stranger to the spirit of faction, to submit to you some resolutions which appear to him to be demanded by a sense of the public danger, and by the love of our country. They are such as, I feel persuaded, you will see the necessity of adopting:

I. The Chamber of Deputies declares that the independence of the nation is menaced.

II. The Chamber declares its sittings permanent. Any attempt to dissolve it, shall be considered high treason. Whosoever shall render himself culpable of such an attempt shall be considered a traitor to his country, and immediately treated as such.

III. The Army of the Line, and the National Guards, who have fought, and still fight, for the liberty, the independence, and the territory of France, have merited well of the country.

IV. The Minister of the Interior is invited to assemble the principal officers of the Parisian national Guard, in order to consult on the means of providing it with arms, and of completing this corps of citizens, whose tried patriotism and zeal offer a sure guarantee for the liberty, prosperity, and tranquillity of the capital, and for the inviolability of the national representatives.

V. The Ministers of War, of Foreign Affairs, of Police, and of the Interior are invited to repair immediately to the sittings of the Chamber.

The resolution was soon adopted with the exception of the fourth paragraph. Please note that the exact wording of La Fayette’s little speech differs a little bit from translation to translation, but the gist is always the same. La Fayette more or less openly called for the abdication of the Emperor Napoléon. When Napoléon’s brother urged the Chamber to reconsider La Fayette answered him that (again, different sources translate slightly different but this is the translation from Tuckerman’s Life of Lafayette):

Who shall dare to accuse the French nation of inconstancy to the Emperor Napoleon? That nation has followed his bloody footsteps through the sands of Egypt and through the wastes of Russia; over fifty fields of battle; in disaster as faithfully as victory; and it is for having thus devotedly followed him that we now mourn the blood of three millions of Frenchmen.

Yes, la Fayette could give quite a speech, if he wanted. Other the next days Napoléon was urged to abdicate (June 22, 1815) with the threat that the Chamber would otherwise abdicate for him. The Chamber selected a committee of fife men to meet with delegates of the allied forces for the allies had promised peace negotiations, provided Napoléon was not longer in power. One of these fife men was La Fayette. There are not too many letters from La Fayette about these events that I can show you, but here is an excerpt from a letter to Thomas Jefferson from October 10, 1815:

In your Letters of Last year, anterior to the first Abdication of Bonaparte, you Had Expressed a due Sense of that Character who Having it in His Power to Be a Blessing did prefer to Become a Curse to Mankind. His despotism and His follies Had made the Restoration of the Bourbons, notwithstanding foreign invasion, a popular Event—They Returned the Compliment. Their prejudiced mismanagement, the more Glaring improprieties of Privilege-men Gave Napoleon the Opportunity to Reappear as a Representative of the Revolution. Whatever may Have Been a few Subaltern Intrigues, the Great, the Efficacious Conspiracy in His Behalf may Be attributed to the Counter Revl[uti]onary party.

in those transactions I took No part altho’ I would Have Readily assisted in Opposing Napoleon Had Not the patriotic System me[t] the Same objections which Had Ruined the Constitutional throne of 92.

We then Have Seen the Imperial destroyer of french Liberty Reassuming a Republican Language, Bowing to [na]tional Sovereignty, allowing a free press, and altho’ Vindictive or Arbitrary acts too often Betray’d old Habits, persuading many patriots to Rejoice at His Conversion—Not So did I—But While I Shunned personal Communication with Him, I declared that, if a free Representation was Convened, I would Stand a Candidate—we were, my Son and myself elected.

