Why so many four- and five-star reviews? This is the Jackie Collins of historical fiction. It’s shallow, silly, and (I believe) invents some details. Why so many four- and five-star reviews? This is the Jackie Collins of historical fiction. It’s shallow, silly, and (I believe) invents some details. I’d hate to read subsequent volumes to see how the author treats Napoleon’s romance with Josephine....more
Who knew that, in the early 30s, it was better to be a tramp in Paris than in London? One thing unexplained: Orwell had two good dishwashing jobs in PWho knew that, in the early 30s, it was better to be a tramp in Paris than in London? One thing unexplained: Orwell had two good dishwashing jobs in Paris; he could only deliberately have not sought such a job in London. That makes me suspicious of his comparison of the poor in the two cities.
Still, one hardly could read a more literate distillation of the days, and the defects in handling, vagrants. ...more
Not as funny as he thinks he is. Goes on and on--starry-eyed Anglo-Saxon loose in flinty Province, kept afloat by uncontrollable electricians and incoNot as funny as he thinks he is. Goes on and on--starry-eyed Anglo-Saxon loose in flinty Province, kept afloat by uncontrollable electricians and incompetent plumbers. And, ultimately, by profits from this best-seller.
Major result of publication, and sequel, has been increase in prices in Auberges and -- worse yet -- doubling the price of nearby Michelin 1, 2 and 3 star restaurants (L'Auberge Procençale; La Bonne Étape: Le Dispason; Méo)....more
The church officials responsible for trying the Maid of Orleans were keen to leave a detailed record of their investigation. Yes, the Nazis did too, bThe church officials responsible for trying the Maid of Orleans were keen to leave a detailed record of their investigation. Yes, the Nazis did too, but somehow, this feels different. Why? Because the alternative was so much worse: under the laws of land warfare as they then stood, Commanding Generals normally were ransomed or exchanged. Yet, there was no way Henry VI (England) would have allowed such a charismatic leader to return to France; trial by England's Burgundian allies was the next best alternative to simple murder. So Pierre Cauchon, master of this trial, kept and published careful notes, because he wanted the world to know his process was considerably superior to murder. This book is an English translation of a Latin summary of those notes.
Blasphemy shouldn't be criminal. But, given that it was -- Joan thought so too -- the amazing thing is that Joan probably received due process. She had an opportunity to request counsel (admittedly she could select only from the Prelates), but refused. She was not tortured. She was given endless opportunities to recant, did once, then reverted with a contemptuous 'I never said that'. And her case went, effectively, on appeal to the Faculty of the University of Paris.
Apart from that, the other impression echoing from more than 500 years ago is how an uneducated 19 year-old Maid could tie two dozen of the best educated men in Christendom up in knots with simple answers and denials. At least until the end....more
A slog. Begins and ends with all manner of Foucaultian theory, a snooze in itself. The middle section, describing the occupation itself, is quite inteA slog. Begins and ends with all manner of Foucaultian theory, a snooze in itself. The middle section, describing the occupation itself, is quite interesting. Yet, Rosbottom seems more interested in the meta psychology than the simple telling. All made worse by the fact that he's simply not a good writer.
"[For the Nazis,] to admire Paris was fine, but to admire the French ingenuity that created was not. . . The German occupiers wanted to unmake dynamic Paris, to create a static simulacrum, preserving its most banal characteristics for their own enjoyment."
Requiring Jews to wear the yellow star "created a mobile ghetto."
A description by a young woman of American liberation:
"Tall, big men, are relieved of every vain worry in your presence. You climb the stairs to our apartment, our doors are open, you bring packages, all as it should be. That's it, the overwhelming advantages behind which you hide your weaknesses. And what are they? No inferiority complex about their inferiority. They say "I don't much like that!" ( Literature, music, art…)… They manage so well the immensity of their ignorance, as if it were a light feather."
Interestingly, only about 47 percent of the women shorn of all hair after the occupation were accused of "collaboration horizontale." "The rest were women betrayed by their female peers because they had worked with or served the Germans, because they had ended the war a bit better off than their compatriots, or they had in other ways insulted common mores."
