Shannon Selin, Author at Shannon Selin

When Louisa Adams Met Joseph Bonaparte

When an Englishman Met a Napoleonic Captain in Restoration France

“Captain Basil Hall’s ‘Travels in North America’ [produced] a sort of moral earthquake and the vibration it occasioned through the nerves of the republic, from one corner of the Union to the other, was by no means over when I left the country in July, 1831, a couple of years after the shock.” Frances Milton Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans (London and New York, 1832), p. 282.
Hall wrote in his original notes, “My Father does not remember Buonaparte. That he was there at the same time with him is certain, but most unfortunately his journal which had been kept day by day for some years before, stops a few weeks before he went to Brienne. My Father was not actually a student at the Military College; he was on a visit to the late Mr. Wm. Hamilton, who lived at the Château de Brienne. My father has an obscure recollection of some boy at the Military College having blown up one of the garden walls with gunpowder, but he does not recollect his name. The circumstance was brought to his recollection, and connected itself with Buonaparte at the time of his first rising into the notice, as a great military character. Whether or not he was the mischievous youth who demolished the wall is uncertain, but it would be an amusing question to put to Buonaparte himself.” Sophy Hall, Basil Hall, “The First Englishman Napoleon Ever Saw,” The Nineteenth Century and After, Vol. 72, No. X, Issue 428 (London, October 1912), p. 731.
Basil Hall, Voyage to Loo-Choo, and Other Places in the Eastern Seas in the Year 1816 (Edinburgh, 1826), pp. 310-321.
Basil Hall, Travels in India, Ceylon and Borneo, edited by H.G. Rawlinson (New Delhi, 1995), p. 12.

What did Napoleon want to achieve? This question is less about Napoleon’s goal in particular military campaigns than it is about his broader ambition. Did Napoleon have a lifelong aspiration or overarching aim? Was he pursuing a series of specific objectives? Or was he simply responding to circumstances, with no particular goal in mind?

Napoleon in his study, by Paul Delaroche

How might we know?

It can be hard to know what our own motivations are, let alone those of someone who died over 200 years ago. Napoleon talked about the difficulty of trying to determine one’s intentions. He said that, when writing about him, even people who worked with him would “have to state not so much what really existed, as what they believe to have existed; for which of them ever possessed the entire general conception of my mind? … However…they would have the advantage over me: for I should very frequently have found it most difficult to affirm confidently what had been my whole and entire thoughts on any given subject.” (1)

The task of deciphering Napoleon’s goals is complicated by the fact that he was a master of propaganda who played a prominent role in writing and editing his own story. From an early stage in his career, Napoleon used letters, military dispatches, and other means to exaggerate his triumphs and conceal – or blame others for – his failures. His writings and reported remarks are voluminous and contain many contradictions. During the final years of his life, when he was in exile on St. Helena, he dictated memoirs that portrayed his actions and intentions in the best possible light. He often tried to give a consistency to his aims that might not have been present at the time. This means that we cannot necessarily take Napoleon’s word for what he was trying to achieve, especially when that word came after the fact. We can, however, look at things that Napoleon said earlier in his life about his goals and ambition. We can also look at what some of the historians who have tried to answer this question have said.

Of course, a person’s goals tend to change over their lifetime. As certain goals are realized, or prove unattainable, others take their place. Napoleon had different goals at different stages of his life. This is easiest to see by taking a brief look at his career and what motivated him during each phase.

Napoleon’s goals in his youth

Napoleon Bonaparte at age 22 (illustration based on a portrait by Jean-Baptiste Greuze)

Historians do not know much about Napoleon’s childhood. Most anecdotes of Napoleon as a boy were recounted much later, in light of his subsequent fame. There is no record of Napoleon saying as a child what he wanted to do when he grew up. He was born in 1769 on Corsica, an island in the Mediterranean Sea that had recently come under French control. Corsica was a violent, pre-feudal society, in which ties of kinship overrode loyalty to king or country. Pagan myths co-existed with Christianity. There was a strong belief in destiny, which Napoleon absorbed.

When Napoleon was nine, he left Corsica to begin studies at a military school in Brienne, in northern France. There he learned about Alexander the Great, Hannibal, Julius Caesar, Charlemagne and other long-ago heroes who were meant to serve as role models for aspiring soldiers. It is reasonable to suppose that Napoleon, like many other boys of his generation, dreamed of emulating these heroes. He later said, “The reading of history very soon made me feel that I was capable of achieving as much as the men who are placed in the highest ranks of our annals, though I had no goal before me, and though my hopes went no further than my promotion to general.” (2)

By 1784, Napoleon wanted to go into the navy, but he had not completed the six years of study necessary to enter that branch of the armed forces. Instead, he joined the artillery. After a year of training at the military school in Paris, he was posted, at age 16, as an officer to the artillery regiment of La Fère, stationed at Valence in southeastern France.

Napoleon’s loyalties at this point were not to France, but to Corsica. He was an ardent supporter of Pasquale Paoli, the leader of Corsican resistance to French rule. Between 1786 and 1793, Napoleon took five long leaves of absence from his regiment to spend time on Corsica, where he dealt with family matters and became involved in local politics. Although Napoleon supported the French Revolution, his writings during this period displayed a strong dislike of Frenchmen, whom he considered the oppressors of his people.

He also wrote approvingly of those who put love of country ahead of love of acclaim. In an essay drafted in 1787, Napoleon praised Leonidas, king of the ancient Greek city-state of Sparta, who died attempting to defend Greece against a much larger Persian force.

Our souls are undoubtedly deeply moved when we hear of the deeds of Philip, Alexander, Charlemagne, Turenne, Condé, Machiavelli and so many other illustrious men who, in their heroic careers, were guided by the esteem of men; but what feeling controls our souls at the sight of Leonidas and his three hundred Spartans. They did not go to battle, they went to their deaths for the fate that threatened their homeland…. [L]ove of glory could not have been the driving force behind the Spartans. (3)

In the same essay, Napoleon commended Themistocles – an Athenian politician and general who had been compelled to flee Greece and went to work for the Persian king – for allegedly committing suicide rather than following the king’s orders to make war against Athens.

Themistocles preferred to drink of the fatal cup rather than to see himself at the head of the Oriental troops and to be within reach of avenging his particular outrage. He could undoubtedly have hoped to subjugate Greece. What glory he would have had in posterity, and what satisfaction for his ambition! But no, he lived in the midst of the splendours of Persia, always missing his country. ‘O my son, we would perish if we had not perished!’ – an energetic phrase that should remain forever written in the heart of a true patriot. (4)

In 1792, through the support of the Bonaparte clan and allied families, Napoleon got himself elected as a lieutenant colonel in the Corsican National Guard. This would allow him to remain on Corsica without losing his army commission. However, in 1793 the Bonaparte family had a falling out with Paoli. They fled to the French mainland. Only then, at the age of 23, did Napoleon conclude that his future lay in France, rather than in Corsica. He abandoned his support for Corsican independence and embraced the Frenchmen he had previously criticized not out of love for France, but because he and his family hoped to find more favourable circumstances there.

Napoleon’s early goals in France

In France, Napoleon advanced his career through his skill as a soldier, his use of political connections, and his good fortune to be in the right place at the right time. France was at war with Austria, Prussia, Great Britain and other neighbouring monarchies. There were counter-revolutionary uprisings within the country, as well as fighting between the Girondin (moderate) and Montagnard (radical) factions of the republican government. The Revolutionary purge of nobles from the French army had resulted in a shortage of experienced officers. This meant that talented young men like Napoleon could easily move up the ranks.

Thanks to the support of a Corsican deputy to the National Convention, Napoleon was given command of the French artillery at the siege of Toulon. This port city on France’s Mediterranean coast was under the control of royalist rebels, supported by an Anglo-Spanish fleet. Napoleon played a key role in recapturing the port. As a result, in December 1793 he was promoted to the rank of brigadier general.

One of Napoleon’s strongest supporters in the National Convention was Augustin Robespierre, the younger brother of Maximilien Robespierre, leader of the Montagnards and a member of the governing Committee of Public Safety, which oversaw the Reign of Terror. Shortly after the arrest and execution of the Robespierres and their allies in 1794, Napoleon was arrested because of his association with Augustin. He spent ten days as a prisoner before being released. This put an end to his embrace of radicalism, or any other ideology.

Now out of political favour, Napoleon found his career stalled. In May 1795, he was ordered to join the Army of the West, which was fighting royalist rebels in the Vendée area of western France. He would have to accept command of an infantry brigade, rather than the artillery, so he went to Paris to see if he could obtain something better. On the way there he met Victorine de Chastenay, a young aristocrat, who spoke to him for hours. She wrote, “I soon discovered that the republican general had no republican principles or beliefs. I was surprised, but his frankness was complete in this respect. … I think Bonaparte would have emigrated, if emigration had indeed offered any chance of success.” (5)

Because of his refusal to take up his post, Napoleon was removed from regular army service and put on half pay. Although he didn’t want to serve in the Vendée, he retained the goal of becoming a military hero. In August 1795, he wrote to his brother Joseph, “I only want to find myself on the battlefield, a soldier must either win laurels or perish gloriously.” (6) He applied to go to Turkey to modernize the artillery of the Ottoman sultan. Instead, he was given a desk job in the Topographical Bureau of the Committee of Public Safety.

Luck came to Napoleon’s rescue. In October 1795, the government was threatened by uprisings in Paris. Paul Barras, a politician tasked with defence of the Tuileries Palace (seat of the National Convention), called on discharged officers to come to the Convention’s aid. Napoleon was among those who seized the opportunity to be reinstated in the army. Barras put him in charge of the artillery. When the insurgents tried to attack the Tuileries, Napoleon gave orders to fire, dispersing the mob.

Barras became a member of the new governing Directory of France. He recommended that Napoleon be appointed commander of the Army of the Interior, responsible for maintaining law and order in Paris and the surrounding area. This was a big promotion. It gave Napoleon prominence, influence and money, which he showered on his family. But it did not put him on a battlefield. Napoleon had long been interested in the war on the Italian front. Now he badgered the Directory with criticisms of how the Italian campaign was being fought and ideas for how it could be won. In March 1796 (the same month Napoleon married Josephine), the Directory gave him command of the Army of Italy, despite his very limited military experience.

The effect of Italy

Napoleon giving orders at the Battle of Lodi, by Louis-François Lejeune

It was in Italy that Napoleon’s career took off. He assumed control of an army that was in bad shape, turned it into a capable fighting force, defeated Sardinian, Austrian and other troops, and secured peace treaties that left only Britain remaining in the war against France. While doing so, he ran a propaganda campaign that inflated his achievements, hid his losses, and put him in the public spotlight in France.

Italy is where Napoleon fused his thirst for military glory with a desire for political power. He later said, “the moment in which I became conscious of the difference there existed between other men and myself, and when I had a glimpse of the fact that I was called on to settle the affairs of France, was several days after the Battle of Lodi [May 10, 1796].” (7) He had received instructions from the Directory to divide his army in two, march towards Naples with the larger part, and leave the remainder under the command of another general. Napoleon considered this a “senseless order,” so he refused to comply.

From this precise moment dates my conception of my own superiority. I felt that I was worth much more and was much stronger than the Government that had seen fit to issue such an order; that I was better fitted than it was to govern; and that the Government was not only incapable, but also lacking in judgment on matters that were so important as ultimately to endanger France. I felt that I was destined to save France. (8)

By politically exploiting his victories, and sending back to France a portion of what he extracted financially from the Italians, Napoleon was able to break free of the Directory’s control. He took over the direction of French policy in Italy. He administered the territories his troops occupied. He conducted diplomatic negotiations. He created Italian client states. He became wealthy. In 1797, he told a French diplomat, “[In Italy] I am…more of a sovereign than commander of an army. … I have tasted command, and I cannot give it up.” (9)

In October 1797, the Directory rewarded Napoleon by naming him commander of the Army of England, a position that they hoped would keep him busy and away from Paris. With both military force and public opinion at his disposal, he was a rival to those in power.

Napoleon’s goals in Egypt

Napoleon in Egypt, by Édouard Detaille

Napoleon started to plan an invasion of England, but after inspecting ports along the English Channel in early 1798, he concluded that it would be foolish to launch an assault given the weakness of the French navy. Instead he proposed invading Egypt, which was something he and the French foreign minister, Talleyrand, had been thinking about for months. Egypt was part of the crumbling Ottoman Empire and under the control of local Mamelukes. Gaining Egypt could make up for the loss of French colonies in the Americas, disrupt British trade and expand French markets, and open the door to French intervention in India. In August 1797, Napoleon had written to the Directory, “The time is not far off when we will think that, to truly destroy England, we must seize Egypt. The approaching death of the vast Ottoman Empire forces us to think ahead about taking measures to preserve our trade in the Levant.” (10)

Napoleon may also have had a personal motive for wanting to conquer Egypt. According to biographer Frank McLynn:

After three months in Paris, he was ceasing to be an object of universal fascination. Convinced of the need for ceaseless momentum, he knew he had either to attempt a coup in Paris or find an adventure elsewhere. He felt he would probably lose if he attempted an invasion of England, but would probably win if he went to Egypt. (11)

In April 1798, the Directors ordered the formation of an Army of the Orient, with Napoleon as commander in chief. They instructed him to take possession of Egypt, drive the British from the Middle East, construct a canal across the Isthmus of Suez, and ensure French possession of the Red Sea.

Napoleon and his expedition, which included scientists and scholars as well as soldiers, arrived in Egypt at the beginning of July. The French were hampered by intense heat, shortages of food and water, and hostile Bedouins, but they won the Battle of the Pyramids and occupied Cairo. Napoleon wrote to his brother Joseph that he might be in back in France in two months. Then, at the beginning of August, the French fleet in Egypt was destroyed by the British Navy at the Battle of the Nile. This left Napoleon and his army isolated, with the Mediterranean under British control. Still, Napoleon did not anticipate a long stay in Egypt. In September, he wrote to the Directory: “I will not be able to be back in Paris in October, as I promised you; but it will only take me a few months.” (12)

In February 1799, Napoleon took most of his army on a gruelling march across the desert to attack Ottoman forces that were gathering in Syria. He made it as far as Acre, but was unable to prevail against the Ottoman defenders, who were reinforced by the British, so he retreated to Egypt. Over one-third of his men were dead, ill or wounded. In July, he gained a victory over an Ottoman army in the Battle of Aboukir.

In August, Napoleon learned that the Directory was in a vulnerable position. France was threatened by a new coalition of England, Austria, Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Naples and Portugal. The allies had defeated French offensives in Germany and Switzerland, invaded Holland, and undone Napoleon’s gains in northern Italy. There were revolts in France and rumours of an impending coup. He decided to abandon his army in Egypt and return to France. He landed at the beginning of October, just after the arrival of news of his victory at Aboukir. Although the Egyptian campaign had done little to advance French interests (the Army of the Orient surrendered to the British in 1801), it clearly helped Napoleon’s. His propaganda efforts, and those of his family and friends, portrayed Egypt as a triumph, and his decision to return as motivated by the desire to be where he could be most useful. He was welcomed as a hero.

Coup of 18 Brumaire

Napoleon in the coup d’état of 18 Brumaire

Napoleon Bonaparte in the coup d’état of 18 Brumaire, by François Bouchot, 1840

Napoleon’s goal at this point was to gain political power in France. This was something he had developed a taste for in Italy. His experience governing Egypt had reinforced it. Napoleon sounded out the possibility of becoming a member of the Directory, but he did not meet the minimum age requirement of 40. So he joined a group of conspirators who were plotting to overthrow the government. The coup was intended to be a civilian one (two of the plotters were Directors), but the civilians needed a military man who could back them up with force if necessary. Napoleon was not their first choice, but he was keen, available and popular.

The coup took place on November 9-10, 1799. It is known as the Coup of 18 Brumaire because that was the name for November 9 in the French Republican calendar. The coup was poorly planned and poorly executed. The French legislature, composed of the Council of Ancients and the Council of Five Hundred, did not play along as desired. Napoleon impatiently stormed into their sessions at the Château de Saint-Cloud. When Napoleon appeared uncertain of what to do after being assaulted by deputies in the Council of Five Hundred, his brother Lucien, who was President of the Five Hundred, saved the day by calling on soldiers to expel the deputies. There was a scuffle between soldiers and deputies, but no one was killed and there was no popular uprising against the coup. In the end, the Directory was dissolved and replaced by a provisional government led by three consuls, one of whom was Napoleon.

Now Napoleon manoeuvred to concentrate power in his hands. He proposed a draft constitution that gave all real executive authority to a First Consul, advised by two other consuls, and left a much weakened and divided legislative branch. That constitution was adopted in December. Napoleon became First Consul. To add the appearance of legitimacy to what was, in effect, a military coup, the public was asked to vote in a non-binding plebiscite on whether to accept the new constitution. There was no secret ballot; more than two-thirds of those eligible to vote did not do so; and Napoleon’s brother Lucien, who was the new Minister of the Interior, added thousands of extra ‘yes’ votes, with the result that over 99% of voters appeared to be in favour of the new constitution.

From Consulate to Empire

When Napoleon became First Consul, he was 30 years old. Up to this moment in his life he had no single, overriding goal. His rise to power was very much a family affair, and he wanted to ensure that members of his family were provided with money and influential positions. He may have held an idealistic view of a heroic personal destiny. Like many other officers of his generation, he wanted glory on the battlefield as well as political influence. He had flirted with Corsican nationalism and radical republicanism, but abandoned both. He went to Italy and Egypt because of circumstances, rather than an overriding desire to be there.

Now that Napoleon was at the head of the French government, his goals were to stabilize France, strengthen his power and provide security for his position. He attracted able men to his government and launched a series of reforms that reduced political factionalism, improved public finances and centralized public administration. He oversaw the codification of a new system of law, a project that had been underway since the early years of the French Revolution. He ended the Revolutionary breach with the Catholic Church and tried to end the war in the Vendée. He also led a successful military campaign against Austria, and secured peace treaties with Austria, Russia, Britain and the Ottoman Empire. This meant that by the end of June 1802 France was at peace. On August 2, 1802, a national referendum was held to ratify a new constitution that made Napoleon “First Consul for Life.” Again, there was no secret ballot, and only about half of those eligible voted. The official results showed over 99% in favour.

