The Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte

by Asprey, Robert B.

• ISBN13: 9780465048793
• ISBN10: 046504879X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-12-01
• Publisher: Basic Books

Summary

Ever since his untimely death at age fifty-one on the forlorn and windswept island of St. Helena, Napoleon Bonaparte has been depicted as either demi-god or devil incarnate. Now, in The Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, the first volume of a magisterial two-volume biography, we at last get Napoleon the man. Robert Asprey tells this fascinating, tragic tale in lush narrative detail. He invites the reader to look over Napoleon's shoulder as he dictates decrees and orders; deals with his ungrateful, greedy, unprincipled family; comes into conflict with the royalty of Europe; mingles with the intellectuals, writers, musicians, and actors of the day; leads and inspires his officers and men; and falls in love and fathers children with Josephine, Marie Louise, and various mistresses. The Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte becomes an exciting, reckless thrill ride as Asprey charts Napoleon's vertiginous ascent to fame and the height of power. Here is Napoleon as he was-not saint, not sinner, but a man dedicated to and ultimately devoured by his vision of himself, his empire, and his world.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	xiii
Maps	xv
A Note to the Reader	xvii
In the Beginning	1	(6)
The Boy 1769--1778	7	(6)
Autun, Brienne and the Ecole Militaire 1779--1785	13	(9)
The Student: Valence and Auxonne 1785--1789	22	(12)
The Revolution and the Rebel: Auxonne and Corsica 1789--1791	34	(10)
Auxonne, Valence, Corsica, Paris 1791--1792	44	(9)
The Paris Cauldron May--October 1792	53	(10)
End of a Dream: Corsica 1792--1793	63	(6)
Napoleon Goes to War July--September 1793	69	(10)
The Battle of Toulon November--December 1793	79	(11)
The Riviera and Desiree Clary December 1793--June 1974	90	(8)
Fall and Redemption June 1794--May 1795	98	(9)
Josephine Beauharnais May 1795--March 1796	107	(13)
The Army Marches -- I: The Invasion of Piedmont March--April 1796	120	(14)
The General April 1796	134	(8)
The Army Marches -- II: The Invasion of Lombardy May--June 1796	142	(12)
The Army Marches -- III: Consolidation June--July 1796	154	(11)
The General and His Lady May--July 1796	165	(7)
The Austrians Attack: The Battle of Rivoli July--September 1796	172	(12)
The Battle of Arcola November 1796	184	(14)
The Second Battle of Rivoli January 1797	198	(9)
Victory January--April 1797	207	(11)
Montebello -- The King without a Crown April--July 1797	218	(13)
The Treaty of Campo Formio August--November 1797	231	(14)
Paris Interlude December 1797--May 1798	245	(11)
The Conquest of Egypt -- I: The Battle of the Pyramids April--July 1798	256	(15)
The Conquest of Egypt -- II: The Great Sultan July--August 1798	271	(12)
The Conquest of Egypt -- III: Colonization and Conflict August 1798--February 1799	283	(16)
The Conquest of Egypt -- IV: The Siege of St. Jean d'Acre February--May 1799	299	(15)
The Conquest of Egypt -- V: Hail and Farewell June--October 1799	314	(13)
The Coup d'Etat of 18--19 Brumaire 9--10 November 1799	327	(13)
The Consulate Rules November 1799--February 1800	340	(11)
Prelude to Marengo December 1799--May 1800	351	(13)
The Crossing of the Alps May--June 1800	364	(14)
The Battle of Marengo 14 June 1800	378	(15)
The First Consul Rules July--October 1800	393	(7)
The Treaty of Luneville July 1800--February 1801	400	(10)
The Peace of Amiens February--June 1801	410	(13)
The Conquering Hero July 1801--August 1802	423	(8)
Napoleon the Man 1801--1802	431	(12)
The Road to War March 1802--May 1803	443	(11)
The Invasion of England -- I: June 1803--February 1804	454	(15)
The Late Due d'Enghien January--April 1804	469	(12)
The Invasion of England -- II: March--October 1804	481	(8)
The Emperor Takes a Crown March--December 1804	489	(11)
The Invasion of England -- III: The End of a Dream January--August 1805	500	(13)
The Battle of Ulm September--October 1805	513	(12)
Victory in Austria, Defeat at Trafalgar October--November 1805	525	(10)
Austerlitz: The Day of the Three Emperors November--December 1805	535	(11)
Selective Bibliography	546	(19)
Index	565

