#poor masséna

[acknowledgetheabsurd]

My dear child, I am writing to you from a café in Nice where I have been stranded, crushed by heat and sorrow. I don't need to tell you what makes me despair, and the helplessness in which I find myself. You know it well besides, and you have something else to do and to feel. My dear, dear love, it seems to me that I could never again write or tell you anything but my tenderness, the infinite tenderness of my heart. After having phoned you, I called Marseille again. Finally, there was nothing to be done and there was nothing to do. So I let go of everything, with the sound of your voice still in my ear, the dreadful fear of worrying you a little more, of weighing on you... I let go and I cried with you. 

My love, my only, my great love, I will come back soon - I will probably not be able to do anything for your poor heart, to compensate for the terrible and unfairness of this life. But at least I will watch over you and spare you the little things, the troubles, the servitudes, all that a man can do for the woman he loves. Think of nothing but him, her too, and your grief. Mix well their memory, what they had was beautiful and great, with what you are. Make them revive in you. And I will help you with everything else, I will never abandon you, there is at least one being that you can dispose of entirely, I mean entirely. I cannot live any longer for the small days, I can no longer stand all these beings without deep quality. There is you, your sorrow, your present loneliness and the immense love that is mine. 

Even what I am saying to you now is too much. It is a silence to your pain that I wanted to send you. It is my love, my heart, the friendship of the soul... I love you so much, I love you, that's all, and without a reservation. I kiss you, my darling, sadly, but with all my strength.

Albert Camus to Maria Casarès, Correspondance, February 18, 1950 [#199]*

*On the letterhead of the Café Monnot, Place Masséna, in Nice.

[josefavomjaaga]

I *need* to see Soult in the cat enclosure in the animal shelter AU. That sounds amazing. I want to see a cat brush up against him and do the “please pat me” flop and he has no idea what’s happening, or him trying to talk to cats like he would a subordinate.

You do of course realize that I had no intention of actually ever writing that, don't you?

Anyway, I tried. The usual disclaimer: Me German, me bad English. If not make sense, me sorry.

-

»What's the matter, Bonaparte?« Josephine knew her husband well enough to recognize the worries behind his annoyed demeanor. »Problems at work?«

»Nope«, he answered a little too quickly. »No problems. Everything under control.« His steps echoed on the floor as he was walking up and down in the living room, trying to keep whatever bothered him to himself. He failed, as Josephine knew he would. »It's the guys. They're out of control. Murat and Lannes spreading chaos. Davout and Bernadotte constantly at each others' throats. Masséna and Augereau on their crooked ways as always. As to Soult and Ney, rumour has it that they were ready to duke it out in the open, in the company parking lot, in front of our customers! Even old Lefebvre has been in a fight with Mortier... I really do not know what to do with them anymore.«

Josephine had expected something of that kind. She wondered briefly if any other boss on this planet had to deal with a similar bunch of unruly employees. »Maybe it's because you don't give them enough leeway«, she suggested. »They do work hard.«

»Sometimes. Most of the time, they do anything but. They’re a bunch of lunatics with the craziest ideas, ready to get themselves into trouble as soon as I turn my back on them.«

»But other than that«, she insisted, »they do work hard, right? Lately, you have kept them on a very short leash. Maybe they need to do something fun together, to ease the tension? Something that is not about sales numbers and accounting and opening new markets … oh, I know! Sainte-Esperance!«

»I don't think religion will do it for them, Josephine. They are not the spiritual type, as a rule.«

»No, dummy. Sainte-Esperance is an animal shelter. Or rather, a large farm turned into a shelter and a sactuary, where old animals can live out the rest of their lives in peace if nobody wants them. Eugène and Hortense used to go there during their school holidays. The staffers are always looking for helping hands. To feed the animals, to walk the dogs, to clean the barns...«

»Stable work, eh?« Napoleon was surprised. For once, Josephine's idea seemed interesting. »Truly, an afternoon of shoveling manure into wheelbarrows might serve them right. Come to think of it, we could turn this into a charity event. Bonaparte Inc. helping poor animals, doing pro bono work... that's great PR. I need to talk to Berthier about it.«

Of course the task to organize it all in the end had safely tumbled into Berthier's lap. But for once, he was lucky. As it turned out, the animal sanctuary received this kind of requests with a certain frequency and had developped standard procedures. Including standard application forms that they would mail out immediately, as James, the guy on the phone, happily assured him.

Berthier had foreseen doom pending over the whole enterprise, but now suddenly felt a lot better. Nothing could be truly bad, he told himself, if there was proper paperwork and documentation for it. As a matter of fact, James did sound pretty chill about the idea of dealing with a group of moody, inexperienced and potentially rebellious helpers.

»No need to worry. We likely have seen worse. You know, we often work with police and local judges, providing resocialisation opportunities for juvenile criminals. So we have staff on hand who know how to deal with most kind of delinquents. How old are yours, by the way?«

»In their 30s and 40s, mostly.«

»Repeat offenders then, presumably?«

»Incorrigible.« Berthier sighed.

The man chuckled again. »Just wait. Sainte-Esperance is not named like that for nothing.«

The animal shelter turned out to be a vast estate, a real labyrinth of old farm buildings and new stables, interspersed with fields, gardens and pastures. Cows and donkeys were grazing peacefully in the open, some employees could be seen walking a large group of dogs, and those figures on the meadow somewhere in the distance - were those … ostriches?

»This is a zoo!« Lannes announced happily. »We should all have brought our kids!«

The mere sight of the estate had already significantly brightened the mood when the bus with Berthier’s grumpy volunteers came to a halt in front of the main gate. The most chipper among the group (Murat and Lannes, who else?) could not even be held back long enough for Berthier's assistant Lejeune to take the obligatory promotional photo. Before anybody had a chance to rally the group, they had already eagerly run off. Berthier called after them but saw himself, as usual, expertly ignored. When he tried to follow, he soon got lost between the buildings. Through a large fence he briefly caught a glimpse of Lannes giving some mongrel a bellyrub, then saw him and Murat round a corner, Murat waving a large backpack through the air.

»Hi, we’re here for the dogs. I've brought, like, a ton of dog treats.«

Before Berthier could react or at least look for a gate in the fence, an employee of the shelter took care of the pair and led Murat and Lannes away. They disappeared behind a door, and Berthier recorded this as the first defeat of the day.

»Don't sweat it, boss«, said Lejeune when Berthier returned alone. »We'll take a photo of the rest of the group. Noone will notice those two are missing. Besides, I'll be back in a few hours, so we can have another shot of the whole group before they get back on the bus. It's gonna be a 'before - after' thing.«

That was probably the best they could do. Still, the day had not started out well. After all, this event was to serve a purpose, it was supposed to resolve conflicts and boost team spirit. To that end, Berthier had wanted to group together those of his subordinates who had not gotten along well lately. However, Lannes and Murat had just successfully escaped his plan. But they would be the last, he told himself, while Lejeune took some group photos.

»Everybody halt«, Berthier shouted as soon as Lejeune pocketed the camera, because several more of his remaining subordinates seemed ready to disperse. »I will now distribute your tasks, according to this list. We’ve talked it all over with the staff of the shelter. You all have pre-assigned jobs. Let's see ... Lannes and Bessières were supposed to go to the cat enclosure. Well, so much about that. Bessie, we'll find something else for you. Soult, you and Ney will take over for Lannes and Murat.«

Ney shrugged, but Soult scowled. »This seems highly unreasonable«, he said. »I place great value on docility and obedience. Cats are diametrically opposed to those principles. I am decidedly a dog person.«

»Who cares? You'll only clean out cages and litterboxes, so stop whining.« To Berthier's relief, Ney grabbed Soult by the arm and dragged him along in the direction Berthier pointed. Discussions with Soult, this unbearable know-it-all, tended to be long and fruitless.

»Alright...« Augereau and Masséna were next. They did not have any particular feuds with each other, as far as Berthier was aware. But both of them had protested vehemently against this project, or rather this »waste of a weekend« that kept them from conducting »important business«. Business that, Berthier suspected, was better not to be talked off publicly. In any case, it would be easiest to group them together, to better keep an eye on them. He would even throw them a bone.

»As to you, you will go to the section with exotic animals.«

»Exotic?« Augerau seemed sceptical. »How exotic could anything be in here?«

»Quite a bit. There’s some former circus animals, also some from dissolved zoos, and several illegally held pets that were seized by police.«

Masséna’s eyes lit up. »Is there ivory … I mean, elephants?«

»No«, Berthier said firmly. »But you can start with feeding the ostriches. Bessières, please join them.«

»Bessières? Cool.« Masséna grinned. »If there’s any carnivores to take care of, we’ll at least not run out of food.«

»Maybe I should join them, too«, said Lefebvre. »Want to tag along, Mortier?«

The group strolled away, and Berthier hoped that he had misheard when he thought Augereau and Masséna were discussing the price of ostrich feathers and eggs.

When he finally had distributed the last task (to that impertinent whiner Thiébault who would take care of the bunnies), Berthier decided to spend an hour or so in the cafeteria.

An excellent cafeteria that James already had gushed about on the phone, a cafeteria offering a macchiato to die for and a cake buffet stacked with eclairs, macarons, madeleines, chouquettes ... to go with it.

A cafeteria the overworked staff manager had carefully neglected to mention to anyone. Berthier placed his cup and plate on a small sidetable, leaned back into one of the comfy seats, turned off his phone, and closed his eyes.

He allowed himself two full hours of heavenly peace before his sense of duty took over again. After all, he had left his subordinates in the care of the unsuspecting employees working for this animal shelter! He better check on them immediately.

Berthier started where he imagined the greatest danger: in the cat enclosure. Ney and Soult had been nothing short of vicious to each other during the last months. Leaving them alone could be fatal.

To Berthier’s surprise, he found Ney sitting on a chair in the sun outside the building, a large grey cat on his lap.

»I’m done«, he said. »They allowed me to bring this one outside as she’s so well-behaved and affectionate. She’s quite the charmer, truth be told. I have half a mind to keep her. Just not sure what Aglaé will say about it.« He scratched the cat under her chin. »How about I name you Ida, hm?«

»No problems with Soult?«

»Not as far as I’m concerned. They have two large enclosures for the cats, so we made a convention. I took over one, he the other. Cleaning, feeding, and if possible petting and a quick check, just to see if they look healthy, don’t have any scratches. Easy.« He chuckled. »For me, that is.«

Berthier had a bad feeling when he entered the building. As expected, he found Soult in one of the enclosures, croached in front of a large cat tree. The enclosure held plenty of toys, cat beds and places for the animals to hide in. Berthier also noted that the space Soult had taken care of sparkled with cleanliness and that all litterboxes and feeding dishes were lined up with geometrical precision.

»But it seems you are quite done here?«, he asked.

»Obviously, I am not«, Soult bellowed back. He seemed in an even worse mood than usual. »There are several small kittens in there. I am supposed to check on them but they refuse to comply. All my orders to come out for a proper inspection are ignored.«

Something stirred behind Berthier. Ney had followed him in, the grey cat sitting on his arm.

»Just leave them be, man. The staffer said to check on them if possible. These little ones are shy, you scare them.«

»I have been told to check on their health, and check on their health I will. And if it’s the last thing I do.«

Ney sighed, shrugged and looked at Berthier. »I tried.« He went back outside, and Berthier followed suite.

Checking in on Augereau and Masséna also had high priority. When Berthier reached the entrance that led to a section »For staffers only«, according to a sign on the wall, the door abruptly swung open, revealing the back of some employee carrying one end of a large chest. The chest seemed to contain some living being, as there was lots of rattling, growling and hissing. The chest’s other end was supported by Masséna, and Berthier’s eyes widened.

»What’s going on here?«

»Just getting your purchase on a truck, sir«, said the staffer. Masséna went a little pale at the sight of Berthier, then sent him an innocent smile.

»What purchase?«

»Well, your little gator. These two gentlemen have just arranged everything with our management. I’m so glad you approached us. It’s quite rare to find people with a special permit to keep these kind of animals...«

Berthier tried to say something, but was at a loss for words. Augereau, talking in hushed tones into his phone, showed up behind Masséna, bumped into him and almost caused him to drop his burden. Then he saw Berthier.

»Oh shit«, he said. »I almost had it sold.«

»Turn around«, said Berthier. »Get that poor animal back where it belongs. There will be no purchase. What have these gentlemen told you anyway?«

»Why, that your CEO had sort of a private zoo…« Scowling and puffing, they carried the chest back into the building.