Possibly most interesting is his repeated praise for Jacques Chirac, for (especially in his speech of 16 July 1996), insisting that all Parisians and all French citizens "recognize the mistakes of the past--and especially those committed by the Vichy state. Nothing must block out the dismal hours of our history if we are to defend a certain idea of humanity, of liberty, and dignity. In so doing, we struggle against those dark forces that are constantly at work. This ceaseless combat is mine as much as it is yours."...more
Only buy the hardback edition--this is a gloriously handsome book with at least 50 color plates/maps. Don't even think of buying in electronic form.
SuOnly buy the hardback edition--this is a gloriously handsome book with at least 50 color plates/maps. Don't even think of buying in electronic form.
Such "Saxon Tales" storytelling of a Napoleonic battle isn't for everyone--marred upon occasion by over-dramatic storytelling hardly necessary for the most consequential land battle of the first half of the 19th Century (and perhaps the entire Century). But it is a good basic introduction, with more maps than most modern works provide, and far more color (excuse me, colour) plates -- thirty three, not counting maps -- than similar works. Including this beauty, though Cornwell explains it is inaccurate:
My prior familiarity with Waterloo came in two or three bios of Napoleon. So I'll have to read another to see whether the pattycake approach obscured fact. For me, the key insight was Cornwell's "scissors, paper, stone" analogy ("rock, paper, scissors" in North America) to Napoleonic land warfare: cavalry could attack infantry, whose defense was the square, which was vulnerable to artillery--but to win, the timing of the attack had to be perfect. Napoleon's and Marshal Ney's wasn't.
I have a feeling this book will annoy more knowledgeable readers (and I see Aussie Rick already found a factual error). But a great into, and a wonderful reference for those of us old enough to have bookcases.
"They had expected a swift victory over the ragged armies of Revolutionary France, but instead they sparked a world war which saw both Washington and Moscow burned."
"A few weeks before Waterloo [the Duke of Wellington] was walking in a Brussels park with Thomas Creevey, a British parliamentarian, who rather anxiously asked the Duke about the expected campaign. A red-coated British infantryman was staring at the park's statutes and the Duke pointed at the man. 'There', he said, 'there. It all depends upon that article whether we do the business or not. Give me enough of it, and I am sure."
French officer Captain Pierre Cardon was summoned along with all the infantry regiment. The stood in two ranks "asking each other what was going on? What was there? In the end we were filled with worry. [Then, his Colonel appeared] holding in his hands, what? You would not guess in a hundred years. . . Our eagle, under which we had marched so many times to victory and which the brave Colonel had hidden inside the mattress of his bed. . . At the sight of the cherished standard cries of 'Vive l'Empereur' could be heard; soldiers and officers, all overwhelmed, wanted not only to see, but to embrace and touch it; this incident made every eye flow with tears of emotion… we have promised to die beneath our eagle for the country and Napoleon."
"So Napoleon believed he could shove the Prussians further away, then switch his attack to the British. It was all going to plan and the Emperor would take breakfast in Brussels's Laeken Palace on Saturday morning.
Except Ney had still not captured Quatre-Bras."
"[T]he Emperor, alarmed, delays that attack until he can discover the identity of these newly arrived troops. They are his own men, but in the wrong place, so a messenger rides to d'Erlon ordering him to turn northwards and assault the Prussian flanks, but just then yet another courier arrives, this one from Narshal Ney, demanding that d'Erlon return to Quatre-Bras immediately.
D'Erlon assumes that Ney is in desperate trouble and so he turns his Corps around and sets off a second time for Quatre-Bras. The Emperor has launched his great attack, but by the time he realizes d'Erlon is not engaged, the 1st Corps has vanished. Thus did those 22,000 men spend that Friday, marching between two battlefields and helping at neither. D'Erlon arrived at Quarte-Bras at sundown and his powerful Corps, which could have swung either the battle at Ligny or the fighting at Quatre-Bras, had achieved nothing. It is the French equivalent of the Grand Old Duke of York, except d'Erlon spend his day halfway between two fights, neither up nor down, and his prevarication denied Napoleon the crushing victory he expected."