Napoleon presented his goals as being identical to those of France. When he was in exile on St. Helena he said, “I had no ambition distinct from [France’s] – that of her glory, her ascendancy, her majesty. … I…identified myself completely with her destinies. … Was I ever seen occupied about my personal interests?” (13)

However, Napoleon’s reforms secured the primary social and material gains of the Revolution at the expense of political liberty. He suppressed the press and undermined the independence of the legislature. He created a strong and efficient authoritarian state, ruled firmly from the top. Napoleon set himself up as the embodiment of France, which was a far cry from the republican principle of impersonal government. Regarding the limitations he introduced on liberty, Napoleon told one of his advisors: “At home and abroad, I reign only through the fear I inspire. If I were to abandon this system, I would soon be dethroned. This is my position and the motives for my conduct.” (14)

As evidenced by the referendums, legitimacy was another goal pursued by Napoleon. He wanted to be regarded as the rightful ruler of France and as the equal of other European monarchs, rather than a usurper. On May 18, 1804, Napoleon’s hand-picked Senate proclaimed him the hereditary “Emperor of the French.” It was not solely Napoleon’s personal ambition that led to this outcome. A constitutional hereditary monarchy was the preferred form of government of many French conservatives and moderates. It would also protect the benefits that the bourgeoisie and peasants had gained from the Revolution. Even if Napoleon were assassinated or killed in battle, his regime and reforms would continue to exist. A national plebiscite was held to confirm Napoleon’s change in status. The doctored results indicated 99.9% support. Half of the potential voters abstained. On December 2, 1804, Napoleon was crowned Emperor.

Imperial expansion

Napoleon at the Battle of Austerlitz, by François Gérard

By this time, the peace with Britain was over. Britain had been prepared to recognize France’s “natural frontiers” (bordered by the Pyrenees, the Alps and the Rhine), but Napoleon had used the interlude to keep French troops in Holland, send French troops into Switzerland, reshuffle German territory, and annex Italian territory. He also sent an expedition to attempt to regain control over Saint-Domingue (Haiti). When this failed, he sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States and focused his goals on Europe.

In May 1803, Britain declared war on France. Napoleon prepared to invade Britain. He assembled an army on the coast of France and was gathering naval resources, but he lost most of his fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar in October 1805. Meanwhile, Austria and Russia had joined the war against France, so Napoleon took his assembled army and marched east, where he achieved victory in the Ulm campaign and the Battle of Austerlitz.

In 1806-07, Napoleon established the Confederation of the Rhine, occupied Prussia, defeated Russian forces, and won a peace that gave him additional territory, which he molded into a new Kingdom of Westphalia and a Polish client state called the Duchy of Warsaw. France was now the dominant power in Western Europe.

Britain remained at war with France, and Napoleon conducted economic warfare against her through his Continental System. In 1807, he invaded Britain’s ally, Portugal. In 1808, he invaded Spain. In 1809, he was back at war with Austria. After a six month campaign, Austria was defeated and became a French ally.

One of Napoleon’s consistent goals throughout this period was his desire to enrich and advance his family. From the time the Bonapartes left Corsica, Napoleon provided for them, found places for them, and promoted them. After he became Emperor, he appointed his stepson Eugène de Beauharnais viceroy of Italy. Louis Bonaparte became King of Holland. Joseph Bonaparte became the monarch of Naples, and later Spain. Caroline Bonaparte and her husband Joachim Murat received the Grand Duchy of Berg, before succeeding Joseph in Naples. Jérôme Bonaparte became King of Westphalia. Elisa Bonaparte presided over Tuscany.

Napoleon also wanted to have a son who could succeed him on the French throne. In 1809 he ended his marriage to Josephine, who had produced no children during their 13 years together. “I explained to her that unless I had a child, my dynasty was without any foundation.” (15) In 1810, Napoleon married Marie Louise, an Austrian archduchess. He hoped that this would solidify his alliance with Austria and provide his regime with further legitimacy, in addition to producing offspring. Their son, Napoleon II, was born on March 20, 1811.

In 1812, Napoleon embarked on a disastrous invasion of Russia, from which he had to retreat with the loss of over half a million men. In 1813-14, after subsequent defeats in Portugal and Spain, the Napoleonic empire collapsed. The allies drove Napoleon and his army back to France. He had to abdicate the French throne and submit to exile on Elba.

By 1813, any convergence between Napoleon’s goals and the interests of France had been lost. The pace of internal reform slowed after 1804 because Napoleon was preoccupied with war. His rule became increasingly autocratic. The insatiable demand for men and money to feed the perpetual fighting took a high toll. France’s European territory was larger in 1799, when Napoleon came to power, than it was at the end of his reign.

Historians have suggested that if Napoleon had been willing to accept peace on the basis of France’s natural frontiers, he could have remained in power and spared France the further loss of lives. However, “Napoleon was not ready to face the loss of prestige involved in the sacrifice of the ‘Grand Empire.’ The critical attitude of the Legislature at the beginning of 1813 convinced him that it would also mean the end of his autocracy in France.” (16)

The Hundred Days

In 1815, Napoleon escaped from Elba and returned to France to again seize the throne. In doing so, Napoleon was motivated by self-interest. The French government was not paying him the annual stipend he had been promised; he feared that he might be deported to a more remote location; and he was worried that the Duke of Orleans would seize power in France and prove to be popular. The allies, of course, opposed Napoleon’s return. Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo and exiled to the remote South Atlantic island of St. Helena, where he died in 1821.

Thanks to Napoleon’s escapade, the Treaty of Paris (1815), which formally ended the Napoleonic Wars, imposed further exactions on France.

Viewed purely in terms of its territorial extent, the shape of France immediately after the Vienna Congress represented the total obliteration of everything Napoleon had ever achieved by conquest. All that physically remained of his famous exploits on the battlefield were the monumental buildings, the heroic sculptures, the triumphant paintings, and the other public emblems of his former glory. But was it really for this that over 900,000 Frenchmen, victims of the land wars of the Empire, had ultimately fought and died? On top of its harsh territorial provisions, the second Peace of Paris imposed a war indemnity of 700 million francs on France, to be settled within five years, and pending its payment an Allied army of occupation of 150,000 men was to be maintained on her northern and eastern frontiers. … By the end of 1815, the reality of ‘la gloire’ cast a very dim light in France, which makes its brilliant incandescence in the later Napoleonic legend seem all the more remarkable. (17)

Napoleon could have stayed on Elba and spared France this additional pain, but that would have required restraint, which was “totally out of tune with Napoleon’s character and ambition.” (18)

Napoleon’s ambition

Napoleon in his coronation robes, by François Gérard, 1805

Ambition is a word that appears repeatedly in conjunction with Napoleon. Ambition can be defined as “an ardent desire for rank, fame, or power” (Merriam-Webster), or “a strong desire for success, achievement, power, or wealth” (Cambridge Dictionary). In Napoleon’s time, ambition was defined as an “[i]mmoderate desire for honor, glory, elevation, distinction.” Ambition could also been viewed in a positive light, if qualified by adjectives such as noble or laudable, or used in a phrase like, “The prince’s only ambition is to make his people happy.” (19)

What was the nature of Napoleon’s ambition?

Napoleon’s brothers suggested that his ambition consisted primarily in advancing his own interest, rather than the interests of others. In 1792, Lucien wrote to Joseph, “I have always detected in Napoleon an ambition that is not altogether selfish, but that surpasses his love for the public good…. He seems to me well inclined to be a tyrant, and I believe that he would be one if he were king, and that his name would be a name of horror to posterity and to the sensible patriot.” (20)

Joseph later recalled that Napoleon, as a young man on Corsica, “had in mind the judgment of posterity; his heart palpitated at the idea of a great and noble deed that posterity would appreciate.” Napoleon said that he would like to be among those witnessing a representation of this deed after his death, “and read what a poet like the great Corneille would make [him] feel, think and say.” (21)

Josephine also thought that Napoleon’s ambition was focused on himself. When there were rumours that Napoleon had died in Egypt, she told Paul Barras, “He is the most ingrained and ferocious egotist that the earth has ever seen. He has never known anything but his interest, his ambition.” (22)

Napoleon’s own words regarding his ambition were inconsistent. In 1804, he said:

I have no ambition…or, if I do, it is so natural to me, so innate, so much a part of my existence, that it is like the blood that flows through my veins, like the air I breathe. It does not make me go any faster, or any differently, than the natural motives within me. I never have to fight either for it or against it. Ambition is never in a greater hurry than I am; it only keeps pace with the circumstances and my general way of thinking. (23)

In 1816, when he was in exile on St. Helena, Napoleon admitted that he had been ambitious, but gave it an unselfish cast.

Shall I be blamed for my ambition? This passion I must doubtless be allowed to have possessed, and that in no small degree; but, at the same time, my ambition was of the highest and noblest kind that ever, perhaps, existed!… That of establishing and of consecrating the Empire of reason, and the full exercise and complete enjoyment of all the human faculties! (24)

This was clearly said with an eye on the history books. Six months later, Napoleon said:

I never was truly my own master; but was always controlled by circumstance. Thus, at the commencement of my rise, during the Consulate, my sincere friends and warm partisans frequently asked me…what point was I driving at? and I always answered that I did not know. … Subsequently, during the Empire…many faces seemed to put the same question to me; and I might still have given the same reply. In fact, I was not master of my actions, because I was not fool enough to attempt to twist events into conformity with my system. On the contrary, I moulded my system according to the unforeseen succession of events. This often appeared like unsteadiness and inconsistency, and of these faults I was sometimes unjustly accused. (25)

However he perceived or coloured it, Napoleon clearly had ambition and acted in accordance with that ambition. He did not sit back and wait patiently for things to be offered to him. He sought out opportunities to advance his and his family’s interests and he made the most of them. He could have remained a general, focused on military objectives, but he chose to seek political power. When he obtained political power, he could have established a truly republican system, but he chose to establish an authoritarian one. He could have confined himself to fighting the wars he inherited, but he started new ones by invading Portugal, Spain and Russia.

Napoleon’s ambition was not for France, or for its citizens’ aspirations, or for an ideology, it was for his own personal aggrandizement. He had a large ego, he wanted power and glory, and he wanted to be remembered as a great man in history. On St. Helena, he said, “Had I succeeded, I should have died with the reputation of the greatest man that ever existed. As it is, although I have failed, I shall be considered as an extraordinary man. … From nothing I raised myself to be the most powerful monarch in the world. Europe was at my feet. My ambition was great, I admit, but it was of a cold nature, and caused by events, and the opinion of great bodies.” (26) Two months before he died, he said, “In five hundred years’ time, French imaginations will be full of me. They will talk only of the glory of our brilliant campaigns. Heaven help anyone who dares speak ill of me!” (27)

Sometimes Napoleon couched his ambition in language about destiny. The author J. Christopher Herold, who tried to decipher Napoleon’s thought, observed: “The salient characteristic of all of Napoleon’s utterances, on any subject whatsoever…is that by some twist he invariably ends by placing himself at the center. The destiny of General Bonaparte, the destiny of France, the destiny of Europe, the destiny of civilization – each was, in the last analysis, merely one aspect of the same thing.” (28) Herold concluded, “Fear of oblivion was also Napoleon’s motive.” (29)

Historian Geoffrey Ellis wrote, “In [Napoleon’s] view destiny came only to those few who were preordained for it, those marked out for special greatness, and capable of changing the course of history. As such, it was a noble call which had to be carried out, in his case through conquest, power, and personal glory.” (30)

According to historian Philip Dwyer, “In his mind, he was the tool of destiny; he felt he was driven towards a goal that he did not know, but that it involved changing the face of the world.” (31)

Biographer Frank McLynn boiled Napoleon’s ambition down to “a basic lust for power.” (32) And historian Adam Zamoyski contends that Napoleon’s “ambition [was] no greater than that of contemporaries such as Alexander I of Russia, Wellington, Nelson, Metternich, Blücher, Bernadotte and many more. What made his ambition so exceptional was the scope it was accorded by circumstance.” (33)

An opportunist

In search of power and glory, Napoleon was an improviser. His ambition looked for an outlet and he made the most of whatever opportunities came up. He said that he “frequently floated at the caprice of chance.”

I did not strive to subject circumstances to my ideas;…I in general suffered myself on the contrary to be led by them; and who can calculate beforehand the chances of accidental circumstances or unexpected events? I have, therefore, often found it necessary to alter essentially my plan of proceeding, and have acted through life upon general principles, rather than according to fixed plans. (34)

McLynn wrote that “Napoleon’s Achilles’ heel” was his “inability to concentrate on a single clear objective to the exclusion of all others.” (35) Ellis observed: “What made Napoleonic imperialism possible was its gradualism, and its course was determined by the chronology of war. Such empirical evidence suggests that Napoleon’s ambition was not driven by any over-arching ‘master plan’ or ‘grand design,’ present from the start and systematically worked out, but that it grew by an evolving process of pragmatic opportunism which eventually over-reached itself.” (36)

Philip Dwyer argued:

[H]is foreign policy was continually renewed and dictated entirely by circumstances and their immediate needs. Napoleon had in fact no coherent imperial foreign policy. Some historians have insisted that he conquered for the sake of conquering, with no defining goals and no overriding, consistent or specific long-term strategic objectives. Since each campaign created new enemies, the wars were continuous and could stop only with the defeat of Napoleon. (37)

Conclusion

Napoleon had no overarching aim, beyond a general desire for power and lasting fame, and the wish to advance his family along with himself. He had many shifting short-term goals, driven by a character that couldn’t be still and the ambition to make himself a great man. He seized power in France and conquered a large part of Western Europe thanks to his skilful pursuit of the opportunities afforded to his ambition. However, without a clear long-term objective, he was unable to set limits on his ambition and make the concessions to his adversaries that might have allowed him to remain in power. My novel, Napoleon in America, explores what might have happened if he had wound up in the United States.

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Emmanuel de Las Cases, Memorial de Sainte Hélène: Journal of the Private Life and Conversations of the Emperor Napoleon at Saint Helena, Vol. IV, Part 7 (London, 1823), pp. 256-256.
Jean Hanoteau (ed.), With Napoleon in Russia: The Memoirs of General de Caulaincourt, Duke of Vicenza, (New York, 1935), pp. 354-355.
Frédéric Masson and Guido Biagi, Napoléon inconnu: Papiers inédits (1786-1793), Vol. I (Paris, 1895), pp. 186-187.
Ibid., p. 188.
Victorine de Chastenay, Mémoires de Madame de Chastenay, 1771-1815, Vol. I (Paris, 1896), pp. 282-283.
The Confidential Correspondence of Napoleon Bonaparte with His Brother Joseph, Vol. I (New York, 1856), pp. 21-22.
Henri-Gatien Bertrand, Napoleon at St. Helena: The Journals of General Bertrand from January to May of 1821, deciphered and annotated by Paul Fleuriot de Langle, translated by Frances Hume (Garden City, 1952), p. 91.
Ibid., p. 92.
André François Miot de Mélito, Memoirs of Count Miot de Melito, edited by General Fleischmann, translated by Mrs. Cashel Hoey and John Lillie, (New York, 1881), p. 113.
Correspondance de Napoléon Ier, Vol. III (Paris, 1859), p. 311.
Frank McLynn, Napoleon: A Biography (London, 1997), p. 169.
Correspondance de Napoléon Ier, Vol. IV (Paris, 1860), p. 475.
Las Cases, Memorial de Sainte Hélène, Vol. I, Part 2, pp. 309-310.
Jean-Antoine Chaptal, Mes souvenirs sur Napoléon (Paris, 1893), p. 219.
Bertrand, Napoleon at St. Helena, p. 56.
Felix Markham, Napoleon (New York, 1963), p. 202.
Geoffrey Ellis, Napoleon (London, 1997), pp. 233-234.
Markham, Napoleon, p. 108.
Dictionnaire de l’Académie française, Vol. I (Paris, 1798), p. 49.
Frédéric Masson and Guido Biagi, Napoléon inconnu: Papiers inédits (1786-1793), Vol. II (Paris, 1895), p. 397.
Mémoires et Correspondance Politique et Militaire du Roi Joseph, Vol. I (Paris, 1855), p. 38.
Paul Barras, Memoirs of Barras, member of the Directorate, Vol. III, edited by George Duruy, translated by C.E. Roche (New York, 1896), p. 445.
Pierre-Louis Roederer, Oeuvres du Comte P.L. Roederer publiées par son fils le Baron A.M. Roederer, Vol. III (Paris, 1854), p. 495.
Las Cases, Memorial de Sainte Hélène, Vol. II, Part 3, pp. 197-198.
Las Cases, Memorial de Sainte Hélène, Vol. IV, Part 7, pp. 133-134.
Barry Edward O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile; or, A Voice from St. Helena, Vol. 1 (London, 1822), p. 405.
Bertrand, Napoleon at St. Helena, 112.
Christopher Herold, The Mind of Napoleon: A Selection from His Written and Spoken Words (New York, 1955), pp. xxviii-xxix.
Ibid., p. xxxiii.
Ellis, Napoleon, p.
Philip Dwyer, Citizen Emperor: Napoleon in Power 1799-1815 (London, 2014), p. 348.
McLynn, Napoleon: A Biography, p. 431.
Adam Zamoyski, Napoleon: The Man Behind the Myth, eBook (London, 2018), Preface.
Las Cases, Memorial de Sainte Hélène, Vol. IV, Part 7, p. 256.
McLynn, Napoleon: A Biography, p. 326.
Ellis, Napoleon, pp. 6-7.
Dwyer, Citizen Emperor, 348.

Leopold I of Belgium began life as a minor German prince. He served as a Russian general against Napoleon, married into the British and French royal families, and was offered two separate crowns of his own. As the first king of the Belgians, Leopold consolidated Belgium’s independence and ensured that Belgium’s interests were considered by the great powers. He was also the uncle of both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.