»You know how Napoleon always says that Josephine has so many pets it’s like a zoo at Malmaison«, mumbled Augereau.

»But surely there must be papers if one wants to keep an alligator«, said Berthier.

»So?« Masséna shrugged, as far as that was possible while manoeuvering a chest containing an alligator backwards into the house. »All my papers are top notch. Guaranteed to pass every first check, even by the police.«

The alligator seemed rather disappointed that the deal had failed to materialise, it growled and hissed as it was released back into its little pond. And Berthier realized somebody was missing.

»Where’s Bessières?«

»Don’t worry«, said Masséna. »The alligator wasn’t hungry.«

Augereau laughed. »He, Mortier and Lefebvre went outside, to see the ostriches.«

The ostriches lived in a wide, open enclosure, but the gate was locked, and the animals apparently had already been cared for. Another staffer showed Berthier where to find his missing subordinates: in a pasture next to some stables, amidst a bunch of farm animals.

»These are mostly seniors«, explained Mortier and laughed as one of the cows licked his hand. »Some have a really sad story. Mindy here ran from the butcher.«

»She’s a tough girl«, said Lefebvre. »A survivor, aren’t you, lady?« He was followed by a couple of goats pushing each other out of the way for the bread crusts Lefebvre dropped for them. Similarly, Bessières was sourrounded by sheep and donkeys; he waved at Berthier and clearly seemed to be enjoying himself.

»So, I guess you two have gotten over whatever trouble you had with each other?«, asked Berthier. Both Lefebvre and Mortier looked at him.

»What trouble?«

»Do you mean that little misunderstanding at the elevator door?«

»But that was nothing.«

»I was a bit in a hurry, admittedly. Shouldn’t have pushed you, Morty.«

»Already forgotten.«

Well, at least here there was some tangible effect. Maybe not all had been in vain.

There was little chance for a similarly relaxed atmosphere in the aviaries where Davout and Bernadotte were helping with all sorts of feathered residents. Though the two of them seemed mostly busy insulting each other, as usual.

»Ah, Berty! Good you're here.« Bernadotte was sweeping up bird droppings near a feeding place. »Go find Davout for me. I suspect I accidentally locked him up with the owls in the first building. My bad. But in my defence, it's truly hard to tell him away from a tawny owl.«

Davout, only a couple of feet away, surrounded by a group of silver pheasants and chicks eagerly picking food off the floor, did not miss a beat.

»Really, Berthier, this has been an awfully insightful afternoon. I never imagined how clever parrots can be. The big one back there«, his thumb pointed at Bernadotte, »the one with the huge beak, really has quite a vocabulary for the dumb beast that he is.«

Bernadotte briefly turned his disproportionate nose in Davout’s direction. »Speaking of parrots«, he said, »I believe somebody still has to clean their aviary.«

»Yes, that somebody being you.«

»Me? I told your lazy arse to do it like an hour ago.«

»And I told you to do it yourself. What's the matter, can't find the place where your work is, as usual?«

»Alright, gentlemen, that’s quite enough!« It was in moments like these when Berthier wondered whom of this pair he could stand the least. As usual, he did not come to any conclusion. »Apparently, you both have received the order to clean the parrots’ aviary, so you will both do it.« He took a deep breath. »And in order to make sure it’s done properly, I will supervise it in person.«

He regretted his tone immediately. Both Bernadotte and Davout turned around to fix him with the stare of a predator who has just noticed fresh prey.

»Now look at that.«

»Look who’s getting all puffed-up and authoritative.«

For a brief moment they seemed ready to join forces against Berthier’s order, then they realized with whom they would have to make common cause and decided both that obeying to Berthier was the less disgusting option.

Berthier spent twenty exhausting minutes in the next aviary watching his two subordinates clean, grateful that the parrots’ constant squawking kept him from hearing most of the equally constant bickering. Some of the parrots obviously had been kept by humans before, as Berthier occasionally believed to hear words among the squawking, things like »Good morning«, »prrretty boy« or the occasional »stupid fool«. Though maybe the last had been uttered by one of the two cleaners.

At some point, Bernadotte turned around and looked at a grey parrot sitting on a tree nearby. »What did you just say?« The parrot repeated whatever it had just uttered. Berthier could not make out any words in it, but Bernadotte started to laugh.

»You understood that?« Even Davout looked impressed.

»I think he said: Hur mår du, dummskalle?« Bernadotte chuckled. »Which in Swedish means: How are you doing, stupid? - I guess we can tell that his former owner was Scandinavian.«

»And that this clever parrot recognizes a fool when he sees one«, Davout added. »How come you speak Swedish?«

»I don’t. Yet. I’ve been studying it for two weeks now.«

»You have? Why?«

Bernadotte glanced at Berthier, then he shrugged. »I guess it won’t hurt to tell as I’ve already informed Napoleon. I have received a job offer. From a Swedish company.«

»What?« Davout seemed almost hurt. »Why would anybody want to hire a dimwit whom even a parrot immediately recognizes?«

»Maybe not everybody ignores my talents the way you do.«

»And you actually want to go?«

»I’ve not quite decided yet.«

»But you’re thinking about it.«

»Yes.«

»Enough to try and learn the language…« Davout grumbled. »Well, it’s not like anybody would miss you here.«

»Mutual, I assure you.«

They worked in silence for a bit, before Davout started again. »But if you just pack up and leave… that’s so inconsiderate from you. I mean, whom am I supposed to call a dickhead every morning then? Whom to prank? Who can I send all those insulting e-mails to? Just so you know, I even signed up on howtobesttrollyourworstcolleague.com, all because of you. And now you will just leave?«

Bernadottes stared, then turned round to face Davout, leaning on his broom. »Wait. Those impertinent, occasionally obscene e-mails you’ve sent me over the last years – they were from a website?«

»Sure. Did you think I could come up with something like that on my own? Aimée would not let me anywhere near the children if I could. And I never would have checked that site out except for you. - Though«, he added thoughtfully, »that’s not entirely correct. I originally signed up because I wanted to find something to insult Murat. Didn’t work though.«

»Why not? - Oh, let me guess. Murat wrote back?«

»You bet. And he had help from Lannes. I stopped immediately. Lannes comes up with stuff that would even make the guys from that website blush.« He hesitated a little. »So… if you really go to Sweden, would you mind if I keep sending you those mails? It’s kinda part of my morning routine, you know. You could answer in Swedish for all I care. Your mails immediately go to spam anyway.«

»So do yours in my mailbox. Do as you please.«

»Cool!« Davout beamed. »I’ll text you if there’s a mail you actually need to check.«

A little confused, Berthier left the aviary to see if Lejeune had already returned. Instead of Lejeune, he encountered Lannes and Murat, each of them holding the leashes of several yapping dogs.

»Berty!« Murat almost dropped the dog leads in an attempt to wave at Berthier. He beamed at him as if to outshine the afternoon sun. »This has been your best idea ever! Tell Napoleon we have to do this again soon. - Just look at all these adorable furballs!«

»We’re taking them for a walk«, Lannes informed Berthier matter-of-factly before being dragged away by his excited charge.

»Don’t be too long«, Berthier called after them. »We’ll have to leave soon. I can see the bus already coming.« He found himself ignored. Well, what else was new?

The bus moved into the parking lot, followed by Lejeune’s shiny red convertible.

»Where is everybody?« asked Lejeune, getting his camera out of the trunk. »We’re already ten minutes late.«

Excellent question, thought Berthier. When after another ten minutes his subordinates still would not show up, he resigned himself to the inevitable: another long walk across the grounds in order to pick his men up one by one. By the time he finally had found Masséna in the terrarium, Bessières and Mortier happily chatting in the cafeteria, Ney asleep in the sun with one cat in his lap and another at his feet, Lefebvre and Augereau trying to teach swearwords to the grey parrot Bernadotte had admired before, and the latter sitting astride a fence next to the cow shed, telling Davout about his possible move to Sweden, the rest of the Bonaparte team had also decided to show up. Even Lannes and Murat had gotten back from their walk.

»We only have to get the dogs back. We’ll be here in a moment.«

The moment turned into another twenty minutes. Then they returned – and each with a dog.

»My wife is gonna kill me«, said Lannes ruefully. He croached in front of a medium height mongrel of indefinable colour but very fine features and a decidedly clever look. »The last thing she said when I left was: Don’t you dare bring home a dog.« The dog started to lick his face, Lannes laughed. »But who cares. The kids will love you.«

»And Caroline will love this beauty.« Murat had brought an almost fully white borzoi. He petted her head lovingly. »Isn’t she marvellous?«

»She’s bound to succumb under the weight of her beauty before we’re on the bus«, sneered Lannes. »Actually, she reminds me a bit of Bessières. Dumb as a box of rocks...«

»Okay, folks«, called Lejeune. »Everybody line up for some more photos!«

Presumably, the photos Lejeune took now would turn out a lot better than those he had taken on arrival. When the employees of Bonaparte Inc. entered the bus again, they were happily chatting away about whatever they had done or seen during the last few hours. Berthier barely dared to think it: this idea actually might turn out to be a success.

Until he realized that something was wrong.

»Stop!«, he called out to the bus driver. »We’re one man short.«

»Can’t be«, Murat shouted from the backseat. »All seats are full.«

»Yeah, and the gator wasn’t hungry«, added Masséna.

»All seats are occupied because your Bessiedog has taken one, you git«, commented Lannes.

»Soult is not here«, announced Ney.

Berthier looked at him. »He would not still be in the cat enclosure, would he? It’s been hours!«

Ney shrugged.

He accompanied Berthier to look after his missing companion. Maybe he felt a bit bad for having left him alone.

On entering the cat section, they found Soult indeed still in the enclosure. He was sitting on the ground, his back leaning against a cat tree, his legs spread wide. One black-and white kitten, maybe a couple of months old, was sleeping in his lap, another, red-furred, he was holding on his arm, a black one was busy climbing from a platform of the cat tree onto Soult’s shoulder and back, occasionally tugging at the human’s hair, and two more seemed to play hide and seek between Soult’s feet. They also had opened his shoelaces.

»Soult!« Berthier was exasperated. »Have you not heard? We’re leaving.«

»I can’t«, Soult said. In a tone as if he didn’t know if he wanted to sound defiant or apologetic. »The little one in my lap has only just fallen asleep.«

»So? Push the kittens off and get up.«

Soult seemed to ponder the idea, then shook his head. »I can’t.«

Ney smirked. »You wanted to see if they’re healthy. They look healthy to me. Mission accomplished. Time to leave.«

»But I can’t do that to them. They’ve only just started to trust me.«

Berthier had enough. »Okay, then stay here for all I care. We’re out of here.«

He turned and left. Ney hesitated before following.

»Want me to phone your wife so she can pick you up later?«

»That’d be very kind of you.« Soult petted the red kitten in his arm. »I think I’ll be done in an hour or so.«

[flowwochair]

More Soult lore (my poor little skrunkly and how he fucked up his leg)

Regarding Soult's accident in 1800 wherein he was robbed and taken as POW. I would love to know some more details on the even if anyone has them, or to know how accurate my knowledge of this event is. Here's what I know/my perspective of it: the accident occurred while Soult was leading a charge at the very front, something which he never repeated again afterwards in his career, presumably to trauma related to this event. I am unsure exactly what happened but based on what I've read/remember reading: Soult was either stabbed or something else happened to startle him after which either he fell off the horse while it was still going at a rapid speed or he fell with the horse and the horse proceeded to fall on him breaking his leg in the process. I've also seen people say he broke or injured an arm in the incident as well? But the only thing I know for sure is the leg injury portion. After spending some time near his dead horse (which could've presumably played a role in giving him an infection), Soult was robbed (unsure as to by whom) and taken as a POW. Masséna has some relation or role to rescuing Soult (unsure as to what or what role he played). I'm curious about what it was like for Soult during the time he spent as POW, did Louise know his status? Did she know he was alive? I'm also curious about the Masséna potentially saving him thing because I swear I remember reading about that? Also (and this info may be harder to find) I was curious about the exact nature of his injuries in this event, the leg injury I know more about, along with its later impact on Soult, making him bowlegged and giving him a limp, but the arm injury??? I see that like being mentioned occasionally like some people say he did some people say he didn't??? Some people say he was stabbed or slashed in the arm which startled him and caused the whole tumble that broke his leg, but I really don't know what happened there. If anyone has some more info that could enlighten me in regards to the parts I am curious about feel free to drop it here I appreciate it, thank youuu ^-^

[empirearchives]

Okay, here’s my non-exhaustive list in which I probably forgot a bunch

— Napoleon returning worship in France only to end up getting excommunicated

— Napoleon serenading his teacher and getting arrested by him for three days for the crime of being an annoying singer

— Napoleon’s political enemies in France making propaganda posters with the message that Cambacérès being gay was just as bad and destructive as war and tyranny

— Taking the city of Moscow only for there to be no more Moscow. (I’m so sorry)

— Literally no one recognizing Napoleon when his facial hair grew out and he was wearing the winter attire

— Napoleon selling Louisiana, then his brothers getting super mad about it and screaming at him when he was just chilling in the bathtub. And it got so heated that Joseph ended up getting drenched in bath water.