"[The Duke of Wellington] was not loved as Blücher was, nor worshipped like Napoleon, but he was respected. He could be sharply witty; long after the wars were over, some French officers pointedly turned their backs on him in Paris, for which rudeness a woman apologized. 'Don't worry, Madame,' the Duke said, 'I've seen their backs before.'"
"At Ligny the Emperor had set a trap for Blücher, hoping that Ney or d'Erlon would fall like a thunderbolt on the Prussian right flank. The trap had failed.
Blücher had hoped that Wellington would come to Ligny and so attack the French left flank, but that trap had also failed.
Now a third trap was set. Wellington was the bait, Napoleon the intended victim and Blücher the executioner.
It was dawn on Sunday, 18 June 1815,"
"Macdonell realized that the most important task was not to kill Legros [the French Sous-Lieutenant who axed-open the door to Hougoumont] and his companions, but to close the gate so that no more Frenchmen could enter. He led a small group of men past the intruders and together the forced the big gates shut, they heaved against the pressure from outside, some men shot through the slowly closing gap, and they ignored Legros's men who were fighting behind them. . .
Wellington once remarked that closing the gates [at Hougoumont] was the decisive act of battle and, later, when an eccentric clergyman wanted to arrange an annuity for 'the bravest man at Waterloo' and requested the Duke to make such a difficult judgement, Wellington chose Macdonnell. Macdonnell, in turn, insisted on sharing the money with Sergeant James Graham, an Irishman who had been at his side in those decisive moments, the pair did receive the annuity for two years before the generous clergyman lost his money, but it is significant that Wellington, forced to make a decision, nominated Macdonnell and, by association, Graham."
"Napoleon now faces a dilemma. He has Wellington's army in front of him, but he must have known that a heavy force of Prussians was approaching to his right. He will be greatly outnumbered, yet he still insisted that he had a good chance of winning the battle. 'This morning we had ninety chances of winning,' the Emperor told Soult, 'we still have sixty.'"
"French cavalry threatened, French infantry was on the ridge's crest and Marshal Soult was surely justified in thinking that victory was imminent. Duthilt's men might have been in disorder, but there were more battalions stacked behind his and sheer weight of numbers would push the redcoats back. And those redcoats were in line, and infantry in line was red meat to cavalryman, as the cuirasses had already proved on the Hanoverians whose slaughtered bodies lay thick close to La Haie Sainte. The British battalions would have to form square and, while that would protect them from cavalry, it would make them horribly vulnerable to French infantry volleys. Scissors, paper, stone.
And then the cavalry charged.
Only it was the British cavalry."
"[T]hat was the great disadvantage of the formation the French had chosen to use. A column made of successive battalions in line looked magnificent and, given the chance, might have spread into a formidable line to give devastating volley fire, but it would take a battalion in a three-rank line a lot of time to form square,and they would be hammered by the battalions in front and behind while they did. There was neither space nor time to form square. Major Frederick Clarke, who charged with the Scotland Greys, reckons the enemy was trying to form square, but 'the first and nearest square had not time to complete their formation, and the Greys charged through it.' So the British heavy cavalry drove into the panicking columns and [Louis] Canler tells what happened: ' A real carnage followed. Everyone was separated from his comrades and fought for his own life. Sabres and bayonets slashed at the shaking flesh for we were too close packed to use our firearms.' . . .There was no time to form square, so his unit was cut to ribbons."
"At first Ordener probably thought Ney was doing the right thing because, as his horse breasted the British-Dutch ridge, he saw 'the enemy baggage and massed fugitives hurrying along the road to Brussels,' and he saw abandoned artillery through which the horsemen had passed 'like lightning,' but then he saw something else.
British squares. The British were not running away. Wellington was not disengaging and trying to withdraw his forces. Yes there were men and wagons on the road, but most of the British-Dutch army was still on the ridge and they were ready to fight. . . So it was horsemen against Infantry, and every cavalryman must have known what Captain Duthilt had written, that 'it is difficult, if not impossible, for the best cavalry to break infantry who are formed in squares', so while at first the cavalrymen seemed to have pierced the British-Dutch line, instead they were faced with the worst obstacle a horseman could encounter. The wide plateau of the ridge top was packed with squares, at least twenty of them, in a rough chequer pattern so that if a horseman rode safely past one square he was immediately faced with another, and then encountered more beyond. And each square bristled with bayonets and spat musket fire."