Leopold I, King of the Belgians, by Nicaise de Keyser, 1856

Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld

Leopold was born on December 16, 1790 in Coburg, Germany. At the time, Germany did not exist as a country. It was made up of many small territories, most of which were part of the Holy Roman Empire, ruled by Austria. Coburg was in the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Leopold’s grandfather was the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and Leopold’s father, Francis, was heir to the duchy. Francis and his wife, Countess Augusta of Reuss-Ebersdorf, had seven children who survived to adulthood. Leopold was their youngest. He was named after Leopold II, the Holy Roman Emperor.

When Leopold was two years old, the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld became caught up in the wars between Revolutionary France and its neighbours. Leopold’s father – a bookish art connoisseur – was commissioned into the Austrian army. A number of French emigrants and noble families from the Rhine and Westphalia fled to Coburg for refuge. This exhausted the resources of the little duchy, which was already heavily indebted.

Despite their impoverished circumstances, the Coburgs were able to secure an important dynastic match. In 1795, a Russian general in search of a bride for Grand Duke Constantine (grandson of Empress Catherine the Great) fell ill and had to stop in Coburg. While there, he was charmed by Leopold’s three oldest sisters. When Empress Catherine invited the girls and their mother to St. Petersburg, Leopold went along. In February 1796, Leopold’s sister Juliana (who took the Russian name of Anna Feodorovna) married Grand Duke Constantine. The marriage did not last. Constantine treated Juliana cruelly and in 1801 she left him for good.

In the meantime, young Leopold became a member of the Russian Imperial Guard. He started as a captain in an infantry regiment, was transferred to a horse regiment as a colonel, and, at the age of 12, became a major general. These were honorary appointments and Leopold did not spend the whole time in Russia, but they were important to his later military career.

In 1800, Leopold’s grandfather died and Leopold’s father became the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Leopold later wrote:

My poor father, whose health had been shattered early, was a most lovable character…. He was passionately fond of the arts and sciences. My beloved mother…had a warm heart and a fine intellect…. Without wishing to say anything against the other branches of the house of Saxony, ours was certainly the most intellectual. (1)

Leopold inherited his parents’ love of learning. He studied Christianity, Latin, ethics, logic, history, and the law of nations. In addition to his native German, he mastered French, English, Italian and Russian; he could later manage in Spanish and Flemish as well. He cultivated his interests in botany, drawing, and music. He also applied himself to his military studies, something that would prove useful as the wars between France and other European countries continued under Napoleon, who became Emperor of the French in 1804.

Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, by George Dawe, circa 1823-25

Fighting against Napoleon

In 1805, Leopold made his first real appearance in the Russian army. He joined the headquarters of Grand Duke Constantine’s brother, Tsar Alexander I, in Moravia. Thus he was part of the Tsar’s retinue at the Battle of Austerlitz (December 2, 1805), in which Napoleon secured a major victory over Russia and Austria.

In 1806, Napoleon reorganized part of Austria’s territory into the French-controlled Confederation of the Rhine. This marked the demise of the Holy Roman Empire. The French occupied Coburg and then took Saalfeld. On December 9, 1806, Leopold’s father died. On December 15, Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld became part of the Confederation of the Rhine.

In 1807, Leopold again served with Russian forces against France. This time he was with Grand Duke Constantine. He distinguished himself at the battles of Guttstadt-Deppen, Heilsberg and Friedland. The last battle was a decisive French victory. Even though Leopold and other Coburgs had fought against him, Napoleon allowed Leopold’s eldest brother, Ernest, to take possession of the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld under the Treaty of Tilsit (July 7, 1807). In November, Ernest and Leopold went to Paris to thank Napoleon.

Leopold met Napoleon a second time at the Congress of Erfurt in October 1808, as part of Tsar Alexander’s suite. Leopold wanted to continue his military career with Russia, but Napoleon made clear that Ernest would lose his duchy if Leopold did so. Napoleon wanted Leopold to enter France’s service, but Leopold declined.

In 1813, after Napoleon’s disastrous invasion of and retreat from Russia, Leopold rejoined the Russian army, again under Grand Duke Constantine. He commanded a body of Russian cavalry in a series of engagements, including the battles of Lützen and Bautzen. His bravery at the battles of Kulm and Leipzig was rewarded with military decorations. In January 1814, Leopold and his cavalry entered France. They took part in the battles of Brienne, Arcis-sur-Aube, Le Fère Champenoise and Paris. Leopold witnessed the fall of Napoleon and the accession of King Louis XVIII to the French throne.

Marriage to Princess Charlotte of Wales

The Betrothal of Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold, in the manner of George Clint, circa 1816

In June 1814, Leopold accompanied Tsar Alexander on a celebratory visit to England. While in London, the handsome 23-year-old general met 18-year-old Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales. She was the only legitimate child of King George III’s oldest son, George, Prince of Wales (known as the Prince Regent, later King George IV). Charlotte was engaged to Prince William of Orange, the son of King William I of the Netherlands, but she broke this off.

Leopold went back to the continent to attend the Congress of Vienna. When Napoleon escaped from Elba and returned to France in March of 1815, Leopold rejoined the Russian army. Russia did not participate in the Waterloo Campaign, but Leopold did spend time in Paris after Napoleon’s removal from the French throne. During this period, he and Charlotte corresponded privately. In late 1815, Charlotte informed her father that she favoured Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld as a candidate for her hand.

The Prince Regent invited Leopold to return to England. Doubts about the suitability of a poor, low-ranking German prince for the woman who was second-in-line to the British throne were soon dispelled. Leopold charmed the Prince Regent and those around him. Alicia Campbell, a governess of Princess Charlotte wrote:

I have heard nothing but good of [Prince Leopold]. I inquired of military men in London, who I could depend upon being open and candid with me, and the account was that he is a sensible and rather reserved man, and not dissipated as the generality of foreign princes are. (2)

Charlotte enthused:

No royal marriage I believe, ever promised to the individuals what this one does in point of domestic comfort, as without exaggeration I think I may say that [Prince Leopold] is a very charming and very superior person. (3)

Their engagement was formally announced in the House of Commons on March 14, 1816. Leopold was given British citizenship and the rank of general in the British army. Parliament granted the couple a stipend of £60,000 per year and purchased the estate of Claremont, southwest of London, as a residence for them. This was a huge step up for Leopold. His previous income was probably no more than £400 per annum. (4)

On the evening of May 2, 1816, Leopold and Charlotte were married in the crimson drawing room of Carlton House, the Prince Regent’s London home. Salvoes of artillery from St. James’s Park and the Tower of London announced the event to the city.

When Napoleon, in exile on St. Helena, learned of the match he said:

Prince Leopold was one of the handsomest and finest young men in Paris, at the time he was there. At a masquerade given by the Queen of Naples, Leopold made a conspicuous and elegant figure. The Princess Charlotte must doubtless be very contented and very fond of him. He was near being one of my aide-de-camps, to obtain which he had made interest and even applied; but by some means, very fortunately for himself, it did not succeed, as probably if he had, he would not have been chosen to be a future king of England. (5)

Leopold and Charlotte were happy together. The English painter Thomas Lawrence – commissioned by the Prince Regent to paint a portrait of Charlotte, who was then pregnant – spent time with the couple at Claremont in 1817. He reported:

It is exceedingly gratifying to see that [Princess Charlotte] both loves and respects Prince Leopold, whose conduct, indeed, and character, seem justly to deserve those feelings. From the report of the gentlemen of his household, he is considerate, benevolent, and just, and of very amiable manners. My own observation leads me to think that, in his behaviour to her, he is affectionate and attentive, rational and discreet; and, in the exercise of that judgment which is sometimes brought in opposition to some little thoughtlessness, he is so cheerful and slyly humorous that it is evident…that she is already more in dread of his opinion than of his displeasure.

Their mode of life is very regular: they breakfast together alone about eleven; at half-past twelve she came in to sit to me, accompanied by Prince Leopold, who stayed [a] great part of the time; about three, she would leave the painting-room to take her airing round the grounds in a low phaeton with her ponies, the Prince always walking by her side; at five, she would come in and sit to me till seven; at six, or before it, he would go out with his gun to shoot either hares or rabbits, and return about seven or half-past; soon after which, we went to dinner, the Prince and Princess appearing in the drawing-room just as it was served up. Soon after the dessert appeared, the Prince and Princess retired to the drawing-room, whence we soon heard the pianoforte accompanying their voices…..

After coffee, the card-table was brought, and they sat down to whist, the young couple being always partners, the others changing…. The Prince and Princess retire at eleven o’clock. (6)

Charlotte’s death

On November 3, 1817, Charlotte went into labour. Fifty hours later, on the evening of November 5, she delivered a 9-pound stillborn son. It was a breech birth, poorly managed by Charlotte’s doctor, who committed suicide three months later. Leopold told Thomas Lawrence:

She had been…for many hours, in great pain – she was in that situation where selfishness must act if it exists – when good people will be selfish, because pain makes them so – and my Charlotte was not…. She thought our child was alive; I knew it was not, and I could not support her mistake. I left the room for a short time: in my absence they took courage and informed her. When she recovered from it, she said, ‘Call in Prince Leopold – there is none can comfort him but me!’ …

My Charlotte thought herself very ill, but not in danger. And she was so well but an hour and a half after the delivery! And she said I should not leave her again – and I should sleep in that room…. (7)

On November 6, 1817, five and a half hours after her son’s delivery, Charlotte died of postpartum hemorrhage and shock. She was 21 years old. The governess Mrs. Campbell wrote on November 11, “Prince Leopold is calm, and exerts himself all in his power. He sees us all, and even tries to employ himself; but it is grief to look at him. He seems so heartbroken.” (8)

When Thomas Lawrence brought his finished portrait of Charlotte to Claremont, he met with Leopold.

The Prince was looking exceedingly pale; but he received me with calm firmness, and that low, subdued voice that you know to be the effort at composure. He spoke at once about the picture and of its value to him more than to all the world besides. From the beginning to the close of the interview, he was greatly affected. He checked his first burst of affection, by adverting to the public loss, and that of the royal family. ‘Two generations gone! – gone in a moment! I have felt for myself, but I have felt for the Prince Regent. My Charlotte is gone from this country – it has lost her. She was a good, she was an admirable woman. None could know my Charlotte as I did know her! It was my happiness, my duty to know her character, but it was my delight.’ (9)

Prince Leopold the widower

Prince Leopold, by Thomas Lawrence, 1821

Although he was no longer in line to become prince consort, Prince Leopold remained in England. He received an annuity of £50,000 per year and continued to be addressed as a Royal Highness. He moved into Marlborough House in London. The Crown had bought the residence for the royal couple in 1817, but Charlotte had died before the purchase was completed.

Leopold continued to miss Charlotte. On a visit to Coburg in 1819, he wrote to Alicia Campbell:

[T]he young and happy ménage of my brother [Ernest], as well as the sight of his fine child, gave me almost more pain than I had strength to endure. Time, which softens by degrees the most acute feelings, has kindly exercised its power on me; more accustomed to the sight of these objects I enjoy now somewhat more tranquility, but still I avoid as much as possible the sight of the poor little child. …

Do you think the bustle of this life has already effaced Charlotte’s memory in the minds of the people? I hope not, but new events exercise a strong influence on the human mind, and for that very reason it is my pride that I am a living monument of those happy days that offered to the country such bright prospects; and so I trust it will be made difficult to them to forget Charlotte as long as they see me.

I should already sooner have thought of returning to dear old England, but I greatly wanted quiet and retirement, fallen from a height of happiness and grandeur seldom equalled, to accustom myself to the painful task of leading so very different a life. … My health is rather improved, but still not what it was in 1817, and probably never will become so again. (9)

Three months later, Mrs. Campbell visited Leopold in London.

The Prince has laid out a great deal of money on Marlborough House, in painting and cleaning it, very handsome carpets to the whole range of apartments, and silk furniture, and on my asking if the silk on one sofa was foreign, he seemed quite to reproach me, and said I should never see anything that was not English in his house that he could avoid. I could not help wishing that Mrs. Williams had been with us to judge of the sum that Prince Leopold must have expended in the last three months on English manufactures – magnificent glass lustres in all the rooms, &c. He has also purchased a large collection of fine paintings, which are coming over, and though that is giving money out of the country, it brings a value back.

The Prince told me that it was a painful task to attend the christening at Kensington, but he thought it right. (10)

The christening in question was that of Leopold’s niece, the daughter of his sister Victoria and the Duke of Kent. The baby, Alexandrina Victoria, was born on May 24, 1819 and baptized on June 24. In 1837, she became Queen Victoria. She remained close to her uncle Leopold throughout his life.

Leopold was a congenial host and invitations to his parties were highly sought. It is at one of Prince Leopold’s soirees that Lord Liverpool and the Duke of Wellington learn of Napoleon’s (fictional) escape from St. Helena in my novel Napoleon in America.

In 1828-29, Leopold had a relationship with a German actress named Caroline Bauer, a cousin of his physician and advisor, Christian Friedrich von Stockmar. Caroline claimed in her memoirs, published after her death, that she and Leopold entered into a morganatic marriage, although there is no evidence of this.

On the Belgian throne

In 1830, the great powers recognized Greece as an independent state. They offered Prince Leopold the opportunity to head the new monarchy – in fact, they proclaimed him sovereign of Greece – but Leopold declined on the grounds that he had not been accepted freely and unanimously by the Greek nation. Later that year, when Belgium declared its independence from the Netherlands, the great powers again sought a neutral candidate for a new throne. After considering, among others, Auguste of Leuchtenberg, who was the son of Napoleon’s stepson Eugène de Beauharnais, they offered the Belgian crown to Prince Leopold. This time he accepted. He renounced his British pension and moved to Belgium. On July 21, 1831, at the Place Royale in Brussels, Leopold was sworn in as King of the Belgians. July 21st is still celebrated as Belgium’s national holiday.

King Leopold had to contend with the tricky challenge of pursuing Belgian national aims while maintaining the support of the great powers. He ably identified himself with his new country and, using his personal connections with other courts, did his best to manoeuvre among the European powers to achieve Belgian goals.

Less than two weeks after Leopold’s accession to the Belgian throne, Dutch troops invaded Belgium. Leopold personally commanded troops to defend his country. When the British government did nothing, Leopold appealed to France for support. The arrival of French soldiers compelled the Dutch to retreat. Periodic skirmishes continued between the Dutch and the Belgians until the Netherlands formally recognized Belgium’s independence in 1839. Belgium also had to pay a large debt to the Netherlands.

Belgium had been established as a constitutional monarchy. Leopold respected the constitution, while guarding his royal prerogatives. He appointed each minister in his cabinet and insisted on being consulted before ministers acted, but did not encroach on their powers. As Belgian independence had been the result of a union between Catholics and Liberals, Leopold tried not to upset this alliance. Until 1847, he was able to choose a broad-based cabinet, consisting of Catholic and Liberal ministers. Afterwards, in recognition of growing political divisions, he had to appoint either all Liberals or all Catholics, depending on who controlled the chamber of representatives. Leopold’s political astuteness meant that Belgium remained relatively untouched by the revolutions that swept Europe in 1848, although his father-in-law, Louis-Philippe of France (see below), lost his throne.

Leopold supported electoral reform and economic modernization. He promoted the establishment of continental Europe’s first passenger rail line, between Brussels and Mechelen, inaugurated in 1835. In 1842, he ordered a special commission to investigate child labour in factories and propose legislation to protect children, but the proposed law was ultimately defeated. He helped the country weather an economic crisis and signed commercial treaties with Prussia, France and the Netherlands.

One of Leopold’s pet projects was an attempt to establish a Belgian colony in the Americas. In 1841, he encouraged a small group of investors to form the Belgian Colonization Company, hoping to take advantage of economic opportunities in Guatemala. In 1843 the company sent some 200 poorly-supplied Belgian settlers and workers to Santo Tomás de Castilla. The settlement grew to include 800 civilians and 48 soldiers. Leopold ordered the Belgian minister to Mexico to negotiate the transfer of sovereignty over Santo Tomás to Belgium, but the Guatemalan government refused. In 1846, a new Belgian cabinet withdrew support for Leopold’s overseas adventure. Many of the settlers died of yellow fever and malaria, and the company ultimately had to withdraw because of financial losses. Leopold bemoaned the failure of the venture. In 1851, he wrote to the Minister of the Interior:

Central America has become very important; it has a future before it, and it is inconceivable how so little interest should be bestowed upon it in Belgium. (12)

When Napoleon’s nephew Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III) staged a coup d’état in France in December 1851, Belgium was thought to be one of the areas he coveted. Leopold described his fears in a letter to his niece, Queen Victoria:

We are here in the awkward position of persons in hot climates, who find themselves in company, for instance in their beds, with a snake. They must not move because that irritates the creature, but they can hardly remain as they are without a fair chance of being bitten. (13)

In the end, an Anglo-French rapprochement protected Belgium. Leopold was able to ensure Belgian neutrality throughout his reign, even during the Crimean War (1853-1856).

On July 21, 1856, Leopold celebrated 25 years on the throne. Étienne Constantin de Gerlache, the first prime minister of Belgium, remarked:

[D]uring these twenty-five years of sovereignty, its king has never violated a single one of its laws, lifted a finger against a single one of its liberties, or given legitimate cause of complaint to a single one of its fellow-citizens. … Amidst the commotions which have shaken so many governments, Belgium has remained faithful to her prince and the institutions she created for herself. This sort of phenomenon, rare as it is in our age, can be explained only by the happy harmony existing between king and people, cemented by their common respect for sworn faith and for the national constitution. (14)

Earlier, in 1854, Leopold had written:

My part is, as it has been since 1831, very simple. I put the ship through the manoeuvre which is necessary to preserve it; about twenty-three years of navigation give some title to confidence. (15)

Marriage to Princess Louise of Orléans

The Wedding of Leopold I of Belgium and Louise of Orléans in the chapel of the Château de Compiègne (1832), by Joseph-Désiré Court, 1837

Leopold had initially been regarded as a British candidate for the Belgian throne. To be viewed as a neutral candidate, he had to marry Princess Louise of Orléans, eldest daughter of King Louis Philippe of France and sister of the Prince of Joinville. Leopold had known Louise since she was a little girl. Her parents had been guests at his wedding to Charlotte.