— Someone already said it, but I’ll repeat: the fact that Napoleon (or possibly Berthier?) shot Masséna in the head and they all just moved on like???? No big deal, my work day consisted of my boss shooting me on accident

— Napoleon’s poor mother and uncle falling for an Austrian clairvoyant (read: spy) who claimed to be getting visions from the Virgin Mary and told them that Napoleon had been removed from St. Helena.

— “Napoleon’s fury at the marriage inspired Lucien to write to the emperor that, while his own wife was no saint, unlike Josephine she was not ‘old and smelly’ and that at least he had had the sense to ‘marry [his] own mistress rather than someone else’s.’” (That last part was an own against Napoleon, which always kills me).

— Junot trying to break Napoleon out of prison and Napoleon being like “Um…. no.”

— The British intercepting Napoleon’s letter to his brother, Joseph, and publishing it to humiliate him, but the content of the letter was just Napoleon pouring out his heart to his brother and telling him how much he meant to him.

— Marie-Louise legit thinking Napoleon was going to be an ugly ogre, then immediately changing her mind when she saw him in person. (She literally told him he was much more attractive then his posters 💀)

— A British person being the one to commission one of the most famous portraits of Napoleon (which Napoleon quite liked). The reason why that’s funny is because Britain and France were at *war* and yet this guy was just openly stanning the other side. It’s this painting by the way:

Funniest Napoleonic Era moment GO

[histoireettralala]

Berthier, Grand Veneur

On July 10, 1804 (21 Messidor year XII), Berthier was appointed Grand Veneur de la Couronne. The rebirth of the Ancien Régime function was decisive. His most important role was to live at court and take orders from the king for the hunts, sharing this advantage with other great officers [..]

The creation, or rather the rebirth, of a hunting service in the Emperor's house was a political act. Beyond a hobby, hunting was an image of representation, of propaganda [...]

A Grand Veneur, Berthier is by obligation (even very busy with military affairs, he follows the current affairs of the service), but also by taste. Young, alongside his father, he had followed the hunts of Louis XV and Louis XVI and had kept his passion. [..]

Fortunately for the game, Napoleon was a bad marksman and a poor hunter, not resting his rifle well on the shoulder, sometimes needing several times to finish a stag, even shooting Masséna in the face during a hunting in Fontainebleau, finding himself again with only Berthier and Soult facing three wild boars in fury, the crews being far away [..]

Beyond official hunts, Alexandre enjoyed "intimate" hunting, surrounded by a few friends in the vast expanses of Grosbois. A few days before the great feast of December 11, he invited Stanislas de Girardin (brother of his aide-de-camp), Corvisart (doctor of the Emperor) and Portalis (minister). In four hours, 107 pieces were shot down.

In the end, should we give credit to the anecdote told by Thiébault in his Memoirs on a Grosbois hunt? At the very beginning of the Empire, the Emperor having expressed the desire to hunt rabbits, Berthier would have sent a thousand rabbits to the estate, the animal not existing there in the wild. The hunt started, it was quickly stopped as the rabbits in flocks were rushing on Napoleon, almost making him fall. The game managers, pressed for time, had bought hutch rabbits instead of wild rabbits! The anecdote seems unlikely, as Berthier's hunting assistants were very competent, and it rests above all on the calumny forged from nothing by Thiébault, enemy of Berthier, to whom he attributed the slowness of his advancement since the coup d'etat of brumaire.

Franck Favier - Berthier, l’ombre de Napoléon

Grosbois

[joachimnapoleon]

Jean-Mathieu-Philibert Sérurier, Marshal of the French Empire (8 December 1742 – 21 December 1819)

Jean Mathiew Philbert Sérurier (1742-1819), the "Virgin of Italy," was content with his pay and did not loot--characteristics glaringly conspicuous when Augereau and Masséna were his fellow division commanders.

Sérurier was the epitome of Marshal Saxe's "poor gentlemen who have nothing but their sword and their cape," his family being impoverished gentry from the vicinity of Laon in northeast France. When he left home, the legend goes, his father could give him only a sword and the injunction to serve honorably. He had to begin as a militia lieutenant in 1755, passing into the regular army four years later. At the battle of Warburg in 1760, a musket ball broke his jaw, knocked out most of his teeth, and left him badly scarred. Service in Spain and Corsica followed. He could offer valor, a good education, devotion to duty, and ability as a drillmaster; the infantry inspector general noted him as promising, but not of distinguished family. It was 1788 before he made captain, with enough pay to marry. Then his colonel interceded: Something should be done to encourage officers who served wholeheartedly and well. Sérurier was accordingly promoted to major in 1789; two years later the Revolution found him a lieutenant colonel; in 1794 he was a general of division in the Army of Italy, where Napoleon met him in 1796. He proved less aggressive than Augereau and Masséna but more dependable. Sérurier, Napoleon wrote the Directory, believed in order and discipline and disdained intrigue and intriguers. Young Marmont noted that he was tall and straight, with blue eyes, brown hair, and a sad, grave expression on his scarred face. He went into action sword in hand at the head of his men; Marmont praised his decisiveness and tactical skill. Desaix described him: "Big... honest, estimable in every respect, considered to be an aristocrat, but supported by [Napoleon] who values and admires him.

The fevers of the Po Valley having ruined his health, he retired in 1802. In 1804 Napoleon made him Governor of the Invalides, where--as old soldiers do--he slowly faded away. By 1814 he was in a semi-dotage. But, as Allied armies entered Paris, he ordered--or allowed subordinates to order--the burning of more than 1,400 captured enemy flags stored in the Invalides. And he offered asylum to the wives and children, Marbot's among them, of officers who had to leave Paris with the departing French troops.

Modest and simple, a good husband and fond uncle, he adopted the daughter of an invalided NCO, gave most of his estate away quietly and carefully, and died poor.

--John R. Elting, Swords Around a Throne: Napoleon's Grande Armée

[maggiec70]

Fun in the Country

My version of Joachim and his BFF, Jean-Boy, at the spa in Bareges and then adjourning to one of J-B's little country properties for more typical Gascon amusements. As always, these shenanigans are seen through the viewpoint of the former Milanese contessa/current aide-de-camp. She disapproves.

Joachim Murat sent Jean a note a few days later. I’m leaving Madrid tomorrow. We should meet at Barèges. It’s a decent spa and not far from you.”

“Why would you want to visit with Prince Murat?” Mariana asked when Jean showed her the note. “You’re always scrapping about something.”

“Not always. Besides, Joachim is entertaining, even when he doesn’t mean to be.”

Mariana resigned herself to a two-day ride to the Pyrenean spa and then days of constant Gascon bragging from two masters of the genre. As rowdy as it promised to be, she hoped the change of scenery would sweep away the last of her anger. Jean had done what she insisted. He’d waved the required documents conferring the majority of his country properties to Jean-Claude under the nose of an elderly black-clad lawyer who creaked each time he moved.

“Give me an official copy,” she’d ordered the lawyer, her peremptory tone causing his furry white eyebrows to rise as his brass-rimmed spectacles slid down his nose. He should have been used to her by then, after her questions directed at him like an artillery assault had determined—finally—that he had the requisite legal acumen and ethics for the task.

“Why did you want a copy?” Jean had asked her when the lawyer scurried away, portfolio clutched tightly beneath one arm. “Don’t you trust me?”

“That’s not the problem. You won’t be here when those documents become an issue. I don’t trust anyone but myself to handle this matter properly.” And if she weren’t around, she would entrust it to one of the phalanx of attorneys who managed her affairs. After all this time with her, they were eminently trustworthy and as ruthless as the Sforzas.

Now, comfortably settled in Barèges, almost everyone drank gallons of rough red wine and told amazingly obscene stories that made Mariana cringe in embarrassment. Neither Jean nor Murat went anywhere near the spa until two days later, complaining of headaches, and by then, she hoped they would both drown. She left whenever she could to explore the neat, tiny village tucked away in a hollow of the hulking, snow-covered Pyrenees, wondering if the change of scene was worth much. She was still angry, but not for the same reasons.

“I don’t know Jean anymore. What’s come over him?” she asked Joseph one evening during a long and raucous meal.

“Given the right circumstances, men revert to a certain type. Be patient—it’ll pass.”

“I can’t imagine you behaving in such a fashion.”

“I have, but you’ve never seen it. You’ll feel better if you ignore it all.”

She couldn’t ignore anything and cringed when Jean suggested they abandon the spa for one of his country properties. “Plenty of room, much more than here. Nobody to disturb us unless we invite them,” he explained, definitely listing to one side.

Murat agreed at once. “Excellent idea, as long as there’s plenty to drink. If you know some lovely ladies to make the time pass pleasantly, be sure to invite them.”

“I’ve got enough Armagnac to put you on your imperial backside every night. As for ladies, I’ll send for as many as you like,” Jean promised in a haze of Bordeaux-inspired grandiloquence. Although the rest of their aides grinned at the prospect, Mariana was livid.

That night she sat rigidly upright in bed, every nerve quivering with anger, while Jean undressed. He wobbled as he tried to get his boots off, and she snickered at him. She hoped he would fall on his face and lie on the rough-planked floor until morning.

“What’s the matter with you?” He tossed the boots aside and fumbled with the buttons on his coat.

“How can you take Prince Murat to that refurbished abbey you bought? How can you promise to amuse him for however long he wishes and send spurious billets-doux to all the women in the countryside? Besides,” she snorted, growing angrier as she spoke, “who’d write them? I expect you’ll ask me since you can’t string three coherent words together. You do know what this makes you?”

Jean did not bother to put on his nightshirt and crawled in bed naked, collapsing against the pillows, one arm flung across his face. “I’m sure you’ll explain. My head’s splitting, so don’t take too long.”

“You’ll be an imperial procurer, in the basest sense of the phrase.”

“Humph!”

“While the prince amuses himself with whichever ladies are besotted enough to accept your invitations, you doubtless expect me to entertain you.”

“You do it anyway.”

Mariana knew neither her anger nor her disapproval would matter in the morning. Leaning over, she blew out the candles. Jean was instantly asleep, snoring gently.

“Merde alors!” She threw a pillow at him, but he never moved.

The following day, not very early, they exchanged pleasant Barèges for the rather outré former abbey of Bouillas near Lectoure. “Surely the monks had better taste than this,” Mariana said after she’d struggled with an ancient, stout wooden door and opened it onto a riotous jumble of gothic, rococo, and Louis Quinze furnishings in the refectory. “If the bedchambers are like this, I won’t be able to sleep.”

“Yes, you will,” Jean replied and led her upstairs.

“It looks like a cheap bordello,” Mariana hissed at him after half a dozen young ladies arrived, as promised, the next evening, “and now it smells like one. I hope the ghosts of the poor, dispersed monks haunt you.”

He grinned at her over the nearly bare shoulder of a blonde in a primrose satin gown determined to charm him, one way or another. Stifling an impulse to slap them both, Mariana stalked out of the refectory and up the stairs.

She sat on the bed in their chamber, full of the most opulently overdone furnishings imaginable. There was scarcely enough room to walk from the door to the bed to the clothes-press to the recessed windows with their thick, wavy glass without bumping into a piece of furniture or a low stool or tripping on the layers of Turkey carpets covering the dark wooden floor. She ignored the assaults on her senses, balled her hands into fists, and swore that this nonsense would end in the next hour or she’d pack up and leave. The muscles in her neck and shoulders tight from anger, she didn’t care what Murat or Joseph or Marcellin or anyone else did where she could see or hear them. But she refused to spend another moment watching overdressed, painted, and perfumed women fawn over Jean. “I’ll put them in their places,” she muttered, sliding off the bed, “and if it causes an uproar, as well as the end of my military career, so be it.”