at the Same time a million of foreign invaders were, in Concert with Lewis the 18t and the elder Branch of His family, Led Against Bonaparte, was it Said, against what and whom the Event Has proved—the defense of national independance and territory Became, of Course, our principal object. it was my opinion that Unanimity and vigor Could Better Be Roused By a popular than By the Imperial Government—The Majority of the Assembly and Army depended more on the General Ship of Napoleon altho’ His whole troops did little Exceed two Hundred thousand. So we all joined on that Line of Resistance. No impediment was thrown, Every Assistance was Given. Never did our Heroïc Army fight Better than at waterloo. a Stubborn Mistake of Bonaparte Lost the day. He deserted His Soldiers, and Determined to dissolve our Assembly, usurp dictatorial powers, prefering the chances of Confusion and involving destruction to those of firmness and patriotism. That part of the impending Evils was timely prevented. it might Have Been the Case with the other part, altho’ Coming upon us in a Storm, Had Not the old diplomacy in poland, Napoleon’s policy in Spain, the Spirit of pilnitz in 91, and of the Last Congress at vienna Been far Surpassed By the present Coalition.

inclosed you will find a few pieces Relative to our Late House of Representatives. their declaration of the 5t July 1815 Congenial with the principles of 1789 are an additional proof that if the french people Have deplorably Erred in the means they Have Steadily persevered in the primary object of the Revolution.

After Napoléon’s abdication, La Fayette was for a short time considered as a possible Commissioner for the Government but he soon again retired to La Grange with his family. His son Georges Washington had been a Representative with him and Georges Washington’s can politics can be described in very few words - he mostly did exactly was his father did.

Despite his previous aversion, La Fayette stayed a member of the restored Chamber of Deputies until he lost his re-election in 1823. He was extremely vexed by that and I always thought that his loss 1823 may have even played a tiny part in his decision to visit America 1824/25 - after all, running off to America had in the past always served him incredible well. And while his main reasons to visit America once more laid definitely elsewhere, it again did him well. France took notice that there was a whole nation that cheered La Fayette on for more than a years. No, they did not grew tired of him over all these months, they cheered on his last day in America just as much as on his first day. And you will never guess who was again elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1827 - La Fayette!

Whenever he was a member of any Chamber, he was a member of the opposition. During his stay in America the King, Louis XVIII had died and had been succeeded by his brother Charles X. Now, while La Fayette’s relationship with Louis XVIII had always been rather tense, the two of them were still civil but the Marquis relationship with Charles X was a disaster. Charles X dissolved the Chamber soon after the election because we was not pleased by the selection of members. La Fayette and many others who displeased the king were again re-elected. La Fayette continued his opposition while Charles X continued to strip the French people of their rights. All these actions cumulated into what is now known as the July Revolution of 1830. La Fayette readily and eagerly participated in this revolution (because two revolutions are just not enough for this man). I will cut the following events a bit short and I apologize for that (my second apology today) but the events are quite complex and are often ignored by biographers, this answer is already mighty long I would like to pay extra close attention on these events in a separate post. Furthermore, I have a few great primary sources at hand that I have to sort/transcribe/translate first.

In short, Charles X was forced to abdicate and France was now in a position where they had to decide if they wanted another Monarch or another try at a Republic. La Fayette was in a very strong position at the time and it was understood that if a Republic was declared La Fayette even had chances of becoming President. He furthermore was made Commander-in-Chief of the newly formed National Guard again. In the end, after much consideration and debates with Americans and Frenchmen, he decided that France was not yet ready for a stable Republic and a Monarchy was best. Louis-Philippe I was made the King of the French people.

It seems as if France finally had a King with whom La Fayette could get along with - well, no. The two of them quickly came to be disillusioned to the point where La Fayette participated in a plot to overthrow Louis-Philippe I. He and his son planned on attending a secret meeting between like minded people and only narrowly avoided being arrested. The feud between La Fayette and the King even continued after the death of the former - but since I still have your ask about La Fayette’s death and funeral, we will tackle this aspect then and there.

I know I cut corners here and I also know that you asked about La Fayette’s mannerism as well but I would like end the post here. I promise though that I will make two separate posts, one about La Fayette in politics around 1830 and one about his manners. Both topics are on my list with high priority. :-)

I hope I could nevertheless answer your question and thank you for being patient with me. I hope you have/had a lovely day!

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