Leopold married Louise on August 9, 1832 at the Château de Compiègne. She was 20; he was 42. Since Leopold was Protestant and Louise was Catholic, they had a Catholic ceremony in the chapel, after which they repaired to another room for a Lutheran ceremony. On August 17, Leopold wrote, “I am delighted with my good little queen; she is the sweetest creature you ever saw, and she has plenty of wits. This marriage cuts away the pretexts for partition [of Belgium]….” (16)

They had four children, three of whom lived to adulthood: Leopold, Duke of Brabant (April 9, 1835 -December 17, 1909), who became King Leopold II of the Belgians; Philippe, Count of Flanders (March 27, 1837 – November 17, 1905); and Charlotte (June 7, 1840 – January 19, 1927), who became Empress of Mexico. Leopold and Louise raised their children as Catholics because the majority of Belgians were Catholic.

Leopold I of Belgium with his family, by Charles Baugniet, circa 1850. From left to right: Prince Leopold, Duke of Brabant (future Leopold II); King Leopold I; Princess Charlotte (future Empress of Mexico); Queen Louise; Prince Philippe, Count of Flanders

Leopold also had two sons with a Belgian mistress named Arcadie Claret. The first, George, was born on November 14, 1849, when Arcadie was 23 and Leopold was 58. The second son, Arthur, was born on September 25, 1852. Before the births, Leopold had Arcadie married to his stablemaster, Ferdinand Meyer, a widower with three children, to reduce the scandal occasioned by their affair.

Queen Louise died of tuberculosis on October 11, 1850, at the age of 38. Arcadie and Ferdinand Meyer separated in 1861. Leopold remained in a relationship with Arcadie until he died.

Connections to the royal families of Europe

Left to right: Prince Philippe, Count of Flanders; Prince Albert, Prince Consort; Princess Alice; Infante Luís, Duke of Porto (future King Luís I of Portugal); Queen Victoria (seated); Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (future King Edward VII); King Leopold I of Belgium. Attributed to Dudley FizGerald-de-Ros, 1859

Because of Belgium’s neutrality and his own personal connections, King Leopold was able to play an influential role in European diplomacy. He skillfully promoted marriages of his family with the other royal families of Europe to strengthen his diplomatic ties.

In 1836, Leopold I of Belgium encouraged the marriage of his nephew, Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, to Maria II, Queen of Portugal. In 1840, he helped to arrange the marriage of his niece Victoria, Queen of England, to his nephew, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Also in 1840, another of Leopold’s nieces, also named Victoria (the daughter of his brother Ferdinand), married the Duke of Nemours, son of King Louis-Philippe of France. Leopold negotiated the marriage of his son Leopold to Archduchess Marie Henriette, daughter of Archduke Joseph of Austria, Palatine of Hungary, in 1853. And in 1857 Leopold’s daughter Charlotte married Archduke Maximilian of Austria, who became the ill-fated Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico.

Death of Leopold I of Belgium

Leopold was in ill health in 1862 and had to submit to several painful operations. A former Belgian cabinet minister who met with Leopold in January 1864 wrote.

Though much tried by lingering pain, he had the uprightness, the old firmness and nobility of attitude, the old kingly bearing; I was, as I had always been, struck with that cold but courteous kindness which marked his official relations: he first discussed seriously the matters which occupied at this time the minds of all; he enunciated his own views, estimated the value of opinions, passed judgment on men and measures, argued out and laid down conclusions; he had still as the vigour of his character, and all the freshness of his mind: then quitting the grave and serious, as apparently done with, he turned the conversation and gave himself up by little and little to that quiet gaiety which was part of his nature, and the expression of which, with its mixture of plentiful anecdote and keen irony, had an irresistible charm. (17)

King Leopold I of Belgium died on December 10, 1865 at the Palace of Laeken, age 74. He was buried in the royal crypt in the Church of Notre Dame de Laeken, in Brussels, with his wife Queen Louise.

Queen Victoria had a monument erected to Leopold’s memory in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, beside the cenotaph of Princess Charlotte. The inscription includes: “This monument was raised by Queen Victoria to the memory of the uncle who held the place of a father in her affections.” (18)

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Théodore Juste, Memoirs of Leopold I, King of the Belgians, translated by Robert Black, Vol. I (London, 1868), pp. 43-44.
Harriot Georgiana Mundy, ed., The Journal of Mary Frampton (London, 1885), pp. 262-263.
Ibid., p. 272.
Arthur Henry Beavan, Marlborough House and Its Occupants: Present and Past (London, 1896), p. 260.
Barry E. O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile; or, A Voice from St. Helena, Vol. II (London, 1822), p. 33.
E. Williams, The Life and Correspondence of Sir Thomas Lawrence, Vol. II (London, 1831), pp. 75-76.
Ibid., pp. 83-84.
The Journal of Mary Frampton, p. 300.
The Life and Correspondence of Sir Thomas Lawrence, Vol. II, p. 82.
The Journal of Mary Frampton, pp. 311-314.
Ibid., pp. 315-316.
Arthur Christopher Benson and Viscount Escher, eds., The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol. II, 1844-1858 (London, 1907) pp. 457.
Théodore Juste, Memoirs of Leopold I, King of the Belgians, translated by Robert Black, Vol. II (London, 1868), p. 184.
Ibid., p. 280
Ibid., p. 292.
Ibid., p. 75.
Ibid., pp. 337-338.
Ibid., p. 384.

John Quincy Adams was the sixth president of the United States, from 1825 to 1829. He was also a diplomat, a senator, a secretary of state, a congressman, and an antislavery advocate. Here are some fun facts about John Quincy Adams.

John Quincy Adams by Pieter Van Huffel, 1816. Source: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; transfer from the Smithsonian American Art Museum; gift of Mary Louisa Adams Clement in memory of her mother, Louisa Catherine Adams Clement, 1950

1. John Quincy Adams was a sloppy dresser.

By his own admission, John Quincy Adams was “careless of dress.” (1) As a young man, he wrote to his future wife, Louisa, that “the tailor and the dancing-master must give me up, as a man of whom nothing can be made.” (2) In 1822, a Philadelphia newspaper claimed that Adams wore neither a waistcoat nor a cravat, and sometimes went to church barefoot. Adams admitted this was true “only as regards the cravat, instead of which, in the extremity of the summer heat, I wear round my neck a black silk riband.” (3)

A British visitor observed that Adams wore, in warm weather, “a striped seersucker coat, and white trousers, and dirty waistcoat, spotted with ink.” On colder days, the presidential candidate could be spotted “in a plain blue coat, much the worse for wear, and other garments in proportion.” Adams’ slippers were described as “down at the heel” and “his whole dress, altogether, [was] not worth a couple of pounds.” (4)

In keeping with his preference for plain clothing, John Quincy Adams was the first president to wear full-length trousers, rather than knee breeches, to his inauguration. He took the oath of office in a homespun black suit, and without a powdered wig.

2. He had bad manners.

Both friends and foes commented on John Quincy Adams’ lack of social graces. In 1810, when Adams was the American ambassador to Russia, a young member of his staff complained that he “has no manners, is gauche, never was intended for a foreign Minister, and is only fit to turn over musty law authorities. You would blush to see him in society, and particularly at Court circles, walking about perfectly listless, speaking to no one, and absolutely looking as if he were in a dream.” (5) Later, a British diplomat wrote that Adams had “a vinegar aspect” and “sat in the frivolous assemblies of [Saint] Petersburg like a bulldog among spaniels.” (6) When Adams was secretary of state, Massachusetts congressman Elijah Hunt Mills observed that he had “no talent to entertain a mixed company, either by conversation or manners.” (7)

Adams acknowledged his “forgetfulness of the courtesies in society.” (8) He wrote in his diary in 1819:

I am a man of reserved, cold, austere, and forbidding manners; my political adversaries say a gloomy misanthropist, and my personal enemies an unsocial savage. With a knowledge of the actual defect in my character, I have not the pliability to reform it. (9)

3. He was a theatre fan.

John Quincy Adams, by John Singleton Copley, 1796

John Quincy Adams spent much of his youth in Europe, where he acquired a love of live theatre. In 1792, he was a founding member of a citizens’ committee that sought to repeal a law that banned theatrical entertainments in Massachusetts. He subsequently became an original shareholder in Boston’s Federal Street Theatre.

Back in Europe as a diplomat, Adams saw at least 248 plays between 1794 and 1800. (10) He told the American actor James Henry Hackett, “my admiration of Shakespeare is little short of idolatry.” (11) In 1839, when Hackett wrote to Adams saying that he had recently heard of an analysis by the latter of Shakespeare’s ‘Othello,’ Adams noted in his diary: “This extension of my fame is more tickling to my vanity than it was to be elected President of the United States.” (12) Hackett later published Adams’ correspondence with him regarding Shakespeare.

When Louisa asked Adams why he frequented the theatre, he replied:

I have all my life had a very extravagant fondness for that species of entertainment, and always indulge myself with it, unless when motives of prudence or propriety or pride, or duty of some kind, real or imaginary, prescribe to me the self-denial of them. … The stage has been to me a source of much amusement, for more than forty-years. But I have always enjoyed it with discretion. First with reference to expense; but secondly and chiefly with respect to morals. To which end, I have made it a rule to make no acquaintance with actresses. (13)

4. He loved to swim.

Beginning at age 50, John Quincy Adams went swimming almost every summer in the Potomac River in Washington, DC. He swam for exercise and for enjoyment, finding it “conducive to health, cleanliness and comfort.” (14) Adams swam in the nude, wearing only a bathing cap and swim goggles.

In 1825, less than three months after being sworn in as president, John Quincy Adams had an adventure that led to rumours he had drowned. He was crossing the Potomac in a small canoe with his valet, Antoine, with the intention of swimming back. The boat started to leak and soon filled with water, so they jumped overboard.

We were as near as possible to the middle of the river, and swam to the opposite shore. Antoine, who was naked, reached it with little difficulty. I had much more, and while struggling for life and gasping for breath, had ample leisure to reflect upon my own discretion. My principal difficulty was in the loose sleeves of my shirt, which filled with water and hung like two fifty-six pound weights upon my arms. I had also my hat….

By the mercy of God our lives were spared, and no injury befell our persons. … I had been about three hours in the water…. This incident gave me a humiliating lesson and solemn warning not to trifle with danger. … Among my motives for swimming, that of showing what I can do must be discarded as spurious, and I must strictly confine myself to the purposes of health, exercise, and salutary labor. (15)

Despite this adventure and the protests of his wife and friends, John Quincy Adams continued to swim until he was 78 years old.

5. He disapproved of Lord Byron.

Lord Byron was a popular English poet, famous for his scandalous private life as well as his work. In 1816, John Quincy Adams he wrote to his mother, Abigail: “[Lord Byron] has been married little more than a year, and is already separated from his wife – partly, as his verses acknowledge, in consequence of some fault of his own, and partly as they allege, by the suggestions of an evil spirit in the shape of a governess, intriguing to embitter and envenom the resentment of his wife, and to make it unplacable. … Lord Byron leaves England immediately, and will probably close tragically his wild and eccentric career.” (16) Adams later warned his son John about the poet:

There is no character in human society so dangerous as that of great genius, combined with a depraved heart; and there is no popular writer of modern times, the tenor of whose individual vices has so deeply affected the moral purport of his writings as Lord Byron. … It will generally be found that even his love of freedom is full of bitterness, and his compassion of sensuality. Misanthropy, lubricity and desperation burst out in open day or lurk in disguise throughout all his writings…. I wish not to dissuade you from reading his production, but to urge you to keep well upon your guard against them. (17)

When Byron died at the age of 36 in Greece in 1824, Adams commented: “Bad as he was [his death] struck me as a public calamity. What might he not have been, if he had properly applied his talents?” (18)

6. John Quincy Adams liked to measure things.

John Quincy Adams liked to measure things, like the width of a river or the distance between two points, by counting his steps. He noted in 1812: “I have found, by experiments frequently repeated, that my ordinary pace is two feet six inches and eighty-eight one-hundredths of an inch, or about twenty-nine French inches, and that in my ordinary pace I walk one hundred and twenty steps to a minute.” (19) When Adams became Secretary of State in 1817, his fascination with measurements coincided with the desire of Congress to establish a uniform standard for weights and measures across the United States. After three-and-a-half years of obsessive work, which frustrated Louisa to no end, Adams produced his massive Report Upon Weights and Measures. He thought it would be his most important literary accomplishment.

It is, after all the time and pains that I have bestowed upon it a hurried and imperfect work; but I have no reason to expect that I shall ever be able to accomplish any literary labour more important to the best ends of human exertion, public utility, or upon which the remembrance of my children may dwell with more satisfaction. (20)

7. Group meditation annoyed him.

John Quincy Adams was a Protestant, and puritanical in his insistence on hard work and attention to duty, but he was not a Quaker. In 1821 he attended a Quaker meeting with his friend, Dr. William Thornton.

There were from forty to fifty men present, and about as many females. We sat nearly two hours in perfect silence – no moving of the spirit; and I seldom, in the course of my life, passed two hours more wearily. Perhaps from not having been inured to this form of public worship, I found myself quite unable to reduce my mind to that musing meditation which makes the essence of this form of devotion. It was rambling from this world to the next, and from the next back to this, chance-directed; and, curious to know what was really passing in the minds of those around me, I asked Dr. Thornton, after we came out, what he had been thinking of while we had been there. He said he did not know; he had been much inclined to sleep. Solitude and silence are natural allies, and social silence may be properly allied with social labor. But social meditation is an incongruity. I felt, on coming from this meeting, as if I had wasted precious time. (21)

8. He put a controversial billiard table in the White House.

John Quincy Adams was the first president to install a billiard table in the White House. He noted in his diary that it was “a resource both for exercise and amusement.” (22) He liked to play billiards before he went to bed. Although Adams paid for the second-hand table and its related expenses with his own money, the costs were mistakenly included in a list of public expenditures printed by Congress. Supporters of Andrew Jackson – Adams’ electoral opponent – seized on the opportunity to embarrass the new president. Although billiards was a popular game in Europe, it was less common in the United States and had an unsavory reputation. Jackson’s advocates published many critical newspaper articles, along the lines of this passage in the United States Telegraph:

Can it be that the President’s House is to be converted into a place of resort, where gamblers may idle away an hour? Is it right that the President, as the head and father of a moral, religious and money-saving people, should set such an example – should throw the weight of his character and situation on the side of games of hazard? (23)

By the time the error was officially corrected, the damage had been done. The image of Adams as an extravagant aristocrat who encouraged gambling contributed to his defeat by Jackson in the 1828 presidential election.

9. He is in the oldest known photo of a US president.

John Quincy Adams is the subject of the oldest existing confirmed photograph of a US president. It was taken in March 1843 by Philip Haas in Washington, DC. Adams had two daguerreotype sessions with Haas that month. After the first, Adams wrote:

I walked this morning to Mr. Haas’s shop, and he took from his camera obscura three Daguerreotype likenesses of me. The operation is performed in half a minute, but is yet altogether incomprehensible to me. Mr. Haas says it is a chemical process upon mercury, silver, gold and iodine. It would seem as easy to stamp a fixed portrait from the reflections of a mirror; but how wonderful would that reflection itself be, if we were not familiarized to it from childhood. (24)

Haas made a total of six daguerreotypes of Adams, two of which survive. One is in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. The other, which is actually a reverse copy (circa 1850) of an 1843 Haas original, is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Fact about John Quincy Adams: this is his first photo, 1843

A daguerreotype of John Quincy Adams by Philip Haas, 1843. This is the earliest known photograph of an American president. Source: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; Acquired through the generosity of the Secretary of the Smithsonian and the Smithsonian National Board; The Burnett Family Fund; Carl and Marilynn Thoma; Connie and Dennis Keller; Tim Lindholm and Lucy Gaylord Lindholm; Mr. and Mrs. John W. McCarter, Jr.; Mr. and Mrs. Ronald J. Gidwitz; Ellen G. Miles and Neil R. Greene; Ronnyjane Goldsmith; David D. Hiller; Richard and Janet Horwood; and Mary Martell.

Haas was not the first person to attempt to photograph John Quincy Adams. Adams sat for a daguerreotype in Boston in September 1842, but fell asleep during that session. He had two daguerreotypes taken at another Washington studio in April 1843. Adams wrote, “I did not see either of them nor do I feel any curiosity to see them. They are resemblances too close to the reality and yet too shadowy to be agreeable.” (25) Later that year, he noted:

The features of my old age are such as I have no wish to have transmitted to the memory of the next age. They are harsh and stern beyond the true portraiture of the heart; and there is no ray of interest in them to redeem their repulsive severity. (26)

Yet Adams continued to allow himself to be photographed. He sat for about 50 daguerreotypes in total, not all of which turned out.

A copy of a daguerreotype of John Quincy Adams by Matthew Brady (original from 1843-1848; copy from 1855-1865)

10. He died in the Capitol building.

In 1831, John Quincy Adams became a member of the US House of Representatives, representing Massachusetts. On February 21, 1848, Adams collapsed in the House from a massive stroke. He died on February 23, 1848, in the Capitol. According to then Speaker of the House, Robert Winthrop:

Mr. Adams rose impulsively…with a paper in his outstretched hand, exclaiming, with more than his usual earnestness and emphasis: ‘Mr. Speaker! Mr. Speaker!’ … But before he could…add another syllable, his hand fell to his side and he sank upon the arm of his chair, only saved from dropping to the floor by being caught by the member nearest to him. … Business was at once suspended, and the excitement and confusion which ensued can be imagined better than described. More than two hundred Representatives…were seen rising from their seats and pressing forward toward their beloved and revered associate….

Fortunately there were several physicians among the members of the House. Dr. William A. Newell, afterward the Governor of New Jersey…took the lead in repressing the throng, securing air for the sufferer, and rendering all the medical aid which was possible. He cooperated with the others in removing Mr. Adams on a sofa into the Rotunda, and thence, with but little delay, at my urgent instigation into the Speaker’s official chamber.