Excerpts

Chapter One

The Boy

1769-1778

Impressions received in childhood cannot be

erased from the soul.

Frederick the Great, King of Prussia

The child arrived at an awkward time in the young and almost penniless couple's life. Despite or perhaps because of French clemency to the surrendered rebels Corsica remained dangerously divided, the patriot clans of poor country peasants waiting only for the return of Pasquale Paoli and the day of revenge, the generally moderate and relatively well-off town patricians only too willing to accept the perquisites promised by French rule.

    Charles Buonaparte, motivated as much by economic necessity as by political preference, enthusiastically accepted the French overlords and in return was appointed a juge-assesseur or court assistant in the Ajaccio jurisdiction at a meager salary of 900 livres a year. He and Letitia sorely needed the small income. The Buonaparte clan, originally from Tuscany, had lived in Ajaccio since the late sixteenth century. The successive families, although enjoying a comfortable existence as benefited an Italian patrician heritage, had not amassed a great or even considerable fortune. Charles' father had died when the boy was 17 years old. What should have been a helpful inheritance had been largely dissipated by the father in an expensive series of unsuccessful legal actions, the Process Odone , undertaken to recover the father-in-law's estate which had fallen into the hands of wily Jesuit priests. Charles would unwisely continue the legal battle which he could ill afford and which possibly contributed to his early death. Meanwhile he had to content himself with a house in Ajaccio and some small country holdings. His grand-uncle, Archdeacon Lucien, was quite well off but was extremely careful with his money, particularly since he frowned on Charles' prodigal ways.

    Despite bleak prospects Charles had married when he was 18, his bride the 14-year-old Letitia Romalino, a strikingly forceful and attractive girl whose father had left her a small house and vineyard outside of Ajaccio. Letitia's background differed considerably from that of her husband. Raised in the country with almost no formal education, she had early matured as an attractive, hard-working, naturally shrewd and intelligent woman with a deep knowledge of Corsican manners and mores, including the all-too-frequent vendetta or revenge killings practiced through the centuries by disparate clans.

    Their first two children died in infancy. Their third child, Joseph, was born in 1768. Charles had subsequently moved the family to join General Paoli in Corte. Working in the local administration, he had been rapidly caught up in Paoli's rebellion and claimed to have written the stirring proclamation that called the montagnards to arms before himself taking to the hills with his young wife.

    Charles was now 23 years of age, tall, good-looking, easy-going, something of a clothes-horse, elegant in appearance and manner but generally of an empty purse (and too often an empty head despite a rude education in the law). Forever the opportunist, Charles wasted no time in exploiting his newly-found allegiance, petitioning the authorities to grant him the title of nobility formerly held by his father, an achievement finally accomplished with the support of the French governor of Corsica, General Comte de Marbeuf. Three years later, supported by the same protector, he was appointed to the Commission of Twelve, a group of prominent Ajaccians which was to advise the French intendant but was rarely called upon. Marbeuf's altruism may have arisen from a seamy motivation -- at least some biographers believe that he enjoyed Letitia's charms -- and there is some evidence that on one occasion Napoleon wondered aloud as to the identity of his real father.

    Charles' prospects suddenly brightened when the Jesuits were expelled from French lands. Surely, he believed, the property stolen from his father would revert to make him (by Corsican standards) a rich man. He was mistaken. The title reverted to the state, whose guardians had no intention of returning it to Charles. He could not afford to take the case to court, but he would never cease trying to win a favorable decision for Process Odone by buttering-up one official after another, both in Corsica and in Paris, all to no effect.