Mariana yanked off her boots and tossed them in the corner. She stripped off sash, coat, waistcoat, and neckcloth, throwing them across a chair. With an impatient jerk, she removed her shirt and untied the bands across her breasts, shook her hair free of its heavy braid, and ran her fingers through it, coaxing it into its usual waves and curls. After rummaging through her trunk and Jean’s, she deliberately omitted her lace-trimmed drawers and pulled on a clean pair of tight doeskin breeches, silk stockings, and flat-heeled shoes. She took one of his shirts, the cotton batiste so soft it clung to her skin. She thought about dipping the shirt in cold water and then putting it on, as Thérèse Tallien had done with her muslin gowns during the wilder days of the Directory. Instead, she left the laces undone and tied her sash low on her hips, the heavy fringed ends swinging gracefully as she walked. She found her emerald and diamond earrings tied in the corner of a handkerchief and put them on, pleased with the way they sparkled and swayed, unconcerned with the incongruity of fine jewelry and her motley attire. Creeping down the hall and into a chamber occupied by one of the female guests, she splashed herself with perfume from a cut crystal bottle. “About what I expected,” she said, wrinkling her nose at the heavy scent of ambergris.

Mariana descended the stairs, hoping the worn treads wouldn’t creak. No one noticed her until she had sauntered halfway across the room and shoved the primrose-clad woman’s soft, bejeweled hand from Jean’s arm.

“This one belongs to me,” she said, ignoring the woman’s stunned expression and the sudden quiet in the room. Mariana perched on Jean’s knee, buried her hands in his hair, and kissed him until she ran out of breath.

“You’ve been a fool, keeping this beautiful creature hidden from the world,” Murat said. “Ma foi, I think you’ve outdone Masséna. Where’d you find her?”

“It’s a very long story,” Jean said. “I can’t tell you right now.”

Mariana enjoyed watching him squirm, although not from the prince’s comments. “What’s the matter, mon cher? Are your breeches too tight?” She nipped at his ear. “You probably shouldn’t stand up.”

“The hell I won’t!” Jean pushed her off his knee, stood abruptly, and grasped her wrist so tightly that she winced. He strode from the room, pulling her along to the sound of Murat’s approving whistle.

...and you can imagine the rest if you like. I remember laughing the entire time I spent writing the entire scene, pleased that I'd pretty well nailed it. Nothing like real historical people having sex, is there?

[northernmariette]

A fourth go at the 5 marshals game

I’m having a ball with this, but why am I the only one playing? Sometimes I feel so lonely...

The question I have chosen this time is “Studying for an exam with...”. But because I’m unable to colour within the lines, I will change the question a bit to “Being tutored for an exam by...”

The extra question is, what is the topic being studied? Because of that, the ranking of the marshals will be difficult. At the time, twelve years of education was considered extensive. For example, this is how long Suchet’s education lasted, and the school he attended was considered top notch.  On the other hand, Masséna did not really learn basic literacy until he was 17 or so. Augereau, well, he was mostly a truant. Ney had six years of schooling, which was considered fairly extensive. 

As the eldest son of an ambitious man employed at the royal court of Versailles, Berthier’s education was the object of particular care. As I recall, he had private tutors and a painting master. At the age of ten, he aced the entrance to France’s premier engineering school in eastern France, graduating as a full-fledged engineer at age thirteen, years younger than his already much-older classmates. I gather that his education came to an end at that time, so when it came to the classics he had to be self-taught later in life. Jourdan was receiving an excellent education until it had to be interrupted because of the death of his parents. It seems that Soult was more interested in schoolyard brawls than in sitting in class, so later in life he apparently invited learned men to his dinner parties and skillfully enticed them to converse about their areas of expertise as a covert way to make up for his deficient schooling.

And so on and so on... As a group, however, it seems to me that they were too rambunctious to be dedicated scholars.

My five marshals will be: Marmont, Gouvion Saint-Cyr, Murat, Masséna and Davout.

5 Masséna is there only as the example of the worst possible tutor. Not only was his education limited (though it seems he could count money very, very well), he would not care whether I would pass any exam. Not his problem. Although when I was at the typical age for students, he might well have tried to get me into his bed, then successfully bribed my teachers into giving me good grades.

4 Davout. Apparently a poor student himself. Also, too much of a martinet, and too inclined to browbeat and invective those he did not like. However, there are some bright(er) spots: he had an interest in history, and it seems that the library in his Paris townhouse was impressive.

3 Gouvion Saint-Cyr. Not a warm fuzzy person, but if my memory is right he did give drawing and fine arts courses for a while, pre-military career. His own visual arts and musical education was extensive, and he even had stage experience. So for any exam related to the arts, I would appeal to Gouvion.

2 Murat. In reality, one of the best-educated marshals. Because he was being trained for the priesthood, I imagine he would have had a solid background in literature and the humanities. In addition to that, his natural inclination to want to help and his cheerful nature would make the tutoring sessions not too painful.

1 Marmont. This was a person with a keen interest in the sciences, my weakest subjects. At the very least, his artillery training would have included the study of mathematics. He was also said to be a brilliant conversationalist, so I will extrapolate from that a capacity to captivate a struggling student’s interest. Maybe he would be just the sort of person to finally make science topics make sense.

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

Napoléon/Marshalate ask, because these Parisian trottinettes électriques give me life : who's riding two-man on one of these things ? (read : which two hate each other to a small enough degree to put aside their differences and cram onto a single eccentric scooter, the better to blast up the Champs Elysées in a blaze of environmentally sustainable glory ?)

AHA. 

Thank you for this mental image. 

GLOIRE. 

Well Napoleon and Lannes would hop on together with Napoleon driving and they would go Too Fast because he is an adrenaline junkie and Lannes is there Living His Best Life. They would be Menaces.  

I feel like Murat and Junot would end up on one together with Murat driving and yelling insult-puns at Lannes the entire time. Junot is making insult suggestions and trying to catch Napoleon’s attention (as Junot was a slut for Napoleon’s attention and love. God bless Junot). It would be mag-ni-fique. 

No one would ride with Davout. Poor Davout. 

Berthier would ride alone by choice and would attempt to convince Napoleon and Murat to go Reasonable Speeds but they would refuse. 

Because Fate is Fickle and Life is Trouble, Masséna and Bessières would be made to ride together. It would not End Well. They’d end up fighting over who gets to drive. Marmont would get pulled into it and would fight them. Soult would instagram the entire thing. What a mess. 

And so on and so forth. 

I love this mental image so much. It’s mostly just Napoleon and Lannes riding around Paris on those demonic devices (honestly, I hate them. But mostly because drunk Fools toss them about) making rude gestures at people as they pass. 

Thank you!

[haitianhistory]

Today in Haitian History - November 1, 1919 -- Death of Charlemagne Péralte 

Born in 1886, in Hinche, Haiti, Charlemagne Masséna Péralte rose up to become one of the leading figures in the armed cacos resistance to the U.S. Marines who staged a military Occupation of Haiti from 1915 to 1934.

Despite his great historical importance as an anti-colonial figure and the role he would ultimately play in actively opposing the Marines, details about Péralte’s life and death remain scarce and often contradictory. Yveline Alexis (2011) challenges the notion that Péralte, like most of the cacos he would ultimately lead, were poor, uneducated peasants simply utilised by politicians in a contest for power. Indeed, her assessment suggests that the cacos were in fact a much more complex group whose members originated from various socio-economic segments of Haitian society. Péralte for his part had been educated at the prestigious Saint-Louis de Gonzague school in Port-au-Prince and served various political posts before the start of the Occupation in late July 1915.

What led to his subsequent political radicalisation, arrest in 1915 and eventual warfare against the Marines is unclear. In the early months of the U.S. invasion, Alexis (2011) notes that, while already a member of the cacos, like many well-to-do Haitians, Péralte primarily opposed the Occupation in writing. He penned many letters and articles urging the Marines to abandon their schemes in Haiti. That same year, he would ultimately leave his post as commandant d’arondissement in Hinche. Whether this departure was caused by a true desire to go back to a life of farming (as some have claimed) or by a clear commitment already by this point to fight the Marines by all means necessary is unclear. Whatever the case may be, in the next four years, he would become an important political force.

Arrested in late 1915 for what was either a cover-up reason by the Marines or a serious case of money laundering (as it was then argued), Péralte escaped from prison in September 1918 and devoted his full attention thereafter to the cacos opposition. Soon, upsetting his plans and that of the cacos became a primary obsession of the Marines who had, according to Laurent Dubois (2012), began aerial bombardment of many villages in hopes of neutralising the insurgent group. 

The precise events leading up to Péralte’s death are hazy and like other aspects of his life often disputed. Past and more recent scholarship however all point to the direction of a well-crafted plan which included both Americans and Haitian accomplices. Jean-Baptiste Conzé, a farmer from Grande-Rivière-du-Nord and according to Dubois (2012) a “distant relative of Péralte” was central to this ruse. In popular culture, it is often reported that Conzé, working with the Americans, gained Péralte’s trust and infiltrated his rank only to turn him over to the Americans at a more convenient time. Yet, most scholars today claim that these plans to ambush Péralte through Conzé may have had a limited success and Péralte was ultimately killed after two Americans, Lieutenant Herman Hanneken and Sergeant William Robert Button, dressed as “locals,” penetrated his troupes and shot him. 

In an effort to dissuade from further armed resistance to the Americans, a photo of Charlemagne’s dead body (see right) was paraded throughout Haiti. According to Hans Schmidt (1971), this strategy largely backfired. Indeed, he notes that “in an attempt to demoralize the guerrillas, the marines disseminated photographs of Charlemagne’s body, but made the mistake of photographing him up so that he looked like Christ on the cross.” From that moment on, Péralte was catapulted to the rank of martyr. 

Today, as Haiti faces the legacies of various American and United Nations occupations, the memory of Charlemagne Péralte is still evoked. 

Image I Courtesy of : Wikimedia Commons / Image II Courtesy of : The New Yorker.

[rbzpr]

Conscription during the French Revolution (Jean-Paul Bertaud)

Drawing inspiration from the writings of the philosophers of the 17th century, the politicians of the Revolution, of the Constituant Assembly as well as of the Legislative Assembly and the Convention, maintained the principle of military duty: the citizen had to have two costumes, the one of his trade and the one of the soldier. The citizen was a soldier in power, the solider remained, under the flag, a citizen. In fact, the principle was never really applied until the era of the Directory. The Constituent Assembly, in its beginnings, limited itself to levying 100,000 auxiliaries for the troops of the line, and later, in 1791, volunteers from the National Guard. The Legislative Assembly, in spite of the declaration of La patrie en danger, also limited itself to levying Volunteers, and the Girondin Convention, while reaffirming the principle of obligatory military service, did the same. The law of 23 August 1793, passed under the pressure of the sans-culottes and of the Jacobins, only envisaged a requisition of young bachelors or of widowers without children between the ages of 18 and 25 for the duration of the war: the requisition should only be a helping hand given, in a period of time which was hoped to be short, to the already standing army.

After Thermidor the army grew gradually weaker, while the number of dersertions increased and the requisition ran out, for lack of coactive force of the Montagnards. In 1797, the headcount of the army fell alsmost from almost a million to 365,000. Such a contingent was insufficent for facing the war, which flared up again everywhere in Europe.

General Jourdan, deputy in the Council of Five Hundred, presented a mobilisation project on 23 Nivôse Year VI (12 January 1798). Obligatory military service for all was henceforth a reality: young men from 18 to 21 years of age in peacetime, from 18 to 24 in times of war, would henceforth be enrolled. As France only needed a limited number of troops in peactime, Jourdan proposed to draw lots in order to determine who would actually have to depart. Delbrel, the deputy from Tarn, spoke against such a procedure, as he considered it to be antidemocratic.

The Jourdan Law was finally passed on 19 Fructidor Year VI (5 September 1798). It regulated military service for almost a century. All Frenchmen of military age (20 completed years) had to be inscrits ensemble (i.e. conscrits) on the tables of recruitment of the army and remain there until the age of 25. All Frenchmen born in the same year formed a class. Military service lasted five years in peacetime and rested upon the youngest of each class. Soldiers enrolled in the navy and married men were exempted. Men between 20 and 25 years of age could not travel without a passport on which their military situation was recorded. In case of relocation, young men had to inform their municipality of origin ; thereby, the authorities hoped to counter insoumission. The insoumis was persecuted, arrested and judged as a deserter. No Frenchman could hold a public office or enjoy his rights as a citizen if he had not fulfilled his military duties.