‘This is the end of earth,’ was heard from his lips, as he fell, or when he was placed on the little couch which was hastily prepared for him, with the addition, as was alleged, ‘I am composed,’ or ‘I am content.’ But all signs of consciousness soon ceased, and he lingered, entirely insensible, until a quarter past seven on Wednesday evening, the 23d. (27)

John Quincy Adams was 80 years old. Abraham Lincoln was among the committee members who arranged his funeral, which was held in the hall of the House of Representatives on February 26. Thousands of people filed past Adams’ glass-covered coffin. “It was the most numerous funeral procession I ever witnessed,” wrote President James K. Polk. (28)

More facts about John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams was born on July 11, 1767 in what is now Quincy, Massachusetts. He was also buried there. Quincy is pronounced KWIN-zee.

John Quincy Adams was elected president despite losing both the popular vote and the electoral college vote in 1824. Andrew Jackson narrowly won both, but did not receive the necessary majority in the electoral college. Under the terms of the 12th Amendment, the presidential election was decided by the House of Representatives, which chose Adams.

John Quincy Adams and his father, 2nd president John Adams, were the first father and son to serve as president. The only other father-son presidents were George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush.

John Quincy Adams’ wife, Louisa, was the first foreign-born First Lady of the United States. She was born in London, England, to an American father and an English mother. The only other foreign-born First Lady was Melania Trump, from Slovenia.

John Quincy Adams was the first president to serve in Congress after his term in office (Andrew Johnson later served in the Senate), and the only former president to serve in the House of Representatives.

John Quincy Adams was in Paris when Napoleon escaped from Elba and returned to France in 1815. He saw Napoleon at the theatre there.

As US Secretary of State in 1821, Adams plays an important role in Napoleon in America.

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“From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 23 August 1822,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-03-02-4138.
“John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson, 9 July 1796,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-11-02-0174.
Charles Francis Adams, ed., Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Vol. VI (Philadelphia, 1875), pp. 54-55.
“Sketches of the Five American Presidents, and of the Five Presidential Candidates, From the Memoranda of a Traveler,” Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 15, No. 88 (May 1824), pp. 511-512.
Nina N. Bashkina, Nikolai N. Bolkhovitinov, John H. Brown, et al., eds., The United States and Russia: The Beginning of Relations, 1765-1815 (Washington, 1980), p. 666.
“W.H. Lyttleton to Sir Charles Bagot,” January 22, 1827, in Josceline Bagot, ed., George Canning and His Friends, Vol. II (London: John Murray, 1909), p. 362.
Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Vol. 19 (Sept., 1881), p. 28.
“From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 16 December 1814,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-03-02-2706.
Charles Francis Adams, ed., Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Vol. IV (Philadelphia, 1875), p. 388.
George B. Bryan, “Pilgrim at the Shrine of a Saint: John Quincy Adams on Shakespeare,” Educational Theatre Journal, Vol. 20, No. 4 (Dec., 1968) p. 516.
James Henry Hackett, Notes and Comments Upon Certain Plays and Actors of Shakespeare, Third Edition, (New York, 1863), p. 229.
Charles Francis Adams, ed., Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Vol. X (Philadelphia, 1876), p. 138.
“From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 28 August 1822,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-03-02-4145.
John Quincy Adams diary 31, 1 January 1819 – 20 March 1821, 10 November 1824 – 6 December 1824, page 136 [electronic edition]. The Diaries of John Quincy Adams: A Digital Collection. Boston, Mass.: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2004. https://www.masshist.org/jqadiaries/php/.
Charles Francis Adams, ed., Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Vol. VII (Philadelphia, 1875), pp. 28-29.
“From John Quincy Adams to Abigail Smith Adams, 23 April 1816,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-03-02-3075.
“From John Quincy Adams to John Adams, 13 October 1823,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-03-02-4328.
“From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 27 June 1824,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-03-02-4422.
Charles Francis Adams, ed., Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Vol. II (Philadelphia, 1873), p. 353.
Charles Francis Adams, ed., Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Vol. V (Philadelphia, 1875), pp. 132-133.
Ibid., p. 335.
Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Vol. VII, p. 22.
“The National Billiard Table,” from the Vicksburg (MI) Eagle, United States Telegraph(Washington, DC), November 21, 1826.
John Quincy Adams diary 43, 1 January 1842 – 8 July 1843, page 447 [electronic edition]. The Diaries of John Quincy Adams: A Digital Collection. Boston, Mass.: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2004. https://www.masshist.org/jqadiaries/php/.
John Quincy Adams diary 43, 1 January 1842 – 8 July 1843, page 500 [electronic edition]. The Diaries of John Quincy Adams: A Digital Collection. Boston, Mass.: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2004. https://www.masshist.org/jqadiaries/php/.
John Quincy Adams diary 44, 9 July 1843 – 31 December 1844, page 41 [electronic edition]. The Diaries of John Quincy Adams: A Digital Collection. Boston, Mass.: Massachusetts Historical Society, 2004. https://www.masshist.org/jqadiaries/php/.
Robert C. Winthrop, “Historic Moments: The Death of John Quincy Adams in the Capitol,” Scribner’s Magazine, Vol. 13, No. 3, New York, March 1893, pp. 389-390.
Milo Milton Quaife, ed., The Diary of James K. Polk During His Presidency, 1845 to 1849, Vol. III (Chicago: A.C. McClurg, 1910), p. 363.

Virginie Ghesquière was a French woman who disguised herself as a man and fought as a soldier in Napoleon’s army. Her story formed the basis of many popular tales, but how much of it was true?

Virginie Chesquière, ou la nouvelle héroïne française [the new French heroine]

The initial story

Virginie Ghesquière – also spelled Chesquière, Chesquières, or Gesquière – first came to public attention in an article in the October 31, 1812 edition of the French newspaper Journal de l’Empire. Under the dateline “Anvers [Antwerp], October 27,” readers were told:

There is much talk of the courage and devotion of a young lady who replaced her brother, a conscript of 1806, and returned from the army covered with honorable wounds. This is true, and the details deserve to be known. (1)

According to the article, Virginie Ghesquière was born in Deulémont, a town in north-eastern France near Lille. Seeing that her twin brother, who had been called to serve in the army, could not bear the strain of war and wanted to continue his studies, Virginie obtained permission from her parents to go in his place. Disguised as her brother, she entered the 27th Infantry Regiment of the Line, in which she served for six years. She was promoted to the rank of sergeant at the Battle of Wagram for having saved the life of her captain, who had fallen into the Danube river.

At another engagement on May 2 (the year was unspecified) near Lisbon, where the Duke of Abrantès was in command, her colonel was surrounded by the enemy. Virginie asked for six men of good will to join her in going to his aid. Despite a shot she had received in the left arm, she saved the colonel and took two enemy officers as prisoners. She sustained, on that occasion, a wound from a bayonet thrust on her left side. Virginie was transferred to the hospital of Almeida, and from there to that of Burgos, where she was treated without her sex being discovered. However, another illness betrayed her. At the time the article was written, she had just passed through the city of Courtrai on the way to her regimental depot. There she would receive the reward due to her valor and be decorated, by the colonel whom she had saved, “with the honorable mark due to the brave.” (2)

The pretty sergeant

News of Virginie soon spread. Someone named Cadot wrote a popular ballad called “Virginie Chesquière, ou la nouvelle héroïne française,” in which her exploits were lauded. The lyrics were set to the tune of “Partant pour la Syrie,” which had been composed by Napoleon’s stepdaughter and ex-Queen of Holland, Hortense de Beauharnais. “Partant pour la Syrie” was well-known at the time. It is (fictionally) performed at a New Orleans concert for Napoleon in Napoleon in America.

The chorus of Virginie’s ballad can be roughly translated as follows:

With martial ardor
She flies in battle
And is reported everywhere
As a brave soldier. (3)

Over the subsequent decades, the tale was padded with details. Some were important clarifications, including that Virginie was actually part of the 27th Light Infantry Regiment, not the 27th of the Line. (4) Others were probably more fanciful embellishments, including elements of what happened in Portugal.

According to these stories, Virginie’s regiment was suffering in an engagement against a larger British force. The regiment’s colonel (Baron Jean-Étienne Clément-Lacoste), having been struck by a bullet, was lying on the battlefield at the foot of tree. In some versions, he was pinned under his fallen and bloodied horse. The soldiers thought he was dead. As recounted in 1836:

Chesquière, a young sergeant of voltigeurs without a moustache, said to two of his comrades: ‘The body of a colonel is a flag that belongs to the regiment, and the 27th will take it back.’ The three of them set off, but only Chesquière reached the foot of the tree: his two friends had met English bullets along the way.

The poor sergeant without a moustache was small and thin. He made some vain efforts to carry the colonel, but couldn’t lift him onto his shoulders. So the good little sergeant began to cry over the corpse. Chesquière looked here and there, his eyes moist with tears – and the little sergeant had large and beautiful blue eyes with long eyelashes. However, he noticed two English officers approaching the tree, all torn with bullets. Chesquière raised his gun and bayonet, and marched bravely toward the Englishmen. The pretty sergeant of the 27th didn’t cry anymore; he was proud and brilliant. One of the Englishmen received a bullet in the shoulder and fell; the sergeant, who didn’t have time to reload his rifle, ran to the second…. They fought, grabbed each other by the body, and fell, rolling in the dirt and the blood. The good little sergeant was weaker than the huge Englishman and was about to perish, when, by a rapid movement, he disengaged himself and wounded the foreign soldier, who cried for mercy. The second officer stood up, but, since he was weak and suffering, he too was taken prisoner. The sergeant of voltigeurs led them to the tree that sheltered the colonel….

Together they put the colonel on an abandoned horse that was wandering the battlefield. The two Englishmen were attached to the tail of the horse, and Chesquière, pleased with his triumph, led the march of the convoy.

They arrived at the ambulance. What happiness! The colonel was still breathing! But the little sergeant was very pale, very much suffering, and his chest was covered with blood. The Englishman had wounded him.

While the colonel squeezed the hand of his liberator with emotion…the surgeon-major, a tough old man, said to the pretty sergeant: ‘Let’s go, come here, trooper, let me sew up your hide.’

The sergeant blushed; he lowered his eyes. Yes…the sergeant of voltigeurs resisted the old surgeon, who suddenly made Chesquière’s clothes fly here and there, pushed aside his shirt, and saw a beautiful, very white breast, well-rounded and very fresh. The good little sergeant was a young and pretty girl. (5)

Virginie Ghesquière with her wounded colonel and the English prisoners

The additional details might have come from Virginie, or from those who knew her.

She is still in her village, where she makes an old farmer happy and sometimes tells him about her campaigns.

I have heard from a quartermaster of the 27th, who knew Sergeant Chesquière, that an old corporal, the ex-bedmate of Chesquière, was never able to console himself for not having guessed the little sergeant’s secret. [Chesquière] had beautiful skin, white hands, a fresh mouth. The old corporal often said, ‘Oh! Women, they always deceive.’ He died single, poor man. (6)

The story of Virginie Ghesquière appeared in a number of children’s books. These expanded upon her family life and the circumstances that led her to take the place of her brother. For example, in a story by Eugénie Foa called “La Soeur du Conscrit” (The Conscript’s Sister), Virginie was presented as a poor, uneducated, country girl. Her father was blind; her family had suffered numerous misfortunes; and her parents had no means of support except her brother, who was the only one strong enough to move the plough. He was also engaged to be married. Virginie decided to leave them, and it broke her heart to do so, but she knew that her brother’s departure would ruin the family, whereas hers would harm no one. After years of brave and virtuous service in the army, she returned to her family. Her parents were still alive; her brother and his wife had a little daughter whom they had named Virginie, in honor of her. Several young men wanted to marry her, but since she did not want to leave her family again, she refused them all. Soldiers praised her bravery. Mothers praised her modesty and wisdom. (7)

In some stories, Virginie’s brother died of a fever shortly before she returned.

Fact versus fiction

One might wonder how a woman could go undetected in the French army for six years, given that soldiers lived in close quarters, shared beds, and used communal latrines. Although women could serve as canteen keepers (cantinières), laundresses (blanchisseuses) and petty merchants (vivandières), they were not allowed to join the ranks as soldiers. Nonetheless, Virginie managed to do so in disguise, and she was not the only one. Her predecessors included Angélique Brûlon, Marie Schellinck, Rose-Alexandrine Barreau, and Félicité and Théophile Fernig, as well as Marie-Thérèse Figueur (although the latter did not hide that she was female). During Virginie’s time in the army, Jeanne-Louise Antonini had long been disguised as a man and was serving as a sergeant. A woman named Léger was said to have joined the 27th light infantry – the same regiment as Virginie – under the name of Antoine Perrier. (8) So that aspect of Virginie’s story is not necessarily unbelievable.

There is, however, at least one questionable aspect. According to the majority of stories about Virginie Ghesquière, as well as the song about her, she was decorated with the cross of the Legion of Honor. Indeed, the engraved print of the song depicts a marshal of France giving Virginie this award. However, women were not allowed to receive the Legion of Honor before 1852, and Virginie (under any variant of her surname) is not listed in Léonore, the index of the holders of the Order of the Legion of Honor. This discrepancy could possibly be explained by observing that the original article does not specify that the award Virginie received was the Legion of Honor. Virginie might have received some other decoration, and later writers might have made a false assumption about what that was. Alternatively, Virginie’s award could have been listed in the archives that were destroyed when the headquarters of the Legion of Honor burned to the ground during the Paris Commune uprising in 1871.

Virginie Ghesquière being decorated by her wounded colonel

Doubts about Virginie’s military career came to full light in an article by French historian Léonce Grasilier published in 1917. Grasilier investigated Virginie’s record of service and found that she was listed as Jean-Baptiste Ghesquière, born at Deulémont on June 11, 1786. She joined the army as a conscript in 1806, deserted, received an amnesty, and then, on May 19, 1810, joined the 27th regiment of light infantry. Less than two months later, on July 11, she deserted again. She returned on November 26, 1810, and was tried and readmitted to the regiment on March 2, 1811. After deserting for a third time, on August 15, 1811 (coincidentally Napoleon’s birthday), she was arrested on August 28 in the department of la Vienne and held at the depot in Poitiers. She had no identity papers. When interrogated, Virginie replied that she was Jean-Baptiste Ghesquière, a sergeant-major in the 27th light infantry. She had lost her papers and was going to Paris to obtain a retirement pension because of injury. On November 18, she left Poitiers in a convoy of deserters destined for the Strasbourg depot. When the convoy went through Bourges on November 26, she was so ill that she had to be taken to the hospital. There her sex was recognized. “This girl,” said a report “was compelled to explain herself.” Virginie related her history. An investigation was launched, resulting in her dismissal from the army in 1812.

Grasilier, who was writing primarily to debunk the claim that Virginie had received – or merited – the Legion of Honor, judged her harshly. He called her “a cheeky lying adventuress” who was “very good at publicity and sounding the trumpets of fame in her favor.” She “knew how to deceive people, and shamelessly deceived herself.” (9)

A more charitable possible interpretation is laid out by “Cornemeuse d’Ecosse” on the Forum des Amis du Patrimoine Napoléonien. Cornemeuse notes that Virginie reached the rank of sergeant, or sergeant-major, which implies that she was, for the most part, a responsible soldier. He speculates that her first desertion happened after the Battle of Wagram (July 5-6, 1809) – in which Virginie could have participated, given that some elite companies of the 27th light infantry were attached to General Oudinot’s Grenadier Division, and seven officers from her regiment were wounded in that battle – and was simply a visit home. Deulémont was not far from the depot of the 27th light infantry at Aix-de-Chapelle. Or perhaps Virginie did not desert at all and was just rejoining the main regiment after spending time with Oudinot’s grenadiers (i.e., Grasilier might have misinterpreted the record).

Cornemeuse has no explanation for Virginie’s second disappearance, between July 11 and November 26, 1810. On March 5, 1811, three days after Virginie was readmitted to the regiment, the 27th light infantry fought in the Battle of Barossa in Spain. Two months later, the regiment participated in an attempt to relieve the besieged French garrison at the fortress of Almeida in Portugal. This was the engagement of May 2 to which the original article about Virginie referred, although the commander-in-chief was Marshal Masséna, not the Duke of Abrantès. The light infantry of General Drouet’s corps (including the 27th regiment) pushed English skirmishers toward Fuentes de Oñoro, where the French fought a losing battle from May 3 to 5, 1811.

Virginie may have saved her colonel, but she was reportedly wounded. Cornemeuse wonders if her sex was discovered on that occasion, as indicated in the stories involving the doctor. In that case, her third desertion (in August 1811) might have been an attempt to continue to hide her identity. Her regiment was south of Bayonne, but Virginie was arrested in la Vienne. This implies she covered some 420 km in 13 days. She might have been trying to put a lot of distance behind her, before the bureaucracy could catch up.

Cornemeuse also suggests that if Virginie was ill or wounded, it would have been risky for her to be treated by an army doctor, as her sex could easily be discovered. Thus, one or more of her desertions might have involved seeking treatment and recovering elsewhere, so that she could remain a soldier. (10)

In any case, Virginie had to leave the Grande Armée in 1812.

The death of Virginie Ghesquière

In mid-December 1867, Parisian newspapers reported that Virginie Ghesquière had recently died of old age at the Hospice des Petits-Ménages in Issy. She was 80 years old. It was noted that she had some years earlier fallen into a state of “infancy” and remembered absolutely nothing. (11) She was buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. A street in Lille is named after her.

Some accounts say that Virginie died in 1874, but those are based on copies of the 1867 death notices that reappeared in 1874 newspapers. Some newspapers reported that Virginie was almost 100 years old when she died. Based on the birth date found on her military records, that is false.

Another female Napoleonic soldier, Marie-Thérèse Figueur, also retired to the Hospice des Petits-Ménages and died there in January 1861. One hopes that she and Virginie had a chance to reminisce together there, before their memories disappeared.