    Failure to recover the property was a great blow to the young Buonapartes whose family continued to increase. Lucien was born when Napoleon was six, Marie Anne was soon on the way (and four more would follow). Charles was far too caught up in various enterprises to pay much attention to the ménage which in any event was not a Corsican man's role. This was Letitia's job and, aided by a charwoman, a wet-nurse and an elderly aunt, she performed it well. The problem child was Nabolione who by his own admission was a self-centered brat whose family nickname was Rabulioni (the Disturber). "I was a little handful," he recalled many years later. "Except my mother, nothing and no one could impose the slightest restraint on me." A small boy, he was skinny, pale and unkempt, given to fearful temper tantrums, his shrill voice and flashing eyes dominating his siblings. "I feared no one," he went on, "I would thrash one, scratch the other; I made myself redoubtable to all." To all except his mother who frequently gave him a good spanking, but who also took quiet pride in the exceedingly bright and ever curious boy.

    The children were not well educated, largely the fault of an inadequate teaching system. Nabolione learned only a smattering of church history and the catechism -- this from Archdeacon Lucien -- and he was taught a rudimentary knowledge of the alphabet. He spoke the Corsican dialect of Italian but remained totally ignorant of the French language.

    Unlike older brother Joseph he was extremely gregarious, running off to the docks to listen to Corsican sailors relive past battles, and sometimes he was taken out on fishing boats. He also became a great favorite of French garrison soldiers who made him a uniform and cut him a toy sword. He led a street gang which frequently fought other gangs in sometimes bloody combats.

    But Nabolione also loved solitude. He enjoyed long horseback rides in a countryside redolent of the natural perfumes of maquis and myrtle and a dozen other fragrances awakened by blue sky and bright sun shining on hills of heather and groves of lemons and oranges, olive and chestnut trees. This was Paoli country, a land of bleating sheep and frisky goats, of barking foxes and rooting wild pigs. From the mountainfolk he learned of the rebellion and became a passionate admirer of the exiled general. Not everyone had succumbed to the French whose soldiers continued to hunt down the fugitives -- "bandits" as they were called -- who defied the French flag and, if caught, paid with their lives.

    The total experience should not be understated, not so much because of family quarrels and bellicose brawls as from an unconscious osmosis of peculiarly Corsican traits -- an intense family loyalty, an inner toughness that shielded one against adversity, an imagination fired by a thousand myths and beliefs, a temper quick to avenge an insult real or imagined, an inability to forgive a wrong until it was avenged (the Corsican vendetta ) and, finally, an independent spirit as wild and free as the wind that pounded waves onto 300 miles of coast.

    Those who remembered him as a boy recorded his intense curiosity, his never-ending and often mature flow of questions, his impatient movements and his long, brooding silences. From their diverse words emerge the portrait of a tough little boy wise beyond his years.

    This was just as well. Nabolione's father can be criticized for many shortcomings, but Charles was determined to place his children favorably. This required a good education, which was impossible in Corsica, and he could not afford to send them to school in Italy or France. But he could and did petition the French king to educate them at the throne's expense, a laborious process that required several years to accomplish mainly because Charles had to obtain legal proof of his four quarters of nobility in order for his sons to be eligible for appointment. Finally all was in order for father and sons to depart for France. Joseph and Nabolione were to enter school at Autun in Bourgogne, their way opened by Comte Marbeuf's brother, the Bishop of Autun. The little party included Letitia's half-brother, 15-year-old Joseph Fesch, who would enter the prestigious seminary of Aixen-Provence, while hopefully father Charles persuaded the French king to allow his sons to be further educated at the crown's expense, Joseph for the church, Nabolione for the army.

    On 15 December 1778, the group sailed from Corsica. The future Napoleon Bonaparte was nine years old.

Copyright © 2000 Robert B. Asprey. All rights reserved.