The municipal administrations drew up the tables of conscription on the authority of the central administrations of the department or of the Ministry of War. Surgeons or doctors were appointed in order to form medical boards. In these, five family fathers sat who had children serving in the army, deciding on who to recruit or to exempt ; due to these boards, we still possess, for numerous departments, information on the physical aspect and health status of thousands of young men from the end of the First Republic, from the Consulate and the Empire. Not all administrations showed scrupulous care in organising the conscription, and in April 1799, when the war started again, many tables remained devoid of information.

The municipalities, which supported the military cause, show us the « bons pour le service » gathering in the administrative centre of the department and, in groups of hundred or two hundred, leaving on foot under the command of a former officer. Their departure gave rise to public manifestations: the representative of the government rediscovered the language of Year II in order to glorify the Revolution, the community gathered in a banquet, where one swore « hatred to tyrants » and one distributed travel provisions to the conscripts, a ball closing the festivities. On the next day, the community accompanied those who departed to the last hurdle of the city or of the village. « The example of their elders, the account of victories ignited their hearts ; and why should it be otherwise, are they not French, wrote a commissioner of the directory ». Reality was often different: while many villagers in the border zones which were directly threatened rediscovered the gestures and the enthusiasm of the first moments of the Republic, there were also processions, almost funeral, surrounding an open coffin, into which the conscripts would, as a gesture of mourning, throw their freshly cut hair.

In Year VI, among 202,000 conscripts, 143,000 were recognised as fit and only 93,000 departed. In the spring of 1799, the Directory decided to levy 150,000 men, designated by drawing lots. The law of 28 Germinal Year VII (17 April 1799) went counter to the principle of equality: the conscripts, drawn by lot, could indeed include substitutes between 18 and 20 years of age. Drawing by lots and replacement aroused protests: the drawing was, according to some, reinstituting a practice of the Ancien Régime. The replacement? The poor asked: was the blood of the rich worth more than theirs? There were insurrections, only amplified by royalist propaganda, as in the region of Toulouse. The law of 19 Messidor Year VII (28 June 1799), passed under the pressure increased by the Coalition, ordered that the ones who had been exempted from the prior levies would have to return before the councils in order to have a medical examination ; the departments of the West, who had been protected until had, had to contribute. This was the starting point of a new revolt that was marked by the occupation, for some time, of Mans, Nantes and Saint-Brieuc. The royalists mingled with the réfractaires here. In spite of everything, the levy provided nearly 400,000 men, who allowed Masséna and Brune to halt the offensive. Victories were achieved which the Bonapartist propaganda minimised on the eve of the coup d'état of 18 Brumaire.

Under the Consulate and the Empire, Napoleon Bonaparte took over the essentials of the previous laws on conscription. He perfected a « machine conscriptionnelle », bequeathed by the dead Republic, to the point – the historian I. Woloch has shown this – of making it an effective tool of mobilisation until 1812. Contrary to popular belief, it seems that one can subscribe to what the Emperor said on Saint Helena: « Conscription had rendered the French army the best composed in the world. It was an institution, eminently national yet very progressive in the mores ; henceforth, it was only the mothers who were still distressed by it ; and the time would have come where a girl would not want a boy who has not paid his debt towards the patrie. And it is in this state alone that conscription would have acquired the last level of its advantages: when it is no longer presented as a punishment or as a duty, but has become a point of honour of which everyone is jealous, then alone the nation is great, glorious, strong ; that is when its existence can defy setbacks, invasions, centuries. » Conscription, originally regarded as a burden, was soon recognised as a droit du citoyen and appeared as a democratic safeguard.

Source: Dictionnaire historique de la Révolution française (Albert Soboul)

[josefavomjaaga]

Soult on several French officers

This is taken from the book »Life of General Sir William Napier«, Volume 1. Soult, while in England for the coronation of Queen Victoria, talk to British historian Napier, who wants to know his opinion on several French officers. As usual, Soult is not very forthcoming, his statements are rather brief. There are longer ones on Hoche, on Napoleon and on Joseph Bonaparte, however, that I might post separately if there’s interest. Or you can just look them up yourself under the above link (page 505, bottom, ff, »Generals of the Revolution«). For once, it’s all in English. So, here are Soult’s verdicts on:

MARCEAU. "Marceau was clever and good, and of great promise, but he had little experience before he fell."

This general I had to look up: He died from his wounds in Austrian captivity in 1796.

MOREAU. "No great things."

AUGEREAU. Ditto.

JUNOT. Ditto.

GOUVION ST. CYR. "A clever man and a good officer, but deficient in enterprise and vigour."

MACDONALD. "Too regular, too methodical; an excellent man, but not a great general.”

NEY. "No extent of capacity: but he was unfortunate; he is dead."

VICTOR. "An old woman, quite incapable."

There are some funny scenes with this marshal that Brun de Villeret describes in his Cahiers. Apparently, Brun needed to go calm down Victor on several occasions.

JOURDAN. "Not capable of leading large armies."

MASSENA. "Excellent in great danger; negligent and of no goodness out of danger. Knew war well."

That’s a little less praise for Masséna than in his memoirs. But Soult is all around bragging a lot in this conversation, though it’s hard to tell how much of it may have been jokingly. (Then again – Soult and joking? Probably not.)

MARMONT. "Understands the theory of war perfectly. History will tell what he did with his knowledge." (This was accompanied with a sardonic smile.)

And of course refers to Marmont’s alleged betrayal of Napoleon in 1814.

REGNIER. "An excellent officer." (I denied this, and gave Soult the history of his operations at Sabugal.) Soult replied that he was considered to be a great officer in France; but if what I said could not be controverted as to fact, he was not a great officer, his reputation was unmerited. (The facts were correctly stated, but Regnier was certainly disaffected to Napoleon at the time; his unskilful conduct might have been intentional.)

DESAIX. "Clever, indefatigable, always improving his mind, full of information about his profession, a great soldier, a noble character in all points of view; perhaps not amongst the greatest of generals by nature, but likely to become so by study and practice, when he was killed."

KLEBER. "Knew him perfectly; colossal in body, colossal in mind. He was the god of war; Mars in human shape. He knew more than Hoche, more than Desaix; he was a greater general, but he was idle, indolent, he would not work."

BERTHIER and CLARKE.

"Old women - Catins. The Emperor knew them and their talents; they were fit for tools, machines, good for writing down his orders and making arrangements according to rule; he employed them for nothing else. Bah! they were very poor. I could do their work as well or better than they could, but the Emperor was too wise to employ a man of my character at a desk; he knew I could control and tame wild men, and he employed me to do so."

You could do Berthier’s and Clarke’s job easily, huh? Well, I could name one battle of Waterloo that says otherwise, Monsieur! (So does Napier, btw.)

I think between Berthier and Soult all bridges were burnt. And it really may have been not only from Soult’s side. I can quite imagine how somebody like Berthier, “l’homme de Versailles”, coming from a noble background and placing great value on politeness and good manners, would react to Soult.

[josefavomjaaga]

Junot about Soult

Another thing I stumbled across. But this time the Junots are at least in it. To be precise, they have a conversation about the marshals' talents, while on their way to Spain. (From the memoirs of the Duchess of Abrantès, volume 12)

[…] I remember that it was on this journey from Bordeaux to Bayonne, and in connection with a particular letter from Bayonne, announcing the capture of Seville, or, more correctly, its occupation by Marshal Soult, that Junot spoke to me at length about the latter, and rectified my judgement of him. I knew very well that he was skilled; but, being used to hearing constant talk of Lannes, Lefebvre, Masséna and Ney, I placed nothing above them; I was therefore surprised at first when Junot told me that Soult was, without any comparison, the most competent man in the French army: "His talents," Junot told me, "are of such a superior nature, that I do not understand how the emperor did not give him positive authority over everything that was going on lately in Spain." "But he could not command Marshal J.," I said, with one of those convictions instilled by childhood prejudices, sometimes as absurd as they are mistaken. I seemed so convinced of this that Junot laughed so hard he almost swooned. "Marshal J.?" he said at last; "but, my poor Laure, don't you know why he is a marshal?" I opened my eyes wide, "But because, because..." "You don't know, do you? Well, neither do I. Because if you got to be a marshal for what he did, the whole army could claim to be one. But hell! Soult, that's another matter! He is, after the Emperor, the most capable man in all the French army." I had this conversation with Junot on arriving at Mont-de-Marsan; it stuck in my mind as further proof that men think and act contradictorily. This was indeed Junot's view of Soult. Well, he was like the others in Spain when Soult was appointed major-general in place of Marshal Jourdan: he almost always refused to obey [...]

I find this interesting on several levels. Laure Junot was a rather important member of the French court, her opinion was in all likelyhood that of most people in Paris. So, the important marshals in her book, those who "counted", were Lannes, Lefebvre, Masséna, Ney. Those apparently had a reputation, a "name" at court. As had Marshal Jourdan, (whom I of course assume to be "Marshal J."), simply because he was, like Lefebvre (?), an icon of the Revolution.

I wonder who else was in that group. Murat most likely as a member of the Imperial family, possibly Bessières due to being closest to the emperor in his day-to-day work?

Others, like Davout and Soult, are notably missing, despite undeniable achievements in the last campaigns (Austerlitz and Auerstädt). I wonder why. Sure, they rarely ever were in Paris but were even kept outside the country by the duties assigned to them. But seeing them and their merits ignored to the point that Laure even by 1810 is astonished about the talents her husband ascribes to Soult still seems a bit curious.

Also, both were at some point suspected of trying to grab a kingdom for themselves (Davout in Poland, Soult in both Portugal and Spain).

[josefavomjaaga]

Another heartfelt Thank You for all this information! 💖

Poor Junot. He was the first to be left alone and without resources, literally stuck in the last corner of Europe, to fend for himself. Soult and Masséna would follow.

I'm feeling really embarrassed, asking you to do all these posts. But they are very much appreciated, I love every bit of information that you can share! Details of Junot's administration of Portugal might be interesting especially as Soult was using Junot's name and behaviour in his defense: His main misdeed in Napoleon's eyes was the fact that he had made himself gouvernor of the French-occupied territories in Portugal, thus representing the emperor, and in this function had encouraged the inhabitants to send petitions to Napoleon, asking him for a new prince to replace the old House of Braganza. But, argues Soult, in doing so he had only repeated what Junot had done in Lisbon the year before. As a matter of fact, they had basically copied the wording of the petitions collected by Junot.

Saint-Chamans about Soult and the "roi Nicolas" affair

So I did it. Here is the testimony of the public prosecutor's crown witness against "roi Nicolas Soult" 😁. Taken from Saint-Chamans' memoirs, translated to the best of my and DeepL's abilities. I'm posting this mostly for @cadmusfly but read at your own risk. As I warned before, this is very long, rather convoluted and may be quite boring. Also, of course I could not resist jumping in to defend Soult at several points.

[…] we advanced cheerfully towards the borders of Portugal, not doubting the success of our expedition; Marshal Soult, following the instructions given to him by the Emperor, flooded the country with proclamations, but we soon saw that they had little effect on a fanatical people who were exhorted by their priests to make a stubborn defence; the excesses, theft and bad conduct of the Duke of Abrantès's army during the first expedition had, moreover, stirred up all the Portuguese against the French name.

Saint-Chamans may not always be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but these observations of his are interesting. Napoleon ordering a flood of proclamations hints at an attempt to peacefully win over the population to the French side from the very beginning (an attempt that Soult would, in his mind, continue in Oporto with different means). It is to be noted that Portugal as a whole had already been occupied and for some time administered by Junot from late 1807 to mid-1808. There must have been a francophile party within Portugal.

While I am not much familiar with Junot’s occupation of Portugal and its "excesses" (@snowv88, do you happen to know if Junot's occupation of Portugal was in some way worse than what had happened in other countries before?), and while this may to a large degree just be Saint-Chamans trying to pass the buck by pointing his finger at somebody else, it is true that a whole bunch of generals who had belonged to Junot’s army during the first occupation of Portugal now were under Soult’s command, re-entering a country that already despised them (this would in particular be so for general Loison, nicknamed "Maneta" and hated with a passion by the Portuguese). Moreover, these generals, whom Napoleon had ordered Soult to take with him, now had entered Soult's staff as supernumerary members without specific duties. So not only did Soult have to take over an army corps that he had never commanded before (his own corps had remained in Germany), and men he did not know and who did not know him, but he also had to deal with a large group of bored officers, with lots of time on their hands to feel ignored or badly treated by their new commander-in-chief.