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Journal de l’Empire, October 31, 1812, p. 1.
Ibid., p. 2.
Joseph Vingtrinier, Chants et Chansons des Soldats de France (Paris, 1902), p. 58.
Pierre-François Tissot, Trophées des Armées Françaises, depuis 1792 jusqu’en 1815, Vol. IV, (Paris, 1820), p. 391.
Joachim Ambert, Esquisses Historiques, Psychologiques et Critiques de l’Armée Française, Second Edition, Vol. I (Saumur, 1837), pp. 366-367.
Ibid., p. 367.
Eugénie Foa, Bibliothèque Historique de la Jeunesse (Paris, 1850), pp. 227-250.
Léon Hennet, “Femmes Soldats dans les Armées de la Révolution,” La Nouvelle Revue, Vol. 40 (Paris, March-April, 1919), p. 349.
Léonce Grasilier, “Les Femmes et la Légion d’Honneur,” La Nouvelle Revue, Vol. 31 (Paris, September-October, 1917), p. 247.
“Cornemeuse d’Ecosse” on the message board of Forum des Amis du Patrimoine Napoléonien, https://lesapn.forumactif.fr/t10195-au-sujet-de-virginie-ghesquieres. Accessed March 22, 2023.
Le Petit Journal, Paris, December 14, 1867, p. 3.

Although the most famous painting of Napoleon Bonaparte shows him on a horse, Napoleon was not a skilled horseman. In fact, the scene depicted by Jacques-Louis David never actually happened. Napoleon crossed the Alps through the Great St. Bernard Pass on a mule, not a white stallion. He nonetheless told David that he wanted to be portrayed “calm on a fiery horse.” (1) Napoleon wanted people to think he was a better horse rider than he was.

Napoleon Crossing the Alps, by Jacques-Louis David

A bold, bad rider

Napoleon learned how to ride in Corsica, the rocky Mediterranean island where he was born. Donkeys, mules, and a very small breed of horse were the most practical forms of personal transport. Bridles were often fitted without an iron bit, so Napoleon became used to holding the reins loosely and controlling the animal by shifting his body weight.

When Napoleon went to military school in France, he studied to become an artillery officer, rather than a cavalryman. Although he had to take riding lessons as part of his training, he continued throughout his life to have poor form as a horseman. He slouched forward, pointed his toes lower than his heels in the stirrups, and slid around in the saddle. Saxon cavalry colonel Ernst von Odeleben referred to Napoleon as riding “like a butcher.” (2) According to von Odeleben:

Napoleon himself remarked at one time…that he had learned a great many things, but had never been able to make himself a complete horseman. His make was not indeed calculated for equitation. When he galloped, he sat carelessly in the saddle, generally holding the reins in his right hand, while the upper part of his body was jumbled, as the horse went on, forward, or on one side, and his left hand hung negligently down. If the horse made a false step, he immediately lost his balance. (3)

As he was not a good horseman, all those who approached him mounted upon a mare were obliged to be cautious that they were not thrown out of the saddle by the capers of his horse. (4)

Despite his bad form, Napoleon was a determined horseman. One of his secretaries, Baron Fain, wrote that he “rode horseback very boldly and recklessly.” (5) Napoleon could ride for days on end, traversing long distances at a fast pace. In Spain in 1808, he rode from Valladolid to Burgos – a distance of approximately 140 km – in five and a half hours.

Napoleon was not easily deterred by poor terrain or other difficulties. Von Odeleben observed that “he frequently risked his person in narrow swampy ways, in dreadful and dangerous roads, and in crossing rivers.” (6)

Napoleon was passionately fond of going across the fields, without letting any person know whither he bent his course. The chasseurs of the guard were so accustomed to this habit, that by the first direction which he took, they became perfectly well acquainted with the place towards which he was going. He was so fond of bye-ways and paths, that finding himself, on several occasions, in craggy places, or impracticable roads, he was obliged to alight: it was always a disagreeable thing to him to hear of difficulties or impossibilities…and he seldom abandoned his intention til he was himself convinced of the impossibility of proceeding. (7)

Preference for small, gentle horses

Emperor Napoleon I and His Staff on Horseback, by Horace Vernet

Napoleon preferred riding stallions, but he wanted them easy to handle. He usually rode Arabian horses, “small in size, greyish-white coat, obedient, gentle gallopers, and trotting at an amble.” (8) Von Odeleben described Napoleon’s horses as “generally small and poor in appearance.” (9)

Napoleon was not mounted as an emperor should have been; he had some eight or nine horses for his own use, of which the best and handsomest was a bay of Arabian breed, with a black mane and tail. Many officers would have been ashamed to mount the others, which were small, without external appearance, but convenient and sure-footed; almost all stallions with long tails. Besides the bay horse he had often with him two sorrel and two white. (10)

Because of Napoleon’s limited ability to handle his mounts, they had to be exceptionally well trained. According to his valet Constant:

The Emperor mounted his horse most ungracefully, and I think would not have always been very safe when there, if so much care had not been taken to give him only those which were perfectly trained; but every precaution was taken, and horses destined for the special service of the Emperor passed through a rude novitiate before arriving at the honor of carrying him. They were habituated to endure, without making the least movement, torments of all kinds; blows with a whip over the head and ears; the drum was beaten; pistols were fired; fireworks exploded in their ears; flags were shaken before their eyes; heavy weights were thrown against their legs, sometimes even sheep and hogs. It was required that in the midst of the most rapid gallop (the Emperor liked no other pace), he should be able to stop his horse suddenly; and in short, it was absolutely necessary to have only the most perfectly trained animals. (11)

When offered an unfamiliar horse during his exile on St. Helena, he ordered one of his valets to try riding the animal first, to know “whether he could use it without danger.” It was only after the valet assured him that the horse was “easy and gentle” that Napoleon mounted. (12) You will not find him riding a mustang in Napoleon in America.

Napoleon’s mishaps with horses

Napoleon on Horseback, by Piotr Michalowski

There are numerous accounts of unfortunate incidents involving Napoleon and horses. At least ten horses were killed underneath him in battle. He also had several bad falls from horses, including one in which he hit a tree and was knocked unconscious. Napoleon took care to make sure such accidents were not reported.

There were other, less serious, mishaps. Napoleon’s secretary Baron de Méneval recounted how in early 1803, Napoleon wanted to drive a carriage with four young horses. His wife Josephine and her daughter Hortense were in the carriage.

Napoleon mounted the box, in front of the St. Cloud parterre. On arriving at the railings which separate this parterre from the private park, he lost control over the horses, which were young and fiery. They dashed up against the railings with such violence that Napoleon was thrown from his seat and hurled ten paces away, on to the gravel. … Napoleon came off with a sprain and few scratches, and was obliged to carry his right arm in a sling, which prevented him from signing any papers for a few days afterwards. (13)

Jean-Roch Coignet, a grenadier in Napoleon’s Imperial Guard, wrote that “at Posen, I saw [Napoleon], when he was angry, mount his horse in such a rage that he vaulted right over it, and give his groom a cut with his whip.” (14)

Von Odeleben recounted that in 1813, “[a] short period before he quitted Dresden for the last time, a very odd accident happened to [Napoleon]: he had set out on horseback to take an airing, or make a reconnaissance, when his horse fell in the street of Pirna, although it was going at a walk, in such a manner that it remained prostrate for some minutes on the ground, till Caulaincourt, and others, came up and assisted it to rise. The Emperor remained calm and undisturbed, on foot, until one of his led horses, which were in rear of the escort, was brought to him.” (15)

As a horseman, Napoleon usually accepted his mishaps with good grace, concealed any injury from onlookers, and remounted as soon as possible.

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Jean-Etienne Delécluze, Louis David, son école et son temps: souvenirs (Paris, 1855), p. 233.
Ernst von Odeleben, A Circumstantial Narrative of the Campaign in Saxony, in the Year 1813, Vol. I, translated by Alfred John Kempe (London, 1820), p. 285.
Ibid., pp. 64-65.
Ibid., pp. 202-203.
Agathon-Jean-François Fain, Mémoires du Baron Fain (Paris, 1908), p. 244.
von Odeleben, A Circumstantial Narrative of the Campaign in Saxony, Vol. I, p. 64.
Ibid., pp. 203-204.
Fain, Mémoires du Baron Fain, 238.
von Odeleben, A Circumstantial Narrative of the Campaign in Saxony, Vol. I, p. 64.
Ibid., p. 202.
Louis Constant Wairy, Recollections of the Private Life of Napoleon, Vol. I, translated by Walter Clark (New York and Boston, 1895), p. 279.
Louis Étienne Saint-Denis, Napoleon from the Tuileries to St. Helena, translated by Frank Hunter Potter (New York and London, 1922), p. 166.
Claude-François de Méneval, Memoirs to Serve for the History of Napoleon I From 1802 to 1815, Vol. I, translated by Robert H. Sherard (London, 1895), pp. 213-214.
Jean-Roch Coignet, The Note-Books of Captain Coignet, Soldier of the Empire, edited by Jean Fortescue (New York, 1929), p. 136.
von Odeleben, A Circumstantial Narrative of the Campaign in Saxony, Vol. I, p. 203.

Letters of introduction were the reference letters of the past, particularly among the upper classes. They were a way to say, “I know this person and can vouch for them.” If you wanted to become acquainted with someone of a higher social status, a letter of introduction written by a mutual friend was necessary to set up the meeting. Letters of introduction were also useful for travelers. If you were going to a place where you didn’t know anyone, a letter of introduction to someone who lived there would give you entry to the social or business community.

The Letter of Introduction, by David Wilkie, 1813

The importance of letters of introduction

Letters of introduction were an important part of 19th-century etiquette. They helped to establish the social status and connections of new acquaintances, so people did not have to make snap judgments about strangers. This facilitated the development of social and business networks. Although letters of introduction existed before the 1800s, the character references provided through such letters became even more important with the changing composition of society.

In the early nineteenth century the increasingly powerful middle classes challenged the notion of respectability deriving solely from social rank with their emphasis on morality, sobriety, duty and work. By mid-century, they had redefined a gentleman and polite society. Not so much property or birth but character came to define a gentleman. The emphasis on character was not particular to the early nineteenth century; what was new was that character increasingly denoted possession of certain highly valued moral qualities. (1)

At the same time, the expansion of roads and canals and the introduction of steamships and railroads led to a boom in travel, tourism and migration. This meant that a lot more people needed letters of introduction. Their use peaked in the middle of the 19th century.

Obtaining a letter of introduction

Letters of introduction could be solicited, or they could be volunteered by people who knew you were going somewhere where they knew someone. Typically the person needing the introduction was of a lower social status than the person writing the letter of introduction. The person receiving the letter was also usually of a higher social status than the person being introduced.

In The Yellowplush Correspondence, by William Makepeace Thackeray, the fictional Algernon wrote to his father, Lord Crabs:

Will you have the kindness to send me a letter of introduction to Lord Bobtail, our ambassador? My name, and your old friendship with him, I know would secure me a reception at his house; but a pressing letter from yourself would at once be more courteous, and more effectual. (2)

The reply hinted at the benefits to be gained from such an introduction.

My dear Algernon, – Your letter came safe to hand, and I enclose you the letter for Lord Bobtail as you desire. He is a kind man, and has one of the best cooks in Europe. (3)

Letters could be written by family members, by friends, by acquaintances, or even by people who didn’t know you, as long as you had a mutual acquaintance who could recommend you. When Benjamin Franklin was the American ambassador to France, he got so frustrated with people asking him for letters of introduction on behalf of others who intended to travel to the United States that he complained to one of his French friends.

[I]n my opinion, the natural complaisance of this country often carries people too far in the article of recommendations. You give them with too much facility to persons of whose real characters you known nothing, and sometimes at the request of others of whom you know as little. Frequently, if a man has no useful talents, is good for nothing and burdensome to his relations, or is indiscreet, profligate, and extravagant, they are glad to get rid of him by sending him to the other end of the world; and for that purpose scruple not to recommend him to those they wish should recommend him to others as ‘un bon suject, plein de mérite,’ &c. &c. In consequence of my crediting such recommendations, my own are out of credit, and I cannot advise anybody to have the least dependence on them. (4)

Franklin went so far as to draft a “Model of a Letter of Recommendation of a person you are unacquainted with.” He used it on more than one occasion, hoping to put a stop to the requests.

Sir, The bearer of this, who is going to America, presses me to give him a letter of recommendation, though I know nothing of him, not even his name. This may seem extraordinary, but I assure you it is not uncommon here. Sometimes, indeed, one unknown person brings another, equally unknown, to recommend him; and sometimes they recommend one another! As to this gentleman, I must refer you to himself for his character and merits, with which he is certainly better acquainted than I can possibly be. I recommend him, however, to those civilities which every stranger, of whom one knows no harm, has a right to; and I request you will do him all the good offices, and show him all the favor, that on further acquaintance, you shall find him to deserve. (5)

Scottish writer Walter Scott also alluded to the difficulty of being faced with requests for letters of introduction for people one did not wish to introduce. Here is a note he wrote to his brother Thomas in 1813.

Dear Tom, I observe what you say as to Mr. ***; and, as you may be often exposed to similar requests, which it would be difficult to parry, you can sign such letters of introduction as relate to persons you do not delight to honor, short, ‘T. Scott’; by which abridgment of your name, I shall understand to limit my civilities. (6)

Perhaps to avoid this problem, Thomas Jefferson decided not to provide letters of introduction while he was president of the United States, although he did provide them in later life. He still found a way to introduce people whom he wanted to recommend, as in this letter to James Monroe, who was then the American ambassador to the United Kingdom.

Isaac Coles, son of Colo. Coles our neighbor is gone to London, Paris, &c. he asked from me a letter to you. I told him I had been obliged to make it a rule to give no letters of introduction while in my present office; but that in my first letter to you I would mention to you the reason why I gave him none. He is a most worthy young man, & one whom I had intended to have asked to be my Secretary, had Mr. Harvie declined the offer. You know the worth of his family. (7)

A traveler going on a long trip with many destinations could obtain a large number of letters of introduction. Wealthy American shipowner George Crowninshield – who was rumored to be secretly planning to rescue Napoleon from St. Helena – amassed at least 300 letters of introduction for a voyage to Europe in 1817. Among these were letters from Commodore William Bainbridge “to all the consuls in Europe and to all the Commanders in the fleets as well.” (8)

Offers to write letters of introduction did not always have to be taken up. In 1827, Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte declined letters of introduction for her son, Jerome, who would be passing through London. She wrote to her father:

He has one from the son of Lord Holland to his father, which he will not have time to deliver. If he could have remained a few months in England I should have availed myself of these opportunities of introducing him properly; but as his stay will only be of a few days, there would be little advantage in taking letters. (9)

Writing a letter of introduction

An American publication provided the following instructions.

Letters of introduction should not be given except to persons with whom you are well acquainted, and for whom you are entirely willing to vouch.

They should be given with great caution, and should be carefully and explicitly worded. Remember that in introducing a person to a friend, you pledge your own character for his, to a certain extent, and any misconduct on his part will damage you in the estimation of the friend to whom you introduce him. The necessity of exercising the greatest care thus becomes apparent.

While you are uncertain as to the propriety of giving a letter of introduction, refuse it with firmness and let nothing induce you to alter your decision.

In giving a letter of introduction, be careful to state your exact intention, in order that your friend may know what attention you wish him to show the person you introduce. If your letter is simply a business introduction, confine it to an explicit statement of the person’s business, and your knowledge of his capacity. If you wish the bearer of the letter to receive any social attention at the hands of your friend, say so. Leave nothing to uncertainty.

The letter of introduction should be left unsealed. The person delivering it should seal before presenting it.

A social introduction should be sent by messenger to the person addressed, and accompanied by the card of the person introduced. It is customary to present a business introduction in person. (10)

Another publication advised that the letter should be “(1) short, so as not to embarrass the bearer by waiting so long a time while it is being read, and (2) moderate in expression, containing language of merited praise, but not extravagant eulogy, which would be much out of place.” (11)

Making use of a letter of introduction

Letters of introduction were usually delivered by hand, rather than by post. If you were a traveller, you would want to deliver the letter as soon as possible after your arrival. This was a matter of both politeness and practicality. The sooner you presented the letter, the sooner you could take advantage of whatever your new acquaintance might offer in the way of advice, invitations, and introductions to others. Some American visitors to Rome in the early 1820s had a letter of introduction from New York lawyer Luther Bradish to Italian sculptor Raimondo Trentanove. In the letter, Bradish asked Trentanove to take the Americans “at once upon [their] arrival” to meet Napoleon’s nieces, Charlotte Bonaparte Gabrielli and her sister, Christine-Egypta Bonaparte. One of the visitors later wrote:

Partly through the friendship of the…lovely nieces, who were so kind as to take an especial interest that we should pass our time pleasantly in Rome, partly from our other letters of introduction, opportunities were constantly offered to us attend balls at the great palaces, never seen to such advantage as on these occasions. … We were indebted to [the Bonaparte sisters] for many pleasant acquaintances, and found they were equally disposed to devote their own moments to our entertainment. (12)

In 1825, Italian castrato Giovanni Battista Velluti gathered an audience for his singing in London thanks in part to letters of introduction. Scottish music critic George Hogarth wrote:

[S]uch was the popular prejudice and general cry raised against him that unusual precautions were deemed necessary to secure a somewhat partial audience, and prevent his being driven from the stage on his first entry upon it…. At length the first appearance of Signor Velluti was announced to take place…. As he had brought me a letter of introduction from a friend at Florence, and my curiosity was a good deal raised by the representation given me of his talents, I was induced once more to enter a theatre, and was present on that occasion. (13)

Examples of letters of introduction

In 1802, Scottish physician James Currie gave the poet Thomas Campbell a letter of introduction to James Scarlett, who later became Baron Abinger.

The bearer of this is a young poet of some celebrity, Mr. Campbell, the author of ‘the Pleasures of Hope.’ He was introduced to me by Mr. Stewart, of Edinburgh, and has been some days in my house. I have found him, as might be expected, a young man of uncommon acquirements and learning, of unusual quickness of apprehension, and great sensibility.

He is going to London, with the view of superintending an edition of his poem, for his own benefit, by permission of the booksellers to whom the copyright was sold before the work was printed; and who, having profited in an extraordinary degree by the transaction, have now given him the permission above-mentioned, on condition that the edition shall be of a kind that shall not interfere with their editions. He is to give a quarto edition, with some embellishments, price a guinea; the printing by Bensley. You must lay out a fee with him; and if you can do him any little service you will oblige me and serve a man of genius. (14)

In 1809, Thomas Jefferson wrote a letter of introduction to French economist Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours for the son of American mathematician Robert Maskell Patterson.