"'The best of all France possesses,' General Foy said, watching in amazement as the cavalry rode again and again to its doom. 'I saw their golden breastplates,' a French infantry officer said of the curassiers, 'they passed me by and I saw them no more.'"
"Marshal Ney's cavalry assault had been brave and hopeless, hurling horses and men against immovable squares.
Those squares could have been broken by artillery if Ney had managed to bring more guns close to the line, or he could have destroyed them with infantry. That was the scissors, paper and stone reality of Napoleonic warfare. If you could force an enemy to form a square you could bring a line of infantry against it and overwhelm it with musket fire, and very late in the afternoon Marshal Ney at last tried that tactic, ordering 8,000 infantry to attack the British squares. . . Their task was to deploy into line and then smother the British squares with musketry, but the British would only be in square if the cavalry threatened and the French cavalry was exhausted. They had charged again and again, they had shown extraordinary courage and too many of them were now dead on the hillside. There was no charge left in them."
"British infantry firepower had again shown its effectiveness and again the line had overcome the column. Eight thousand men had been defeated in seconds, blasted off the ridge by concentrated musket volleys and shredded by canister. The survivors fled down that terrible slope that was slick with blood, thick with dead and dying horses, and with dead and wounded men. It was littered with breastplates discarded by unhorsed cuirassiers running for their lives, and with scabbards because many of the French cavalry had pointedly thrown away their sword scabbards to show that they would not sheathe their blades until they had victory."
"Meanwhile, a furious argument was raging between Lieutenant Colonel von Reiche, one of von Zieten's staff officers, and Captain von Schnarhorst. Von Reiche wanted to obey the original orders and go to Wellington's assistance, despite the report of the Duke's defeat, but von Schnarhorst insisted that Blücher's new orders [to turn south and join the main Prussian body] must be obeyed. 'I pointed out to him', von Reiche said: ' that everything had been arranged with von Müffling, that Wellington counted on our arrival close to him, but von Schnarhorst did not want to listen to anything. He declared that I would be held responsible if I disobeyed Blücher's orders.'. . . The troops had paused while this argument had raged, but then General Steinmetz, who commanded the advance guard of von Zieten's column came galloping up, angry at the delay, and brusquely told von Reiche that Blücher's new orders would be obeyed. The column dutifully continued marching eastward, looking for a smaller lane that led south towards Plancenoit, but just then von Zieten himself appeared and the argument started all over again. Von Zieten listened and then took a brave decision. He would ignore Blücher's new orders and, believing von Müffling's assurance that the Duke was not in full retreat, he ordered his troops onto the British-Dutch ridge. The Prussian 1st Corps would join Wellington after all."
"The Imperial Guard was trying to deploy into line, but once again, as had happened so many times in the Peninsula, they had left it too late. The Brigade of Guards outnumbered and overlapped them, the musket balls were coming in front and from the sides, and when they tried to spread into a line they were beaten back by those steady, relentless volleys. . . Raw, badly trained troops oft n opened fire at far too long a range and then had a tendency to shoot high, but not the Brigade of Guards. They were shooting at a range where a musket could hardly miss, and their enemy, if he wanted to reload, had to halt, and then the ranks behind pushed him on, and so the Chasseurs fell into confusion and still those relentless volleys struck them and more men died. They were obstructed now by their own dead and wounded, and the Bregade of Guards was still firing until Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander, Lord Saltoun, shouted them forward. . . 'Now's the time, my boys!', he shouted, and the Guarde leveled bayonets and charged. 'At that moment, Captain Reeve', another Peninsular veteran recalled, 'we charged them, they went to the right about and fled in all directions.'"
"[Lieutenant Colonel Sir John Colborne] took the 52nd out of line. Half Colborne's men were Peninsula veterans, and they knew their business. Sir John marched his battalion forward, then wheeled it round so that his men faced the left flank of the Guard Chasseurs. . . They began firing volleys into the French flank so that the Imperial Guardsman were being attacked from their front and from their left. It was merciless. The Unbeaten were being killed by the Unbeatable. . . They did not just retreat, they broke. They had been beaten by British volleys and they fled that terrible musketry and when they fled so did the rest of the guard.