But I’m already digressing. What I wanted to translate was Saint-Chamans’ opinion of Soult’s alleged attempt to make himself king. Here’s another remark on what Soult’s state of mind may have been like, once the French had managed to enter Portugal and become master of at least some parts of the country. Saint-Chamans has just returned from a journey to general Franceschi, and had barely avoided getting killed in attacks by Portuguese peasants several times on the way.

I took care, when I saw Marshal Soult again, not to tell him about all the misfortunes of my last night: I knew that he became seriously angry when anyone tried to give him an idea of the dangers that accompanied the French in this dreadful country, and of the exasperation of the Portuguese against us; he was extremely persistent in his resolutions and in his undertakings, and he was very annoyed with those who tried, either directly or indirectly, to divert him from them and to make him see the disadvantages. He could not, however, conceal them from himself for long, and this knowledge of his dangerous position threw him into false and hazardous political steps, the gist of which has never been properly grasped and which perhaps only he could have fully explained; but I will speak at greater length about this circumstance in a moment, and I will say frankly what I have seen and what I believe.

Which he then does some pages later, after having related the horrible scenes during the capture of Oporto:

Indeed, despite this brilliant victory, our position was very critical; the army of Sir Arthur Wellesley (since so famous under the name of the Duke of Wellington), 30,000 strong and united with the Portuguese army, was in Lisbon and preparing to march on Oporto; they were commanded by the Portuguese General Sylveira and the English General Sir Robert Wilson (the same man who has since been tried in Paris for having escaped Lavalette). These latter corps were intended to intercept any communication with Spain.

Here, I believe, Saint-Chamans makes a rather dishonest argument, or at least argues in hindsight, because I do not think the French at the time were even aware of the strong British presence in Portugal. They only figured it out when they tried to go south from Oporto.

If Marshal Soult had not been absorbed by ideas of ambition, which dominated all others in him at the time, he would have realised that his position was untenable and that he had only one course of action to take: to regard Oporto as a conquest which he needed to take advantage of to feed his army well for a fortnight and recover from its fatigues; then to retreat with all his forces to the Minho, to seize Valença, a fortified town in Portugal, on this river, opposite Tuy, of which he would have made an excellent bridgehead which would have communicated from one to the other of these last two towns; he would thus have linked up with the corps of Marshal Ney, whose headquarters were in Coruña, and whose troops occupied Tuy and Santiago; in this way, he could have safely evacuated his wounded and sick to good hospitals established in well-closed towns, instead of being obliged to abandon them to the fury of the Portuguese, as he did when he hastily evacuated Oporto; he would have kept all his artillery, lost at the same time; he would make the part of Portugal between the Minho and the Douro his tributary; he would re-establish direct communication with the French army in Spain and France; his own army, which numbered only 24,000 men, would have lived in abundance; he would preserve for the French army the best entrance into Portugal for the time when they would have been in a position to conquer this country, and until then he could wage a war of exploration there [...].

While it is quite possible that this plan, developped by a Saint-Chamans writing some 15 or 20 years after the events, could have proven successful (even if it does assume that Wellesley would just have watched the French gaining a secure foothold in the country and puts a little too much faith into the forces of Ney who barely was able to hold onto Galicia at this point), it was unfortunately not at all in accordance with the orders Soult had received from Napoleon. These orders simply stated that Soult was to march into Portugal from the north, conquer it and seize Lissabon, for which Berthier in his last dispatches deemed Soult’s single corps sufficient. But if he really needed support, he should receive it from Ney (from the north) or Victor (from the east). A retreat however, by giving up an important city that had been conquered, was simply not an option.

And so Soult, sticking to his orders, remained in Oporto and tried to contact the two corps that were supposed to support him: Ney and Victor (by sending Loison east to Amarante, as we will hear). Unfortunately, both of them had their hands full with problems of their own, Ney had lost contact with Madrid himself, Victor never showed up and may not even have fully understood what he was supposed to do, and since by now Joseph in Madrid was in charge, who paid little attention to what was going on in Portugal, Soult was left utterly alone.

Continuing with Saint-Chamans’ account:

[…] But all these considerations were not in harmony with Marshal Soult's plans, and so he did not give them a second thought. No sooner had he established himself in Oporto than he began to unmask his plan; an officer, half-French, half-Portuguese, named Laffitte, a schemer if ever there was one, who had been sent to his staff for the expedition to Portugal, ostensibly as an interpreter, for he spoke Portuguese fairly well, but in reality as a spy, was his main agent with the Portuguese in this circumstance; at Oporto, this wretch discovered a Portuguese priest named Veloso, who was as rich as he was narrow-minded, and who was promised heaven and earth, provided that Marshal Soult became King of Portugal; at the same time, this ignorant priest was persuaded that he was not a bad man, and that all this was for the greater good of his country; he believed it, and this idea, combined with the fine promises made to him, made him one of the Marshal's most zealous supporters; he acted accordingly. He addressed the people in the streets and public squares; he preached in the churches, he spread money to make supporters for the Marshal, and led by the advice of Laffitte, he succeeded in giving this party, in Oporto and the surrounding area, a certain stability; deputations arrived from Braga, Guimaraens, Olivera, and other towns of which we were the masters, and where part of the population had returned to, soliciting the Marshall to ascend the throne of Portugal; registers were opened in the town of Oporto to receive the votes of the inhabitants, the number of which was very considerable, and General Ricard, Marshal Soult's chief of staff, who had been his aide-de-camp, wrote circulars to the divisional generals insinuating the matter, for the Marshal, despite the affection for him of the good inhabitants of his good cities of Oporto and Braga, felt that he could do nothing without the consent and cooperation of the French army.

So, this is the main testimony that modern historians base their accusation on when it comes to Soult and the »roi Nicolas« issue. Admittedly, it is a damning one. Saint-Chamans obviously is convinced that Soult really wanted to seize the crown and was intriguing on his own behalf, and his testimony carries particular weight, as, being Soult’s aide-de-camp, having his marshal’s trust and being in his inner circle, Saint-Chamans was in a position to witness everything that was going on in Oporto at close quarters …

While all this intrigue was going on, I was on a mission twelve leagues from Oporto near generals Loison and Delaborde […]

Oh. Or maybe he wasn’t.

So, what Saint-Chamans relates above is not something he has witnessed himself, it is what he has heard during the time he spent with generals Loison and Delaborde – who would later be among the main gossips about precisely this topic (Thiébault seems to have gotten the story from Loison; Delaborde, as to him, apparently backpedalled somewhat on his accusations when he was called upon directly to testify). But I’m sorry, I have interrupted Saint-Chamans again:

While all this intrigue was going on, I was on a mission twelve leagues from Oporto near Generals Loison and Delaborde who, with an infantry division and some cavalry, were charged with taking Amarante, and especially the bridge there (over the Tameyra); Marshal Soult announced loudly that, from there, this head of column would move towards Zamora, in order to communicate with the French army in Castile; but he was too good a military man to seriously entertain this project; if he had really wanted to communicate with French troops, it was towards Galicia, where he positively knew that Marshal Ney's corps was, that he would have manoeuvred; he had only twenty leagues to go, and he would have found himself opposite Tuy, which was to have been occupied by the French of Marshal Ney's corps.

Whenever I reflected on the military movements of Marshal Soult in this circumstance, I became convinced that he did not want to communicate with the French army in Spain; above all he wanted to avoid all relations with Marshal Ney, whose enmity against him and violent character he knew: he had every reason to believe that this Marshal would hasten to say loudly and to write to France that he, Soult, had sacrificed the interests of the Emperor and of the army to his personal ambition in this circumstance; and this is what did not fail to happen. A few days after our entry into Oporto, I had been sent to Amarante; I had come back for a while, and then returned a second time; there was still only vague talk of the Marshal's plans; [...].

Leaving out the relation of poor Lameth’s death of which Saint-Chamans heard at this time and which moved him profoundly.

These reflections, which struck me even more on learning of his death than at the time I am writing these lines, had inspired in me a certain distaste for the military career and the uncertainties it presented; moreover, the grief I felt at having been for several months without any news of my family or my country added to my gloomy mood; I imagined that the greatest happiness I could aspire to in the future was to return to France and live there peacefully at home.

These »dispositions moroses«, the gloomy mood Saint-Chamans alludes to, in my opinion is also not to be disregarded. Saint-Chamans hardly was the only one who felt that way, this rather may have been the general feeling of the whole army, including its marshal. The men were alone in a hostile country, barely holding out, without instructions, support or clue what to do next.

It was in these circumstances that I returned to Oporto; there I found Marshal Soult completely immersed in his political combinations, and seemingly little concerned with military events; I wanted to ask him about this several times, but he always stopped me by telling me that in Portugal it was from his office that he was waging war. It was hardly the time, but I was so accustomed to seeing him as a very superior genius that, from his apparent tranquillity, I still had the good faith, in this alarming crisis, to hope for a favourable outcome.

Here again I can’t help but wonder if, at the time, Saint-Chamans really saw an »alarming crisis«, or of he was writing in hindsight.

But his actions were becoming so ambiguous that we didn't know what to make of them ourselves, and one day when we were joking about it at the table of the aides-de-camp, all of us young men who liked to laugh, we distributed the great offices of his court among ourselves; I was immediately named grand equerry, because of all his aides-de-camp, I was the one who knew horses best and had served most in the cavalry; another was grand chamberlain, that one grand veneur, etc. Finally, we laughed and joked a lot about this subject, because despite what we saw and heard, none of us could imagine that such an absurd project as that of making himself king of Portugal had seriously entered the mind of the Marshal, that until then we had seen so sharp.

Here Saint-Chamans kind of confirms my suspicion that much of what he writes in his memoirs is argued in hindsight. At the time, the rumours apparently were there, but were seen as so ridiculous by everyone, including Saint-Chamans, that they merely served to amuse Soult’s (as usual very outspoken and exuberant) ADCs over supper. If they had truly taken the allegations serious, would they not have needed to take measures, to at least talk to Soult's chief-of-staff about it?

This table talk caused a stir in the army; the staff officers who were present, the officers on guard duty, even the servants, commented on it; I think that this conversation (1), reported to the Marshal by his associates, gave him food for thought, and a few days later he sent for me in the afternoon and took me for a walk with him in an orange garden where he sometimes went to relax from his work in the cabinet.

Footnote (1) seems to be a remark by Saint-Chamans himself that I am not quite sure how to translate:

On nous en fit un crime en France. - One turned this into a crime of us in France. (We were made to feel like criminals because of it? - By whom? Soult? Napoleon? And when? Most of the guys joking at that table would not return to France for years?)

We were alone, and he wasted no time in starting up a conversation: he had made the right choice, for I have never known how to make courtship at the expense of truth; he knew that better than anyone, and perhaps that was why he had chosen me. He got straight to the point: - What do they say about me here? - I've only been back a short time, but I'm hearing everywhere that you want to make yourself King of Portugal. He looked at me fixedly, but without appearing surprised or angry; I remained cold and did not give him the explanation he seemed to be expecting, because I wanted to be questioned; that's the way to avoid saying more than you're being asked. - I can imagine that, he continued. But why was I sent here? why was I put in the awful position I am in now? I can only get out of this by dividing the Portuguese amongst themselves, and to do that I am using the best political means in my power, because I have no money to throw at them. - Do you think, Marshal, that these means will not be misinterpreted in the Tuileries, and that they will not try to frame you as a criminal? - You're right, but I repeat that I have no other way of getting out of this, and the Emperor will do me justice. After a few moments of silence, during which he seemed painfully agitated, he added: - There will be many more cries in France when it is known that I tolerate the inhabitants of Oporto continuing their trade with the English, when people can say that I myself sell them wines, as I am currently trying to sell them some of those we took on our way here. - There is no shortage of people in France, or even in Spain, I would say, who, in order to harm you, will represent these steps in very black colours. - I'm expecting it, he continued in a sort of violent despair; I may have to put my head on the scaffold, but when I go up there, I'll have the consolation of telling myself that I've done all that I could to save 20,000 Frenchmen from the sad position to which they are reduced! Do what you must, come what may. It was one of his favourite maxims, either because it was truly in his character, or because he wanted to persuade people that it was the rule of his conduct. We had reached this point in our conversation, which could have become interesting, for he was ready to be trusting and I to talk, something that did not happen to both of us every day, and I was beginning a question about his military movements, to ask him why he was not setting off to cross the Minho again, when we were joined, at the bend in the path where we were walking, by General Ricard, who was coming towards us with a bundle of papers: These were urgent reports from the generals commanding our outposts at various points; the Marshal returned to give orders, and our conversation ended there; I never took it up again with him on this subject.