My dear Sir & friend

The bearer hereof, Mr. Robert M. Patterson, is son of Mr. Robert Patterson, professor of Mathematics in the college of Philadelphia, Director of the mint of the US & a Vice-president of the Philosophical society. Having gone through his course of studies here, he goes to Paris to advance his stock of knowledge by the superior aids which that place affords. I have not the pleasure of being personally acquainted with him, but learn from sources worthy of all confidence that he is correct in his morals & conduct & earnest in the worthy pursuits which carry him to Europe. A friendship of long standing with his father, & the desire of being useful to himself induce me to take the liberty of making him known to you, of soliciting your friendly attentions & counsel to him in the objects of his journey & of expressing my entire belief that he will prove himself worthy of any good offices you may be so kind as to render him. I avail myself with pleasure of this & every occasion of renewing to you the assurances of my great esteem & respect. (15)

In 1842, naturalist John James Audubon secured many letters of introduction for his Missouri River expedition, including this one from Secretary of State Daniel Webster.

To all to whom these presents shall come – greeting.

Know Ye, that the bearer hereof, John James Audubon, a distinguished naturalist and native citizen of the United States, has made known to me his intention of travelling on the continent with the view principally of aiding the cause of science by extending his researches and explorations in natural history, and as he is known to me to be a man of character and honor and worthy of all friendly offices and of all personal regard, these are therefore to request all whom it may concern, to permit him to pass freely, without let or molestation, and to extend to him all such aid and protection as he may need, and which becomes the hospitality of civilized and friendly nations. (16)

The following was presented as generic example of a letter of introduction in a “how-to” book from 1840.

Dear Sir,

Permit me to introduce to you the bearer of this letter, my intimate acquaintance Mr. B– who proceeds to S– on his way to P–.

In strongly recommending Mr. B– to your notice, I particularly request that you will not only forward his views by your kind influence and advice, but that you will also be good enough to render his stay in your city as agreeable as possible, by showing him every civility and attention that may be in your power, assuring you that I shall consider myself greatly obliged and be most happy to have an opportunity of serving you in return. In the meantime believe me, Dear Sir, yours most faithfully,

N.N. (17)

Here is an example of a business letter of introduction, taken from a letter-writing manual published in 1855.

Dear Sir,

The bearer of these few lines is Mr. Edward Watson, of the firm of Watson Brothers.

In introducing to your acquaintance the nephew of our esteemed friend, Mr. Bryce Watson, of Manchester, so old a connection of your house as well as of our own, we feel it to be quite superfluous to claim for him that friendly reception, which we know awaits him at your hands.

We doubt not that you will feel the same interest as we do in the prosperity of the above-mentioned firm, and be equally anxious to promote, to the utmost of your ability, the particular objects of Mr. Edward Watson’s visit to Bristol. We are always, dear Sir, yours very truly,

Thomas Holmes & Son (18)

Theft of a letter of introduction

Letters of introduction are often mentioned in 19th-century novels. The plot of The Three Musketeers, written by Alexandre Dumas in 1844, includes the theft of a letter of introduction from the main character, a young man named D’Artagnan. The letter was written by D’Artagnan’s father and was addressed to M. de Tréville, commander of the King’s Musketeers in Paris, which D’Artagnan was seeking to join. D’Artagnan’s fury when he discovers the letter is missing gives a sense of how important these letters could be.

The young man began by looking very patiently for this letter, turning out and rummaging his pockets and fobs twenty times, poking into his bag, and opening and shutting his purse; but when he was quite convinced that the letter was not to be found, he gave full vent to another fit of rage….

‘My letter of introduction!’ cried D’Artagnan, ‘my letter of introduction! or by St. Denis, I will spit you all like so many ortolans.’ …

‘[W]here is this letter?’ roared D’Artagnan; ‘and let me tell you that this letter is for M. de Tréville, and that it must be found, otherwise M. de Tréville will take care to find it himself.’

The threat completely frightened mine host. Next to the king and the cardinal, M. de Tréville was the man whose name was most frequently in the mouths of the military, and indeed of the citizens…

‘Did this letter contain anything valuable?’ inquired the host after some moments of fruitless search.

‘I believe so, indeed,’ cried [D’Artagnan], who calculated on the letter to make his way at court; ‘it contained my fortune.’

‘Were they Spanish bonds?’ demanded the host, much disturbed.

‘Bonds on the private treasury of his majesty!’ replied D’Artagnan, who, calculating on entering the king’s service through this letter of introduction, thought he might, without lying, make this somewhat rash reply.

‘The devil!’ exclaimed the host, altogether astounded.

‘But it is of no consequence,’ continued D’Artagnan, with his national rectitude; ‘the money is nothing, the letter is all I want. I had rather have lost a thousand pistoles than that!’ (19)

D’Artagnan is still able to meet Tréville, who recognizes his name. However, given the absence of the letter, Tréville refuses D’Artagnan’s application to become a musketeer. Instead he gives D’Artagnan a letter of introduction to an academy for young gentlemen, so that he might be prepared for recruitment in the future.

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Anne Secord, “Corresponding Interests: Artisans and Gentlemen in Nineteenth-Century Natural History,” The British Journal for the History of Science, Vol. 27, No. 4 (December, 1994), pp. 389-390.
William Makepeace Thackeray, “The Yellowplush Correspondence, No. V., Foring Parts,” Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country, Vol. XVII (April, 1838), p. 407.
Ibid., p. 407.
John Bigelow, ed., The Life of Benjamin Franklin, Written by Himself, Vol. II (Philadelphia, 1875), p. 400.
Ibid., p. 401.
John G. Lockhart, Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Vol. II (Paris, 1837), p. 48.
“From Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 8 January 1804,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-42-02-0223. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 42, 16 November 1803–10 March 1804, ed. James P. McClure. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016, pp. 245–251.]
Benjamin Crowninshield, ed., The Story of George Crowninshield’s Yacht, Cleopatra’s Barge (Boston, 1913), p. 16.
Eugène Lemoine Didier, The Life and Letters of Madame Bonaparte (New York, 1879), pp. 206-207.
James D. McCabe, The National Encyclopedia of Business and Social Forms, Embracing the Laws of Etiquette and Good Society (Philadelphia, 1879) p. 184.
Grace H. Smithdeal, Smithdeal’s Practical Grammar, Speller and Letter-Writer (Richmond, VA, 1894), p. 190.
“Ups and Downs of the Bonapartes and Bourbons,” The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XXVII (1871), pp. 289-290.
George Hogarth, “Memoirs of the Musical Drama,” The Select Circulating Library, No. 18, Part I (Philadelphia, 1839), p. 273.
“Campbelliana,” Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country, Vol. XXX (September, 1844), p. 345.
“Thomas Jefferson to Pierre Samuel Du Pont de Nemours, André Thoüin, and Bartelémy de Faujas-Saint Fond, 16 May 1809,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-01-02-0166. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, vol. 1, 4 March 1809 to 15 November 1809, ed. J. Jefferson Looney. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004, pp. 201–202.]
Ruthven Deane, “Unpublished Letters of Introduction Carried by John James Audubon on His Missouri River Expedition,” The Auk, Vol. 25, No. 2 (April, 1908), pp. 170-171.
Frederick Campe, Letters on Various Subjects (Nuremberg, 1840), pp. 34-35.
William Anderson, Practical Mercantile Correspondence (Leipzig, 1855), p. 24.
Alexandre Dumas, The Three Musketeers, Volume I (Boston, 1893), pp. 19-21.

Christine-Egypta Bonaparte was the second child of Napoleon’s younger brother Lucien Bonaparte and his first wife, Christine Boyer. She had two rather scandalous marriages, became an unconventional figure in the London social scene, and was a godmother and namesake of the poet Christina Rossetti, who wrote “In the Bleak Midwinter.”

Christine-Egypta Bonaparte, circa 1819

Christine-Egypta’s early years

Christine-Egypta Bonaparte was born in Paris on October 19, 1798. Her full name was Christine Charlotte Alexandrine Egypta Bonaparte. The “Egypta” was added because her uncle, General Napoleon Bonaparte, was leading a military campaign in Egypt at the time. The family called her “Lili.” Her sister, Charlotte, was three and a half years older.

Shortly after Lili’s first birthday, the family’s fortune changed dramatically. In 1798, Lucien had been elected to the Council of Five Hundred, the lower house of the French legislature. In October 1799, he was appointed President of the Council. As such, he played a crucial role in helping Napoleon overthrow the French government in a coup d’état on November 9. Napoleon was installed as First Consul of France and Lucien became Minister of the Interior. Lucien and his family moved into a mansion called the Hôtel de Brissac near the Luxembourg Palace in Paris. Lucien also bought the elegant Château du Plessis-Chamant outside of Paris, where he and his wife, Christine, could relax with their daughters and friends.

On May 14, 1800, Christine, who was then about eight months pregnant, died of a pulmonary disease. Lucien’s sister Elisa stepped in to look after his two young daughters. When Lucien became the French ambassador to Madrid later that year, he took two-year-old Christine-Egypta with him. Lucien showered affection on her; she had a French nanny; and the Spanish queen was extremely fond of her. They lived in a wing of the Santa Cruz Palace. Lucien and the Marquesa de Santa Cruz became lovers.

In November 1801, Lucien and Christine-Egypta Bonaparte returned to France. Lucien was considerably wealthier thanks to “gifts” (bribes) of paintings and diamonds from the Spanish and Portuguese courts for negotiating the Treaty of Badajoz. The Marquesa came to France too, but did not stay long. She was soon supplanted in Lucien’s affections by a widow, Alexandrine de Bleschamp. Lucien commissioned a fairly explicit portrait of himself contemplating his new mistress.

Alexandrine already had a daughter, Anna, who was a year younger than Christine-Egypta. In 1803, Lucien and Alexandrine had a son together. They quickly got married. Between 1804 and 1823, they had nine more children, all but one of whom survived infancy. Thus Christine-Egypta grew up surrounded by a large family.

Her father’s break from Napoleon

Napoleon was furious that Lucien had married without his permission. He had been hoping to partner his brother with a Spanish princess. They quarreled about this and other matters. Lucien decided he wanted nothing to do with Napoleon’s new Empire. In 1805, he moved his family to Rome. When Napoleon annexed the Papal States and imprisoned the Pope, Lucien expressed his opposition. Napoleon increased his pressure on Lucien to divorce Alexandrine and return to France. Lucien tried to escape the situation by sailing with his family to America. They did not get far before being captured by the British, who transported them first to Malta, and then to the United Kingdom, where they arrived to a cheery welcome on December 17, 1810. After a brief stay near Ludlow, they settled at Thorngrove mansion in Grimley, Worcestershire. Although they were confined to the area, Lucien and his family were treated kindly. Christine-Egypta and her siblings thrived. They received an excellent education from English tutors.

After Napoleon’s 1814 defeat and exile to Elba, Lucien and his family were allowed to leave the UK. They returned to Rome. The Pope granted Lucien the hereditary title of Prince of Canino. The children were also called princes and princesses. Lucien reconciled with Napoleon and joined the latter in France during his brief return to power in 1815. When Napoleon was finally defeated and exiled to St. Helena, Lucien was allowed to return to Rome, on the condition that he remain in the Papal States.

George Ticknor, an American author and educator, visited Lucien’s family there in 1817. He wrote of Christine-Egypta:

She has more talent than her sister, an unquestionable gaieté de coeur, sings, plays, and dances well, says a thousand witty things, and laughs without ceasing at everything and everybody. Loving admiration to a fault, she is something of a coquette, though her better qualities, her talents, her good nature and wit, keep both under some restraint. She always sits in a corner of the salon, and keeps her little court to herself, for she chooses to have an exclusive empire; but this is soon to be over, for she is to be married directly to Count Posse, a Swede. (1)

Family of Lucien Bonaparte. Christine-Egypta Bonaparte is seated at the spinet

Portrait of the Family of Lucien Bonaparte, by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1815. Charlotte is standing on the left and Christine-Egypta is seated at the spinet on the right. Source: Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop

Like her cousin Charlotte (Joseph Bonaparte’s daughter, who appears in Napoleon in America), Christine-Egypta liked to draw and paint. Her subjects included landscapes in Sweden, Italy and Britain. She also did a variant of a popular painting that depicted the silhouette of Napoleon, outlined by two trees, overlooking his tomb on St. Helena, where he died in 1821.

Marriage to a Swedish count

Christine-Egypta Bonaparte and Arvid Posse, a Swedish nobleman 16 years her senior, were married in Rome on March 28, 1818. Posse had served as a chamberlain to the Swedish court, held a commission as a lieutenant in the Royal Västgötadal Regiment, and was the co-owner of ironworks at Upperud and Billingsfors in Dalsland, Sweden. The newlyweds moved to Sweden and lived at Fogelvik (Fågelvik) manor, outside Valdemarsvik, with Posse’s brother Carl and his French wife, Adine. Christine-Egypta soon became unhappy. She was far from her family and found life in rural Sweden dull. Posse was restless and may have abandoned her. Around 1820, she was back in Rome and staying with her sister, Charlotte, who in 1815 had married Mario Gabrielli, Prince of Prossedi. An American visitor wrote enthusiastically about the Bonaparte sisters:

[Their] society constituted one chief source of our enjoyment in Rome. In their saloons conversation flowed on with a pleasant ripple of freshness and good-humor, bringing to a fitting close days passed among the marvels of art and antiquity in the Eternal City. They were excellent linguists, at home in French and English as in Italian. The Princess Gabrielli [Charlotte], an excellent musician, sang with great sweetness and effect; and [Italian sculptor Raimondo] Trentanove, who had also a good voice, contributed his part to the general entertainment. An improvisatore, a variety of social amusement then in vogue, often attended. [Danish sculptor Bertel] Thorwaldsen and many other celebrities frequented the palace, as well as cardinals and other dignitaries of the Church. Cardinal Fesch, the uncle of Lucien, was still in fine health and full vigor, and, though dignified, frank and cordial in his address. …

The Countess Possi [Christine-Egypta], still very young, excelled in the waltz, a dance then recently introduced in polite society, and already in a degree superseding the quadrille. Both sisters were apparently unconscious of any especial claim to consideration, putting every one at ease in their presence. They were gay and companionable, quick at repartee, and always grateful and engaging. We were indebted to them for many pleasant acquaintances, and found they were equally disposed to devote their own moments to our entertainment. (2)

Marriage to a British lord

In Italy, Christine-Egypta fell in love with Lord Dudley Coutts Stuart. He was the youngest son of the 1st Marquess of Bute, who had died in 1814. Dudley Stuart’s paternal grandfather, Lord Bute, had been a prime minister under King George III. His maternal grandfather, Thomas Coutts, was a founder of the banking house Coutts & Co. Dudley and his mother had lived in Naples after his father’s death. Now they were travelling around Italy after Dudley’s stint at Oxford.

The liaison was problematic for both families. Christine-Egypta was still married to Posse and Dudley was engaged to his cousin, Lady Georgiana North. Christine-Egypta was Catholic and Dudley was Protestant. Despite this, on July 24, 1824, they secretly married at a Catholic church near Rome. The groom was 21 years old, the bride 25. On July 21, 1825, Christine-Egypta gave birth to their son, Paul Amadeus Francis Dudley Coutts Stuart. The baby was initially kept a secret, known only to Charlotte (Christine’s sister), Lady Bute (Dudley’s mother), and Dudley’s close friend Henry Fox.

The couple sought an annulment of Christine-Egypta’s first marriage on the grounds that it had never been consummated. The stress was high. Fox wrote in June 1828:

After dinner Dudley came; he looks pale and low. I drove with him by the Ponte Molle to the P. Gabrielli, where I waited while he dressed for a visit to Madame Mère (Christine-Egypta’s grandmother), she being particular as to breeches and silk stockings. He is sadly worried by the whole [Bonaparte] family, who want a second marriage for conscience sake. If they yield to this it will ruin the first and prevent the child from being legitimated. He has given Count Possé £5,000 to submit to the examination of the doctors [to prove his impotence]. None of his family or of hers have the least assisted him, beyond £600 which his mother gave him. The law proceedings, etc., etc., have sadly pinched him. (3)

A few months later, Fox visited Christine-Egypta in Florence.

She was extremely amiable to me and showed me her child, to which she feels more and more attached as she perceives the want of kindness Dudley’s family betray towards it. Such was their unfeeling conduct that they once proposed to her to leave it at Rome, fix a sum of money on it, but abstain from seeing it or from superintending its education. These are the sort of generous, conscientious projects the strictly moral people are often capable of supporting. The child is healthy and strong but not handsome. (4)

There was also unkindness on the Bonaparte side. Christine-Egypta’s uncle Louis Bonaparte refused to receive her or to call upon her.

In September 1828, the Posse marriage was finally dissolved, although there were still problems with the in-laws. Fox noted in October:

Lady Dudley is puzzled whether to stay at Rome or return to England. The relations of both families tease her extremely, especially on religious subjects. In England they wish to make her turn Protestant, and here want her Catholicism to be more active and to see her convert Dudley to their own tenets. The persecution she has even already undergone on this subject is so tormenting as to render her less disinclined to the idea of living with Lady Bute for some months. (5)

Moreover, a subset of British society in Rome continued to regard the Dudley Stuarts as unrespectable. The Marquess of Buckingham wrote in his diary in December 1828:

All Rome divided upon the question [of] whether Lord and Lady Dudley Stuart are to be received or not. He is Lady Bute’s son; she the niece of Jerome Bonaparte, who was married to an Italian [actually the Swede Posse], whom she divorced for impotency – intriguing with Lord Dudley all the while, whom she afterwards married. Somehow or another she gets received everywhere, except by Lady Shrewsbury, my sister, and one or two proper persons. The wrath of the Bonapartes very great. (6)

He followed that up on January 1, 1829 by noting:

Hortense Beauharnais, ex-Queen of Holland, is the only one of the Buonaparte family here that opens her house and makes it pleasant. That worthy family are very wroth against Lady Shrewsbury for refusing to receive Lady Dudley Stuart, &c.; and threatens to give balls and parties on every night on which Lady Shrewsbury gives them, in order to spoil them. In this rivalry the public-dancing interests must benefit. (7)

Life in London

In 1830, Lord Dudley Stuart was elected to the British House of Commons as a member of the Whig Party. He and his family moved to London. Christina-Egypta held regular soirées at their home at 16 Wilton Crescent. These attracted a Bohemian circle, including Italians and other foreigners, artists, actors, opera singers, refugee nobles, and “adventurers.” It was said that she kept two pet goats, “which play about her drawing-room, as familiarly as dogs.” (8)

Among her many visitors were future prime minister Benjamin Disraeli, the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who in 1835 heard the Italian tenor Giovanni Battista Rubini and soprano Giulia Grisi sing at her house, and the Prince of Orange, who gave a toast “[à] nos grandeurs passées!” (9) A number of Bonapartes called on her in London, including her cousin Louis-Napoléon, the future Napoleon III of France.