And when they broke, so did the hopes of France."
"Wellington rode back towards the centre of his line. Leeks had seen him just before the 52nd marched out of line to destroy and Emperor's dreams. The Duke's clothes, Leeke said, 'consisted of a blue sur tout coat, white kerseymere pantaloons, and Hessian boots. He wore a sword with a waist belt, but no sash.' The plain blue coat and black cocked hat made Wellington instantly recognizable to his men, and now, as the French began to flee, he watched from the ridge's centre fro a few moments. He saw an enemy in panic, a retreating enemy that was dissolving into chaos. He watched them, then was heard to mutter, 'In for a penny, in for a pound'. He took off his cocked hat and men say that just then a slanting ray of evening sunlight came through the clouds to illuminate him on the ridge he had defended all day. He waved the hat towards the enemy. He waved it three times, and it was a signal for the whole allied army to advance."
"[It was about 10pm on June 21, in London when socialite Mrs Boehm 'walked up to the Prince, and asked whether it was his Royal Highness's pleasure that the ball should open. The first quadrille was in the act of forming, and the Prince was walking up to the dias on which his seat was placed, when I saw everyone without the slightest sense of decorum fishing to the windows, which had been left wide open because of the excessive sultriness of the weather. The music ceased and the dance was stopped; for we heard nothing but the vociferous shouts of an enormous mob, who had just entered the square, and were rushing by the side ota post-chaise and four, out of whose windows were hanging three nasty French eagles. In a second the door of the carriage was flung open, and, without waiting for the steps to be let down, out sprung Henry Percy -- such a dirty figure! with a flag in each hand, pushing aside every one who happened to be in his way, darting up stairs, into the ball-room, stepping hastily up to the Regent, dropping on to one knee, laying the flags at his feet, and pronouncing the words "Victory, Sir! Victory!" . . .
Of course, one was glad to think one had beaten those horrid French, and all that sort of thing; but still, I shall always think it would have been far better if Henry Percy had waited quietly till the morning, instead of bursting in upon us, as he did, in such indecent haste.'"
"The battle of Waterloo was an allied victory. That was how it was planned and that was how it turned out. Wellington would never have made his stand if he thought for one moment that the Prussians would let him down. Blücher would never have marched if he thought Wellington would cut and run. It is true that the Prussians arrived later than Wellington hoped, but that probably contributed to the battle's success. If Blücher's forces had arrived two or three hours earlier then Napoleon might have disengaged his army and retreated, but by the time that the Prussians intervened the French army was almost wholly committed to the fight and disengagement was impossible. The Emperor was not just defeated, he was routed."
"An easier question to answer than 'who won the battle?' Is 'who lost the battle?', and the answer must be Napoleon. The Duke and Blücher both offered leadership, but Napoleon left the conduct of the battle to Marshal Ney, who, though braver than most men, did little more than hurl troops against the most skillful defensive general of the age. The French had the time and the men to break Wellington's line, but they failed, partly because the Duke defended so cleverly, and partly because the French never coordinated and all-arms assault on the allied line. They delayed the start of the battle on a day when Wellington was praying for time. They wasted men in a time-consuming assault that lasted much of the afternoon. And why Napoleon entrusted the battle's conduct to Ney is a mystery; Ney was certainly brave, but the Emperor damned him as 'too stupid to be able to succeed', so why rely on him? And, when the French did achieve their one great success, the capture of La Haie Sainte, which enabled them to occupy the forward slope of Wellington's ridge, the Emperor refused to reinforce the centre and so gave the Duke time to bring up his own reinforcements. Finally, when the Imperial Guard did attack, it was too few and too late, and by that time, the Prussians were on the French flank and threatening their rear."...more
Gushing bio--unusual for an Englishman. Roberts claims that newly available letters present a vastly more favorable portrait than previously availableGushing bio--unusual for an Englishman. Roberts claims that newly available letters present a vastly more favorable portrait than previously available to scholars. "All too often historians have taken at face value the biographies written by people around Napoleon, whereas many of them were deeply compromised, to the point of being worthless unless co firmed by as second source." The problem is that although Roberts tries to be balanced, and points out the warts, his over-the-top admiration for his subject distorts the lens of otherwise excellent research.