Which, my dear Saint-Chamans, is a shame.

The idea that I have formed of Marshal Soult's conduct in this circumstance has always been that he wanted to be asked to be king of Portugal by the inhabitants of the part of this country of which he was master; that then, having taken this first step, he would have solicited the votes of the army that he commanded; these would have been recorded in registers for each corps or staff, and he would then have placed all these documents before the Emperor, asking for his approval and making him aware that this was the only way to keep the Portuguese in the interests of France; perhaps in this way he would have succeeded, at least for a while, in his plans.

Whereas the idea that I get from this relation is that:

Saint-Chamans heard all the malicious rumours from Loison and Delaborde, but, being Saint-Chamans, did not think much about it.

Back at headquarters, Saint-Chamans immediately shared the stories he had heard with his fellow ADCs, who found them hilarious and joked endlessly - and loudly - about them during the all-night-party they held on account of Saint-Chamans's return.

An exasperated Soult, informed of what his aides had been up to this time, called for Saint-Chamans (whom he genuinely liked) in order to set him straight, but was interrupted by daily events.

Some twenty years later, when Soult had thrown in with the July Monarchy and supported Louis Philippe, thus - in Saint-Chamans's mind - breaking his vows to Charles X and the older branch of the Bourbons, Saint-Chamans decided that Soult had been an ambitious egotist all along, and wrote his memoirs accordingly.

But that's me. As I said, I am hardly unbiased. It is, however, interesting that Saint-Chamans, despite this event, would not break off relations with his marshal. And also, that we have another ADC, who in his memoirs states just as clearly that all these rumours were bullshit. That aide would be Petiet - not always well-disposed towards Soult, but in this case ready to defend him against all accusations. But I have rarely seen Petiet's testimony taken into account.

Make of it what you want 😊

[josefavomjaaga]

Hi ! Who was Eugène friends with throughout his life and were there people with whom he was not so friendly? How was your relationship with your wife's family? Thank you!

Hi there, and thanks for the question! Also, please bear with me, ´coz this is going to be lengthy.

Eugène's position changed a lot over the years but there are some people, usually not well-known, who will remain friends with him throughout all his life.

During the Consulate, Eugène was something like everybody's darling. This was partly due to his position as stepson of the new chief of state. First Consul Bonaparte increasingly resembled a monarch, and Eugène, the son of Madame Bonaparte,was the closest thing to a crown prince there was. Eugène's biographer Michel Kérautret emphasises how much he (and in a different vein his sister) were seen as the »next generation of France«. Eugène commanded one of the most famous regiments, the Chasseurs au Cheval de la Garde, and was universally admired. Little boys looked at him with big eyes when he walked by. Besides, he was completely apolitical, only interested in women, horses and the army, and could therefore be invited by anyone. As long as there was music and dancing, Eugène was happy.

His closest friends also came from the ranks of the army. His probably best friend is hardly known: Auguste Bataille (de Tancarville), later Baron of the Empire and one of Eugène's aides-de-camp. Napoleon was not very enthusiastic about him and his abilities. (If I remember correctly, poor Bataille once had the misfortune to have a thief steal the briefcase with the documents he was supposed to bring to Napoleon. Eugène then got a nasty letter saying "Don't send me that idiot any more!")

Auguste Bataille remained in Eugène's service until his death in 1821. He is the one Eugène sends to Napoleon in 1809 to report the arrival of the Armée d'Italie in Austria (when Eugène was probably expecting the thrashing of his life and instead received a hero's welcome). But he is also the one whom Eugène's sister and wife turn to when they want news of Eugène and he himself has no time to write, so clearly someone who is quasi-family. When Eugène had to leave Italy, Bataille, who was married there, remained behind to administer Eugène's Italian properties. He died in 1821, and when Planat de la Faye asked Eugène for a job in 1822, Eugène explicitly referred to the late Bataille and said "You have seen who else belongs to my entourage. Bataille was my friend and the only one I could really rely on - I want someone like that again." (Planat de la Faye will take this job very seriously and later defend Eugène's memory like a bloodhound).

Just to mention a few other people who became important to Eugène since his time in Italy and who also accompanied him to Munich into exile: his cousin Louis Tascher and his wife, his adjutant General Triaire and the family of his former secretary for political affairs, Etienne Méjean and his only remaining son. After Eugène's death, Eugène’s children will grow up with the children of Méjean Jr.; they will call them "Papa Méjean" and Grand-Papa Méjean".

Let's move on to more prominent people. Among the marshals, Eugène's best friend was clearly Bessières. Bessières had been Eugène's superior since Egypt and remained so until Eugène went to Italy as viceroy. Apparently Napoleon had tasked Bessières with taking Eugène under his wing (or perhaps just with preventing his overzealous stepson from accidentally killing himself in the Sahara in an attempt to somehow distinguish himself). This resulted in a friendship that lasted for years. Eugène called Bessières "tu" in his letters, even when he had become prince and viceroy; there are apparently over a dozen letters to him in the "Archives Nationales", which are according to the description "of a predominantly private nature". After returning from Egypt, Eugène and Bessières shared a house in Paris (and apparently the two also plunged into Paris nightlife together). Eugène also accompanied Bessières when the latter visited his fiancée in Cahors and repeatedly sent his regards to Madame Bessières. After Bessières' death, there were several letters of condolence between Eugène and Bessières’ widow. In his memoirs, Eugène defended Bessières against some accusations that Lannes had made against him after the battle of Marengo. (One would think that this would have been time-barred by 1823).

Duroc, from whom Eugène sometimes sent greetings in his letters to Hortense, completed the trio of friends (but Duroc seemed to get on well with everyone). Eugène recounts in his memoirs how Duroc once stopped him from literally sleeping through his duty in Egypt; later they lay wounded side by side in the military hospital outside Acre (Duroc, however, considerably worse). When Eugène was left all alone and clueless in Milan as Viceroy of Italy (that was how he saw the matter), Duroc seems to have been the only one who regularly looked after him and wrote to him. Apparently Duroc and Eugène also "shared" the attentions of a young lady from the stage (Emilie Bigottini). Later, whenever Napoleon was particularly angry with Eugène (which happened with a certain frequency), he did not write to him himself, but had someone else write; usually it was Duroc. Duroc was also the one who delivered the marriage proposal to Eugène's prospective father-in-law. When Eugène was in Vienna in 1809, he wrote an enthusiastic letter home to his wife because he had finally, for the first time in three years, been dining together with Bessières and Duroc! (Funnily enough, Bessières wrote almost the same letter to his wife).

However, Eugène's oldest friend among Napoleon's close collaborators, who even became his relative, was Lavalette. When Eugène, not quite 16 and just out of school, went to Italy as Napoleon's adjutant, the first Italian campaign was basically over. Napoleon sent his stepson to Corfu with dispatches (and explicit orders to get some rest and sightseeing there), and gave him Lavalette as an escort. Before the Egyptian campaign, when Lavalette was to ask for the hand of Emilie de Beauharnais, Eugène had to chaperone him and his cousin for a walk, only to remember that he had urgent business elsewhere and leave them alone. Lavalette was also among those whom Eugène continued to address as "tu" in his letters after he was promoted to viceroy. And after Lavalette narrowly escaped execution in the Second Restoration, he took refuge with Eugène in Bavaria, where Eugène and King Max more or less successfully hid him.

I'm limiting this to Eugène's male friends, by the way. Female acquaintances are another matter altogether.

Who did Eugène not get on so well with? Quite a lot of people, interestingly enough, consideringhe is described in almost all sources as incredibly amiable, patient and sociable.

There is, of course, his rivalry with Murat, the exact origins and background of which would interest me immensely. The two were actually in a very similar position from 1810 on at the latest, but rather than communicating with each other, the two seem to have been constantly at each other's throats. I have the impression that Murat made a timid attempt at reconciliation now and then, and that at this stage Eugène was the one who no longer wished to hear anything from Murat. Probably because he held Murat responsible for Napoleon's separation from Josephine.

And only to avoid any false impression: Murat and Eugène also called each other "tu" when they met in private. But in their official correspondence, they almost suffocate from the pompous phrases they throw at each other.

Someone Eugène did not get on with at all was Marshal André Masséna. For this, I think alot of things came together: a social background that couldn't be more different, and perhaps a sense of class superiority on Eugène's part. On the other side, Masséna, who had really fought his way up from the gutter by his own efforts, was unlikely to have taken seriously this brat who, thanks to his stepdad, was allowed to play viceroy in Italy. Eugène, for his part, with his rather naïve attitude to war, was horrified by Masséna's ... rather creative approach to the subject of requisition and his general attitude to "mine" and "yours". In 1805 he complained bitterly about the way Masséna and his men had plundered the Italians they were supposed to protect, and Masséna actually had to pay back a huge amount of money. In 1809, Eugène desperately wanted no marshal (it would probably have been Masséna) to be sent to Italy, but to be allowed to take command himself. When the battle of Sacile promptly turned into a disaster, Napoleon told him pointedly that this would not have happened with Masséna, Masséna’s plundering notwithstanding.

Similarly, Eugène clashed with Auguste Marmont. This was also about money, financial trickery and personal enrichment. On this point, Eugène did not joke (and presumably this was precisely the reason why Napoleon had appointed him as overseer in Italy). The friction with Marmont developed into an enmity that lasted truly until after the death of the two adversaries, or rather only really erupted there: Marmont accused Eugène in his posthumously published memoirs (not entirely without reason, but in a rather exaggerated manner) of having been the main reason for Napoleon's defeat in 1814, and Eugène's daughters and Planat de la Faye (see above) then took the editor of the memoirs to court. Absolutely crazy.

From his correspondence, I take it he also at least once discovered Bourienne’s financial shenanigans in Hamburg.

I unfortunately do not know how his relationship with Marshal Lannes was (but I would love to know). My gut feeling says: probably similar to Masséna. Eugène does mention Lannes twice in his memoirs, both times respectfully. But I have not come across any personal interaction or correspondence between them at all. As Lannes was close to Murat and somewhat at odds with Bessières, he’s unlikely to have been friends with Eugène.

As this has gotten so long already, I’ll stop here and put anything about Eugène’s Bavarian in-laws into an extra post at a later date. Just so much for now: If this was Facebook, I’d pick »It’s complicated«.

[joachimnapoleon]

Meet the Bonapartes: Pauline (3/3)

[Part 1] [Part 2]

Following the untimely death of Leclerc, Pauline’s brothers were anxious to find her a new husband--preferably a politically advantageous one. Napoleon had hoped to marry her to Francesco Melzi d’Eril, a wealthy Milanese nobleman who had just become the Vice President of the Italian republic (Napoleon himself being the president), but Melzi respectfully declined. On August 28, 1803, Pauline was married to twenty-eight-year-old Don Camillo Filippo Ludovico Borghese, Prince of Sulmon and of Rossano, Duke and Prince of Guastalla, who, in the words of Hortense de Beauharnais, “was not particularly clever but good-looking and who possessed a great fortune in Rome.” Napoleon was lukewarm to the match and, like Pauline, quickly came to regard Camillo as “an imbecile” (Napoleon, who adored bestowing derogatory nicknames on people, would also style Camillo as “His Serene Idiot”). The pair had no real chemistry and the marriage turned sour in no time. 

[Camillo Borghese]

In the summer of 1804, however, Camillo, still enthralled by his wife’s beauty, commissioned the sculptor Antonio Canova to immortalize Pauline in white marble. Canova was initially reluctant to accept the commission--until he laid eyes on Pauline in person, after which he agreed to begin working on it within a month. To Canova’s suggestion that he depict her as Diana, the virgin huntress, Pauline laughed, saying “No one would believe in my chastity.” She insisted on being portrayed as Venus, the goddess of love. 

[Canova’s statue of Pauline as Venus Victrix]

It was in August of 1804 that the relationship between Pauline and Camillo ruptured, and it would remain ruptured seemingly past the point of repair for the next twenty years. On the 14th of August, Dermide, Pauline’s only child with Leclerc, died in Rome after falling ill with a fever. Pauline was in Tuscany at the time, trying to reestablish her poor health. The news was first received by Camillo, who, anticipating his wife’s blame, had it kept from her for several days. “Pauline will regard me with horror!” he declared. “Wasn't it I who wanted her to leave her son in Rome? No doubt he would have died anyway, but she is bound to accuse me of his death.” Finally, one of Pauline’s attendants was forced to reveal the news after arousing her suspicions. Pauline raged at Camillo as “the butcher of my son” and ordered him out of her sight. The break between them was complete, and quite public. Pauline viciously hinted to her companions that Camillo was impotent, declaring that "to give oneself to Camillo was to give oneself to no one." She showed no interest in attempting to provide him with an heir, and took great delight in humiliating him by embarking on a series of openly flaunted love affairs. For his part, Camillo soon began a long-term affair with a distant cousin, the Duchessa Lante. From this point, Pauline and Camillo would lead mostly separate lives, until the final months of Pauline’s. Having never truly enjoyed Rome, she now grabbed any opportunity she could find to escape it.

In 1805, she began the first of the only two of her numerous affairs in the aftermath of Leclerc’s death in which she showed a legitimate, deep attachment to her lover. While taking the waters at Plombières, she met an artist, the thirty-year-old Comte de Forbin, and fell madly in love with him. Pauline soon made Forbin her chamberlain, so he could be with her constantly. The affair lasted for the next two years and, writes Pauline’s biographer Margery Weiner, 

was so intense, passionate and almost fatal because her obsession with him was so great that she declined visibly, although nothing would persuade her to detach herself from him; no doubt in temperament Forbin had much in common with Murat.

[The Comte de Forbin]

The eventual decline in her health was so great that a renowned gynecologist, Dr. Hallé, was called in, to consult with Pauline’s personal physician, Peyre. Hallé explained the situation in a letter to Peyre as follows:

Her habitual and constant state is one of uterine excitement and if this state is continued and prolonged it can become alarming. The spasms I saw in her arms were hysteric and so were the headaches. Her general condition is one of exhaustion. I talked to her in general terms about everything which contributed to the uterine irritation and I thought she listened to me but I'm afraid not sufficiently. One cannot always make douches responsible and one must suppose that in a young, pretty, sensitive and solitary woman, who is visibly fading away, there is a constant cause for this decline. Whatever this cause is it is time and more than time to eliminate it.

Napoleon was greatly displeased by the stories reaching him in Paris of his sister’s behavior in Rome. “Do not count on me for help,” he wrote to her, “if at your age you let yourself be governed by bad advice,” adding that if she continued to quarrel with Camillo, “France will be closed to you.” For good measure, he had their uncle Cardinal Fesch, write to Pauline to tell her, “on my behalf, that she is no longer pretty, that she will be much less so in a few years, and... she should not indulge in those bad manners which the bon ton reproves.”

Pauline’s affair with Forbin ended only when Forbin accepted an appointment in the army--whether at his own request, or at the insistence of Napoleon, remains unclear. Pauline soon moved on to other amusements. While staying in Nice during the winter of 1807-8, a young violinist, Felice Blangini, caught Pauline’s wandering eye. Pauline offered him the post of her chef d’orchestra (she had no orchestra). Blangini was a shy man, of a much humbler station than his predecessor Forbin, and found his suddenly elevation vaguely terrifying. "I knew,” he wrote later, “that the Emperor was kept informed of what his sister did, the names of her intimates.” But he lacked the will to stand up to Pauline, and submitted to being paraded around by her in public. It was with considerable relief on Blangini’s part that the affair was abruptly ended when Napoleon appointed Camillo governor-general of the Transalpine Department of the French Empire, and ordered him and Pauline to travel to Turin together to take up the seat. 

Pauline, disgusted at finding herself shackled to Camillo once more, made the journey to Turin as quarrelsome as possible. At one point she reminded her husband "in a not very amiable fashion that he was only governor-general by virtue of being her husband, and that he would be nothing if he had not married the Emperor's sister. Which," recounts Maxime de Villemarest, the secretary who accompanied the pair, "had some truth in it." To which Camillo responded in "the most piteous manner" (in the words of de Villemarest) with cries of "Paulette! Paulette!"

By mid-1808 she had already found a way to escape from Camillo and Turin (she insisted to Napoleon that the climate was bad for her health) and was back in France once more. Added to her delight was an increase of her income by Napoleon to six hundred thousand francs, a sum that Napoleon rendered off-limits to Camillo. In Paris she presided regularly over balls and cercles, and in no time had resumed her position as one of the central figures in Parisian society. In the words of one of her neighbors, Stanislas de Girardin, 

Pauline Borghese was then in the full brilliance of her beauty. Men pressed about her to admire her, to pay court. And she enjoyed this homage as her due. In the glances she exchanged with some of them, indeed, there was a recognition of past favors granted or hints of romance to come. Few women have savored more the pleasure of being beautiful.

She was one of the few people in whom Napoleon found comfort following his divorce with Josephine--an event which pleased Pauline greatly--in December of 1809. She was less pleased at Napoleon’s choice for a new bride--the teenage archduchess Marie-Louise--and sulked with her sisters over having to carry the bride’s train at the imperial wedding. The Countess Potocka has left this innuendo-laden description of Pauline from around this time (the italics are hers):

Princess Pauline Borghese was a type of classical beauty to be found in Greek statues. Despite the things she did which hastened the ravages of time, in the evening, by the aid of a little artifice, she captured all suffrages, and not a woman would have dared to dispute her the apple which Canova awarded her after unveiled contemplation, as it was said. To the most delicate and regular features imaginable she added an admirable figure too often admired. Thanks to so many graces, her wit passed unnoticed; nothing but her gallantries were spoken of, and certainly they gave plenty of matter for discussion.

After brief liaisons with Russian general Prince Alexander Tchernitcheff and Polish general (and future Marshal) Józef Poniatowski, Pauline embarked on her second of the two aforementioned love affairs in which she genuinely seems to have fallen for her partner. This time, her lover was a young hussar from Berthier’s staff named Jules de Canouville, who became fiercely devoted to her. At Pauline’s request, Napoleon made de Canouville a baron, but the young man (and his affair with Pauline) soon incurred the Emperor’s wrath. Napoleon sent him to Marshal Masséna in Spain, bearing dispatches (and a secret order to Masséna to keep the young man in Spain until further notice). It didn’t go quite as Napoleon had planned. Pauline’s biographer Fraser describes de Canouville’s journey:

Even in the midst of this duty, de Canouville thought only of Pauline. Knowing that, with her, to be absent was to be soon forgotten, he covered 170 relays at a gallop, a distance of over seven hundred miles, and arrived a few days later, covered in mud, at headquarters in Salamanca. There he learned that the supply lines to Portugal were cut and resolved to return the next day to Paris with the news, rather than pursue his quarry further.  An hour without Pauline, he said, was a desert, and he whiled away the evening while telling all who would listen that Napoleon had charged him with his mission only by way of vengeance.

[Jules de Canouville]

In 1812, he departed with the Grande Armée for Russia, where he served on the staff of Pauline’s brother-in-law Murat, who kept Pauline apprised of de Canouville’s whereabouts--and also informed her of his death at the battle of Borodino on 7 September. News of de Canouville’s death hit Pauline hard. “Apparently this braggart cavalier,” writes Fraser, “with his joie de vivre and optimism, had touched in Pauline some chord that her other, more sophisticated lovers had not. Weeks later Pauline's librarian and confidant Ferrand wrote: 'She does nothing but cry, she doesn't eat, and her health is altered.'"

She remained at Nice throughout 1813 and into 1814, her health continuing to decline, and her anxieties over the future of her brother’s reign mounting. She made efforts to prepare her finances for any potential catastrophe that might befall the family, but evinced no concern for her personal safety. When Napoleon was finally defeated and forced to abdicate in April of 1814, Pauline prepared to join him in exile on the island of Elba--after first going to Naples. She stayed in Naples from June through October, residing in a villa loaned to her during this period by her sister Caroline, the Queen of Naples, and reportedly helping to broker a reconciliation between Napoleon and the Murats, though there is no trace of any correspondence between Napoleon and his brother-in-law from this period. She also worked to quickly sell off her remaining properties in France, rather than risk having them sequestered by the Bourbons. Her final property, Neuilly--formerly belonging to the Murats--was sold to the British government, to serve as the residence of the newly-appointed ambassador to the court of Louis XVIII, the Duke of Wellington.

Pauline finally joined Napoleon on Elba in November of 1814, the only one of his siblings to do so. Her presence delighted Napoleon, and this delight in turn gave renewed life in the British tabloids to the long-recurring rumors of an affair between Napoleon and Pauline. At any rate, Napoleon soon began to fall into a state of depression, which Pauline worked to cure by arranging various balls and other entertainments to keep him occupied. She apparently attempted to coax multiple generals into affairs on Elba, and was turned down repeatedly, and Napoleon’s Mameluke servant Ali was highly critical of her conduct. Displeased with Napoleon’s plans to escape the island and return to France, she confided to Marchand both a diamond necklace for Napoleon to sell if he needed money, and her fear that she would never see her brother again. She was proven correct.

When it became known that the Allies intended to exile Napoleon to Saint Helena after his defeat at Waterloo, Pauline wrote to the Pope to request asylum in Rome. It was granted (partly on account of her brother Louis, now residing there himself, arguing on her behalf) and she made the journey in October. Like the rest of the Bonaparte siblings, she would remain, until the death of Napoleon, under heavy surveillance by multiple governments. The further intervention of the Pope ended a dispute between Camillo and Pauline which enabled Pauline to return to the Palazzo Borghese. Pauline received many British visitors here while Napoleon was on Saint Helena, and tried to charm as many influential Whigs as she could, knowing that they were sympathetic to Napoleon’s situation. As the years passed, reports of Napoleon's deteriorating health caused Pauline great anxiety, affecting her own health in turn. Visitors described her as "much altered" and "grown thin." The Canova statue--and its obvious contrast with her own now diminished figure--suddenly brought about in her a marked insecurity, to the point where Pauline eventually asked Camillo not to show it off to visitors anymore, using the absurd excuse that "the nudity of the statue approaches indecency." 

News of Napoleon's death in 1821 left Pauline both heartbroken and outraged. As she had following the death of Dermide, she lashed out for a scapegoat, finding it this time in the English people as a whole. “I have made a vow to receive no more of the English. Without exception they are all butchers." To Hortense she wrote, "I cannot accustom myself to the idea that I will never see him again. I am in despair. Adieu. For me life has no more charm, all is finished."

She fell deathly ill in Rome in late 1823, but recovered enough to continue to charm visitors and dance at soirees again the following year. Another reconciliation was affected with Camillo (this one also via the Pope), and Pauline moved back into the Palazzo Borghese--this time for good--in 1824. Surprisingly, their relationship seemed at last to be taking a genuinely positive turn, even inspiring a local poet “to write an ode on the subject of their matrimonial felicity."

In the spring 1825, Pauline's health began to fail for the final time. She suffered greatly--her bedchamber woman writing later that Pauline had been in pain for over eighty days. Her last letter was written to her brother Louis in Rome on 13 May 1825. "I do nothing but vomit and suffer, I am reduced to a shadow. They are repairing the street and I can't stand the awful noise. The Prince is going to take a villa in the suburbs here where we shall spend the month of May. It is impossible in the state in which I am to think of going to the villa in Lucca.... Embrace Mamma and I send a thousand good wishes to the family. I am ill, ill, but I embrace you." She also confirmed herself as a devout Catholic. "I die without any feelings of hatred or animosity against anyone, in the principles of the faith and doctrine of the apostolic church, and in piety and resignation." She died on 9 June 1825; a stomach tumor was attributed as her cause of death, as it had been for her father.

“Her greatest quality,” writes Margery Weiner, “was hidden except from those who knew her best; lovable herself, she was capable of the greatest devotion.... Not as Queen of Hearts, not as a woman given over to frivolity, narcissism and promiscuity should Pauline Bonaparte be remembered, but as a perfect example of a devoted and loving sister.”

***

Sources:

Broers, Michael. Napoleon: Soldier of Destiny. 2014.

Broers, Michael. Napoleon: The Spirit of the Age, 1805-1810. 2018.

De Beauharnais, Hortense. The Memoirs of Queen Hortense, Vol I (ebook, 2016)

Fraser, Flora. Venus of Empire: The Life of Pauline Bonaparte, 2009.

Roberts, Andrews. Napoleon: A Life. 2014.

Stryienski, Casimir (ed.), Memoirs of Countess Potocka, 1900.

Weiner, Margery. The Parvenue Princesses: Elisa, Pauline, and Caroline Bonaparte. 1964.