One example--Roberts extols Napoleon's re-created nobility: "Unlike anywhere else in Europe, a French family's noble simply lapsed if the next generation hadn't done enough to deserve its passing on." A paragraph later, however, he describes the new hierarchy -- "a complete reordering of the system" -- from top to bottom without placing the new peers. Instead, he digresses into a discussion of the exact mix of liberty, equality and fraternity the new scheme supplied.
Similarly, Roberts's discussion on Napoleon and the Jews is muddled. On one page, he touts (reasonably enough) the Decree on Jews and Usury. A page later, Napoleon is upholding prosecutions of Jewish moneylenders, and the best Roberts can manage is that "Napoleon was personally prejudiced against Jews to much the same degree as the rest of his class and background."
While the book is readable, the writing is not page turning. Lots of facts; snippets of stirring writing (the best of which is when Roberts called something "yet another example of the luck that [Napoleon] was starting to mistake for Fate."). So far, most interesting thing I've learned is that Napoleon's autobiography "Le Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène" was the bestseller of the 19th Century, topping "Uncle Tom's Cabin".
In sum, Roberts is unparalleled as a researcher. But he doesn't provide the reader reasons why any particular piece of previously accepted Napoleonic legend should be rejected in favor of his new interpretation. And, although is writing is good enough, he's hardly a compelling read like a Ian Toll, Corrigan, Nicolson, Stephen Taylor or Donald Thomas; better than N.A.M. Rodger, however.
Born in quasi-obscurity on Corsica, Napoleon (a native Italian and Corsican speaker) was trucked off to learn French, then to a military academy. Napoleon not only was an excellent student but -- ill-dressed and awkward, with plenty of time on his hands-- he read of heroes and conquerors past: Caesar, Alexander the Great, etc. Napoleon's fascination (for the non-French) is in part because he may have been history's most successful autodidact. For that reason alone, more bios, and more reading, are justified.
"Napoleon represented the Enlightenment on horseback."… The ideas that underpin our modern world--meritocracy, equality before the law, property rights, religious toleration, modern secular education, sound finances and so on--were championed by Napoleon."
"An astonishing number of his letters throughout his career refer to providing footwear for his troops."
"One of the reasons why he maintained such a fluid campaign [in Italy] was that he had no resources for anything else."
"'The strength of the army', he stated, 'like power in mechanics, is the product of multiplying the mass by the velocity."
"Napoleon was capable of compartmentalizing his life, so that one set of concerns never spilled over into another -- probably a necessary attribute for any great statesman, but one he possessed to an extraordinary degree."
"'Severe to the officers,' was his his stated mantra, 'kindly to the men.'"
"'I have no doubt there will be lively criticism of the treaty I've just signed,' Napoleon wrote to Talleyrand the [day after signing the treaty of Campo Formio], but he argued that he only way to get a better deal was by going to war again and conquering 'two or three times more provinces than Austria. Was that possible? Yes. Probable? No' He sent Berthier and Monge to Paris with the treaty to expound its merits. They did such a good job, and so enthusiastic was the public enthusiasm [sic] for peace, that the Directory ratified it swiftly despite several of its members privately regretting the lack of republican solidarity shown to Venice. (It is said that when asked about the Venetian clauses, Napoleon explained 'I was playing vingt-et-un, and stopped at twenty.')"
Napoleon's general orders for army behavior in Egypt: "'Every soldier who shall enter into the houses of the inhabitants to steal horses or camels shall be punished,' he instructed. He was particularly careful to give no cause for jihad. 'Do not contradict them,' he ordered his men with regard to Muslims. 'Deal with them as we dealt with the Jews and the Italians. Respect their muftis and imams as you respected rabbis and bishops. . .The Roman legions protected all religions. . . The people here treat their wives differently from us, but in all countries the man who commits rape is a monster.'"
"Soldiers! You came to this country to save the inhabitants from barbarism, to bring civilization to the Orient and subtract this beautiful part of the world from the domination of England [sic--England was not running Egypt at the time]. From the top of those pyramids, forty centuries are contemplating you."
The closest Napoleon came to being killed was in Israel, while crossing the Red Sea, as the tide came in: "[T]hey got lost as night fell, and wandered through the low lying marshy sea-shore as the tide rose: 'Soon we were bogged down to the bellies of our mounts, who were struggling and having great difficulty in pulling themselves free. . . It was nine at night and the tide had already risen three feet. We were in a terrible situation, when it was announced that a ford had been found. General Bonaparte was among the first to cross; guides were situated at various points to direct the rest. . . We were happy not to have to have shared the fate of the Pharaoh's soldiers.'"
"Even if Acre had fallen, and the Druze Christians and Jews had all joined him, the logistics and demographics would not have permitted an invasion of either Turkey or India"
"Long accused afterwards of deserting his men, in fact he was marching to the sound of the guns, for it was absurd to have France's best general stuck in a strategic sideshow in the Orient when France itself was under threat of invasion."
"The greatest long-term achievements of Napoleon's Egyptian campaign were not military or strategic, but intellectual, cultural and artistic. The first volume of Vivant Denon's l'Égypte was published in 1809, it's title pag proclaiming that it was 'published by the order of His Majesty Emperor Napoleon the Great'. . .although not politically triumphalist, the multiple volumes of the Description de l'Égypte represent an apogee of French, indeed Napoleonic, civilization, and had a profound effect on the artistic, architectural, aesthetic and design sensibilities of Europe. . . Tragically, the Institut near Trahir Square in Cairo was burned down during the Arab Spring uprising on December 17, 2011, and almost all 192,000 books, journals, and other manuscripts -- including the only handwritten manuscript of Denon's Description de l'Égypt -- were destroyed.
"he forgave Josephine totally, and never made allusion to her infidelity again, either to her or anyone else."
"only two letters of his survive for the twenty-three days between his arrival in Paris on October 16 and the 18 Brumaire when the coup was launched, neither of which was compromising. For a man who wrote an average of fifteen letters a day, this time everything was to be done by word of mouth."
"They put the orders of the officers under which which they had served . . . . before those of their elected officials. When it came down to a choice between obeying those giants of their profession or the politicians baying for their arrest in the Orangerey, there was simply no contest."
"Talleyrand was characteristically profiting from the situation. When Napoleon years later asked him how he had made his fortune, he insouciantly replied 'Nothing simpler; I bought rentes [government securities] on the 17th and sold them on the 19th.'"
"In his first week as First Consul, Napoleon wrote two letters proposing peace to Emperor Francis of Austria and to Britain’s King George III. ‘I venture to declare that the fate of all civilized nations is concerned in the termination of a war which kindles a conflagration over the whole world,’ he told the latter. When the British foreign secretary, Lord Grenville, responded by saying that Napoleon should restore the Bourbons, Napoleon replied that if the same principle were applied to Britain it would result in the restoration of the Stuarts."
"'A newly born government must dazzle and astonish,' he told Bourrienne at this time. 'When it ceases to do that it fails.'"
"Within a week of Brumaire, as a result of the new sense of stability, efficiency and sheer competence, the franc-dollar and franc-pound exchange rate rates had doubled."
"The art of policing is punishing infrequently and severely."
"In November 1799, some 40 percent of France was under martial law, but within three years it was safe to travel around France again, and trade could be resumed. Not even His Italian victories brought Napoleon more popularity."
"Napoleon took a deep personal interest in the strategic dissemination of news. ‘Spread the following reports in an official manner,’ he once instructed Fouché. ‘They are, however, true. Spread them first in the salons, and then put them in the papers.’"
"All the leading French admirals -- Genteaume, Eustche Bruix, Laurent Trugent, Pierre de Villeneuve, as well as Decès -- opposed the English expedition." III
"[T]he duke [d'Enghien] had offered to serve in the British army, was receiving large amounts of money from London, was paying British gold to other émigrés, and was hoping to follow the Austrians into France should they invade. He had also corresponded with William Wickham . . . that is, the British secret service. [A]lthough he was not specifically aware of the Cadoudal-Pichegru plot [to assassinate Napoleon], he was clearly holding himself in readiness. It hardly constituted strong enough grounds to have him executed, however, except as a ruthless message to Louis XVIII to call off my further plots."
Roberts's absurd justification for Napoleon's becoming Emperor: "France was de facto an empire by 1804, and it was only acknowledging that fact that Napoleon declared himself an emperor de jure, just as Queen Victoria would become for the British Empire in 1877." Roberts ignores what made Napoleon an illegitimate ruler, much less Emperor: the regicide, the phony plebiscites, and the fact that -- at the time -- France had little territory beyond today's hexagram: part of the Rhineland, and Northern Italy (the latter of which hardly counts since it was stolen from the chinless Hapsburgs).
The Emperor "took the somewhat convoluted and seemingly contradictory style 'Napoleon, through the grace of God and the Constitution of the Republic, Emperor of the French.'"
Preparing for the coronation, "Napoleon ordered his officials to treat the pontiff as though he had 200,000 troops at has back, just about his greatest complement."
Roberts says, contrary to most other sources, "Although [Napoleon] lifted the Charlemagne replica over his own head, as previously rehearsed with the Pope, he didn't actually place it on top because he was already was wearing the [crown of laurels, meant to invoke Rome]. He did, however, crown Josephine."
"He never did understand that a fleet which spent seven-eighths of its time in port simply could not gain the seamanship necessary to take on the Royal Navy at the height of its operational capacity."
"The fall of Berlin came so quickly that shopkeepers did t have time to take down the numerous satirical caricatures of Napoleon from their window."
After the battle of Friedland: "Soldiers! On 5 June we were attacked in our cantonments by the Russian army, which misconstrued the causes of our inactivity. It perceived, too late, that our repose was that of the lion, now it does penance for its mistake… From the shores of the Vistula, we have reached those of the Nieman with the rapidity of the eagle."
In establishing brother Jérôme as King of Westphalia, Napoleon wrote, "It is essential that your people enjoy a liberty, an equally, a well-being unknown in Germany…The population of Germany anxiously awaits the moment when those who are not of noble birth but who are talented, have an equal right to be considered for jobs; for the abolition of all serfdom as well as intermediaries between the people and their sovereign."
"As the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars progressed, the casualty rates in battles increased exponentially [sic]: at Fleurus they were 6% of the total number of men engaged, at Austerlitz, 15%, at Eylau 26%, at Borodino 31% and at Waterloo 45%."
At the famous meeting in the middle of the river at Tilsit--"The Tsar's first words were ' I will be your second against England'"…Napoleon immediately appreciated that a wide-ranging agreement would be possible -- indeed, as he put it later, 'Those words changed everything.'"
It was the late-night conversations about philosophy, politics and strategy that shaped Napoleon's relationship with the Tsar.
Years later, Napoleon said--"Perhaps I was happiest at Tilsit. I had just surmounted many vicissitudes, many anxieties, at Eylau for instance; and I found myself victorious, dictating laws, having emperors and kings pay me court."
"The simple fact that Napoleon had missed was also the most obvious one: its vast size made Russia impossible to invade much beyond Vilnius in a single campaign. His military administration was incapable of dealing with the enormous strain that he was putting on it. Each day, in his desperation for a decisive battle, he had fallen further into Barclay's trap."
"In retrospect, it would have been better for the French had [Moscow] been razed to the ground, as that would have forced and immediate retreat.…Napoleon eventually chose what turned out to be the worst possible option: to return to the a Kremlin, which had survived the fire, on September 18, to see whether Alexander would agree to end the war."
"[T]he real significance of the rain was that his artillery commander, General Drouot, suggested waiting for the ground to dry before starting the battle the next day, so that he could get his guns into place more easily and the cannonballs would bounce further when fired. It was advice that Drouot was to regret for the rest of his life."
"'If it had not been for you English, I should have been Emperor of the East; but wherever there is water to float a ship we are sure to find you in our way.'"...more
Wonderful intro to a man who was foreign minister to pre-Napoleon Kings, then Napoleon, then the Kings re-established by the Congress of Vienna, 1815 Wonderful intro to a man who was foreign minister to pre-Napoleon Kings, then Napoleon, then the Kings re-established by the Congress of Vienna, 1815 (and after Waterloo)....more
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