American poet Nathaniel Parker Willis described Christine-Egypta as “a lady of remarkably small person, with the fairest foot ever seen, under whose bonnet burn the most lambent and spiritual eyes that night and sleep ever hid from the world.” (10)

In contrast, Harriot Mundy, the niece of British diarist Mary Frampton, sniffed that Lady Dudley Stuart was “plain, and odd-looking, ill-dressed, and with nothing distinguée about her,” “not at all interesting looking [or] handsome, but as she is a Bonapartist, I am glad to have seen her.” (11)

Lady Morgan, at a party in 1833, found Christine-Egypta “in the most extravagant of dresses; but très amiable.” (12) That same year, politician John Hobhouse wrote that she was “a very pleasing woman, but now very plain.” (13)

In October 1835, George Ticknor had dinner with his old family friend.

She is a good deal altered in person, and has feeble health, but her essential character is the same that I knew eighteen years ago. Lord Dudley Stuart was at Lord Brougham’s on a visit. The company consisted of the Duke de Regina, the Count del Medico – who owns the Carrara quarries – and two or three other persons. It was pleasant, the conversation being entirely in French, and much of the amusement of the evening being music. An English composer, who is just bringing out an opera which he dedicates to Lady D. Stuart, came in and played and sang; and a Polish prince – among those who are indebted to Lord Dudley Stuart for carrying the bill in favour of the Poles through Parliament – was there a little while, and improvisated with great talent. There was nothing English about it, any more than if we had all been in Italy. (14)

Christina Rossetti’s godmother

Among Christine-Egypta’s friends in England were the Rossetti family. Gabriele Rossetti was a poet from southern Italy, whose support for revolutionary nationalism had forced him into exile. His wife, Frances, was the daughter of another Italian exile. They had four children, the youngest of whom was born on December 5, 1830. Christine-Egypta became one of the baby’s two godmothers and the child was named Christina in honour of her. Christina Rossetti became a popular poet. After her death, two of her poems were set to music and became well-known Christmas carols: “In the Bleak Midwinter” and “Love Came Down at Christmas.” Her brother was the artist and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Final years

In spite of their early devotion to each other, by the end of the 1830s Christine-Egypta and her husband had separated. She returned to Italy. In January 1840, Dudley Stuart stopped sending her an allowance. Christine-Egypta Bonaparte died in Rome on May 19, 1847, at the age of 48. On November 17, 1854, Lord Dudley Stuart died in Stockholm, where he had gone to win support for Polish independence, a cause that was dear to his heart. Their son, Paul, who had sustained brain damage in a riding accident, died on August 1, 1889 at the age of 63. He had no children, so he left 750,000 francs to his mother’s half-brother, Louis Lucien Bonaparte (the only surviving son of Lucien Bonaparte), who was then living in London and receiving a pension of £250 per annum from the civil list. Paul was buried in the cemetery of St. Peter’s Church, Petersham.

As for Arvid Posse, he went to Brazil (where there were false reports of his death in 1826), returned to Europe, and then, around 1829, sailed for the United States. In the summer of 1831, he appeared in Texas, low on money and depressed. He spent his remaining funds in Brazoria, and then moved on to San Antonio where he committed suicide.

The Dalslands Konstmuseum contains several objects that Christine-Egypta Bonaparte left behind in Sweden, including a dress, a portrait, and her wedding service, decorated with rabbits. The museum’s café is called “Bonaparte” in her honour.

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George S. Hillard, ed., Life, Letters, and Journals of George Ticknor, Vol. I, Second Edition (London, 1876), p. 151.
“Ups and Downs of the Bonapartes and Bourbons,” The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XXVII (1871), pp. 289-290.
Giles Fox-Strangways, ed., The Journal of the Hon. Henry Edward Fox (London, 1923), p. 302.
Ibid., pp. 314-315.
Ibid., p. 326.
Richard P. Grenville, The Private Diary of Richard, Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, Vol. III (London, 1862), p. 37.
Ibid., p. 55.
Wilfred S. Dowden, The Journal of Thomas Moore, Vol. 4, 1831-1835 (Cranbury, NJ, 1987), p. 1391.
Algernon Bourke, ed., Correspondence of Mr. Joseph Jekyll with his sister-in-law Lady Gertrude Sloane Stanlely, 1818-1838 (London, 1894), p. 267.
Henry A. Beers, Nathaniel Parker Willis (Boston, 1885), p. 159.
Harriot Georgiana Mundy, The Journal of Mary Frampton (London, 1885), pp. 240, 374.
Sydney Morgan, Lady Morgan’s Memoirs: Autobiography, Diaries and Correspondence, Vol. II, Second Edition (London, 1863), p. 365.
John Cam Hobhouse, Recollections of a Long Life, Vol. IV (New York, 1910), p. 317.
Life, Letters, and Journals of George Ticknor, Vol. I, p. 369.

The Palace of Saint-Cloud, also known as the Château de Saint-Cloud, was a French royal residence overlooking the Seine River approximately 5 kilometres (3 miles) west of Paris. It was an important site of Napoleonic history, used by both Napoleon I and his nephew, Napoleon III. The Palace of Saint-Cloud was also the summer residence of the 19th-century Bourbon kings and their successor, King Louis-Philippe. In Napoleon in America, Louis XVIII lurches across the palace’s terrace in his wheelchair while his great-niece, Louise d’Artois, twirls on the grass.

The Château de Saint-Cloud, by Étienne Allegrain, 1675

History of the Château de Saint-Cloud

The Palace of Saint-Cloud (pronounced “san-cloo” in French) began as the Hôtel d’Aulnay, a country house in the village of Saint-Cloud. In the 1570s, Catherine de’ Medici (the widow of Henry II of France) purchased the property and gave it to one of her courtiers, Jérôme de Gondi, a member of a prominent banking family. He transformed the house into a larger château and adorned its gardens with fountains and grottos. While lodging at the château in 1589, Henry III was assassinated by a Dominican friar.

In 1658, Louis XIV bought the Château of Saint-Cloud for his younger brother, Philippe I, Duke of Orléans. Philippe rebuilt, expanded and decorated the palace.

Saint-Cloud remained in the hands of the Orléans family until 1785, when Louis XVI purchased it for his wife, Marie Antoinette. She thought that the air outside of Paris would be healthier for their children. Marie Antoinette refurbished the palace, but did not have much time to enjoy it. The French Revolution broke out in 1789 and the royal family was placed under house arrest at the Tuileries Palace. In 1793, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were executed by guillotine. The Palace of Saint-Cloud became the property of the French nation. It was emptied of its art and furniture, but the building and extensive park were preserved “for the pleasure of the people.” (1)

The Palace of Saint-Cloud and Napoleon

Napoleon in the coup d’état at Saint-Cloud

Napoleon Bonaparte in the orangery at Saint-Cloud during the coup of 18 Brumaire, by François Bouchot, 1840

On November 9, 1799, Saint-Cloud was the setting for the coup d’état that brought Napoleon to power. Napoleon’s brother Lucien Bonaparte falsely convinced France’s legislative bodies that they were at risk of a Jacobin conspiracy, and that it would be safer to meet at the Château de Saint-Cloud instead of in Paris. Once they were there, Napoleon stormed into their meetings, supported by a force of grenadiers. Napoleon subsequently became the First Consul of France.

Napoleon had the château repaired so that he could use it as one of his residences. He first occupied Saint-Cloud in the spring of 1802. Napoleon liked Saint-Cloud because he was more at liberty there and surrounded by fewer people than at the Tuileries Palace in Paris.

Saint-Cloud was in the shape of a U that opened to the east, toward the Seine. The north wing was dominated by a large room called the Galerie d’Apollon (Apollo Gallery). The central part of the building included salons and state rooms. The south wing consisted of apartments. In the back, an orangery extended to the west on the north end.

Napoleon’s private secretary, Claude François de Méneval, wrote:

This palace, although not vast, afforded a beautiful and comfortable abode, well suited to Napoleon’s habits and requirements, and provided with magnificent gardens. His workroom was very large, and its walls were literally covered with books, from the floor to the ceiling. He had himself designed his writing-table, which was in the shape of a bass. Numerous papers were spread out on its wings. His usual place was on a settee covered with green taffeta, which stood near the mantelpiece, on which were two fine bronze busts of Scipio and of Hannibal. … His study was reached through a bedroom, which he did not occupy. His apartment was on the floor above, and communicated with this room by means of a private staircase. It consisted of three plainly furnished rooms. The only ornament of the bedroom on the ground floor, which looked out on the garden, was an antique bust of Caesar, which stood on the mantelpiece. Beyond the First Consul’s workroom was a small drawing-room, where he used to receive the Minister of Foreign Affairs. …

The First Consul used to lunch in the large drawing-room, which led in to his apartment…. This drawing-room was afterwards ornamented with portraits of the Bonaparte family. When Napoleon became Emperor he used to receive all the members of his family who happened to be in Paris at dinner every Sunday, and spent the evening with them in this drawing-room. A large balcony, on to which this drawing-room opened, communicated between the private apartment of Napoleon and that of Josephine, afterwards occupied by Marie Louise. (2)

Napoleon receiving the decree that proclaimed him Emperor of the French, by Georges Rouget

Napoleon at Saint-Cloud receiving the decree that proclaimed him Emperor of the French, by Georges Rouget

It was at Saint-Cloud that Napoleon received the decree from the French Senate that proclaimed him Emperor of the French on May 18, 1804. He turned the Salon de Vénus into his throne room. On April 1, 1810, one of the three ceremonies in which Napoleon married his second wife, Marie Louise, took place in the Apollo Gallery at Saint-Cloud.

Although Napoleon clearly enjoyed spending time at the Palace of Saint-Cloud, his staff found it less pleasing. One of his valets, Louis Étienne Saint-Denis, complained:

I was condemned to remain all day in a bedroom which was between the salon and the study (on the ground floor), and it was only toward ten or eleven o’clock in the evening that I could go away – that is to say, when the Emperor and Empress came out of the salon to go to bed. (3)

Captain Jean-Roch Coignet, a grenadier of Napoleon’s guard, also expressed reservations about working at the palace.

Duty at St. Cloud was irksome to us. We had to go back and forth from Courbevoie to St. Cloud, and the chasseurs came from Rueil [Malmaison] to relieve us. We were well fed, however, and the sergeant had a table to himself. We had soup, bouillon, good chicken-salad, and a bottle of wine. The officer ate with the officers of the household. (4)

Napoleon in the park of Saint-Cloud

Napoleon and his son at Saint-Cloud in 1811

Napoleon with his son, the King of Rome, at Saint-Cloud in 1811, by François Flameng

Méneval described an accident Napoleon had at Saint-Cloud.

In the beginning of 1803, the First Consul, being then at St. Cloud, wanted to drive a carriage with four young horses. Madame Bonaparte [Josephine] and her daughter Hortense were in the carriage. Napoleon mounted the box, in front of the St. Cloud parterre. On arriving at the railings which separate this parterre from the private park, he lost control over the horses, which were young and fiery. They dashed up against the railings with such violence that Napoleon was thrown from his seat and hurled ten paces away, on to the gravel. … Napoleon came off with a sprain and few scratches, and was obliged to carry his right arm in a sling, which prevented him from signing any papers for a few days afterwards. (5)

Napoleon kept gazelles in the park of Saint-Cloud. He had brought them from Egypt and liked to feed them by hand. Sometimes he would offer them snuff, which they quite enjoyed. Coignet recounted an incident involving Marie Louise and a gazelle.

Every evening the Emperor liked to walk on the high terrace with his Empress. Once I chanced to be there; when I saw them appear, I would have withdrawn, but at a sign from the Emperor I moved a little away to one side to let them pass. A moment later the gazelles came running up to their Majesties. These animals are very fond of snuff, and the Emperor always had a little box of it ready for them. Not being prompt enough in giving a pinch to the first gazelle, the animal put its head under the imperial lady’s dress, and gave me a sight of some extremely white linen. The Emperor was furious, and I retired in confusion, but this recollection still pleases me. The charming beasts were forgiven, but after that day he gave them their snuff alone. (6)

According to Méneval, Marie Louise learned how to ride a horse at the Palace of Saint-Cloud.

Napoleon used to walk by her side, holding her hand, whilst the equerry held the horse’s bridle. He calmed her fears, and encouraged her. She took advantage of her lessons, grew courageous, and ended by being able to keep her seat very well. When, to her master’s credit, she had become a horsewoman, the lessons were sometimes continued in the avenue of the private park which led out from the family drawing-room…. Napoleon, when he had a few minutes to spare, after lunch, would send for his horse, get on horseback, dressed in silk stockings and buckled shoes, and would ride by the Empress’s side. He would excite her horse, and set off at a gallop, laughing heartily when she cried out for fear of falling. It is true that this danger did not exist, for grooms were standing all along the avenue ready to stop the horse, and to prevent a fall. (7)

After Napoleon’s defeat

In 1814, Allied armies occupied France and Napoleon was compelled to abdicate. He went into exile on Elba. British politician Edward Herbert visited Saint-Cloud shortly thereafter.

As far as a splendid residence could give happiness and comfort, this place certainly should have done so. We walked through the park to the artificial cascades, waterfall fountains, &c., which at a grand fête are set in motion. … [T]here are lions, sphinxes, frogs, &c., &c., all for the purpose of emitting streams of water; it must have a most wonderful effect when the whole is set in motion. …

One wing [of the palace] is occupied by the chapel and Salon de la Messe, as it is called; the other by the emperor and empress’s bedrooms and private rooms; the centre by the Salon des Ambassadeurs, Salon des Princes, and the salon where he held his councils with his ministers. These apartments with a dining room and a room of assembly, comprise the whole of what we should call a second floor, except a private bedroom of his own, a small back room, a waiting room, and a billiard room; from the billiard room you enter a very fine orangerie, and from thence there is a pretty kind of theatre, in which plays were acted every Thursday. The house being upon the side of a hill, the second floor, as you look towards Paris, comes with the ground as you look from Paris. The lower apartments are used as offices. …

Anything equal to the magnificence with which every part of the house is fitted up I never have before seen, and had no idea such labour would have been bestowed by Bonaparte upon such comparatively insignificant things. In the salon adjoining the chapel there are casts of many of the best statues in the Gallery of the Louvre. I had a great desire to examine some of his books, but the man who showed it to us was a sulky fellow, probably angry at the prospect of losing his situation, and would not let us examine them; I, however, saw several editions of the Life of Oliver Cromwell, and many works upon the different invasions of England. (8)

In early 1815, Napoleon escaped from Elba and returned to Paris for a brief period on the throne before he was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo and had to abdicate one final time. On July 3, 1815, a military convention was signed at the Palace of Saint-Cloud, surrendering Paris to armies led by Prussian commander Gebhard von Blücher and the Duke of Wellington. On July 19, Wellington’s friend and First Secretary to the Admiralty, John Wilson Croker, stopped by Saint-Cloud.

The great hall was a common guard-house in which the Prussians were drinking, spitting, smoking, and sleeping in all directions. No mischief had been done except to one old china jar which had been broken by accident in the billiard-room. The gallery was perfectly intact. Blucher occupied Buonaparte’s own apartment, and we did not see it, as we had no mind to disturb the old man; but I hear that a good many, even English officers and others, have helped themselves to books out of the library as marks of triumph. (9)

Saint-Cloud under the restored Bourbons

The Apollo Gallery, Palace of Saint-Cloud

Louis XVI’s brother, Louis XVIII, became the king of France. Upon his death in 1824, he was succeeded by his brother, Charles X, who embellished both the interior and exterior of Saint-Cloud. In 1829, Caroline Cushing visited France with her husband Caleb, a member of the Massachusetts Senate. She left a detailed description of their tour of the Palace of Saint-Cloud.

On applying at the porter’s lodge, we procured a guide to conduct us through the Chateau. He led the way into a vestibule, from whence two handsome stair-cases, opposite each other, lead to the royal apartment. These stair-cases are very different in their construction, the railing of one being iron, that of the other marble. The first room that we entered was a sort of antechamber, hung around with full length portraits of … the most distinguished royalist leaders in the war of La Vendée. From this you pass into a second room, in which are portraits of George Cadoudal and other conspirators against the life of Napoleon. Several other apartments, hung with silks of different colors, with furniture to match, lead to a spacious room, which is adorned with very fine portraits of Henry Fourth, Louis Fourteenth, Louis Fifteenth and wife, Louis Sixteenth and Marie Antoinette, together with those of the father and mother of Charles Tenth.

This completes the suite of rooms appropriated to the King’s use. Then follow those of the Dauphin. The ante-room contains several paintings representing hunting scenes, and also a stature of Henry Fourth in his youth. The cabinet is a neat, small apartment, and in it is a most beautiful little table with a circular top, composed of mother of pearl….

The reception room comes next, and this apartment, said to have been Napoleon’s cabinet, is one of the most splendid which the palace contains. The hangings are of delicate yellow silk, ornamented with gilding, and the sofa and chairs are of the same; and in the panels, which divide the doors and windows, are beautiful little painted figures. Three handsome tables occupy the upper end of the room, and upon one of these are two small equestrian statures, of Frances First and Henry Fourth, and the busts of the Duke of Bordeaux and his sister. Upon the second table are statues of Saint Louis and Louis Fourteenth; and upon the third those of Louis Twelfth and Thirteenth, all equestrian. … The bed chamber which adjoins this room is not remarkable for its beauty. The bed hangings are of crimson and yellow damask.

The Dauphine’s suit of apartments follow those of the Dauphin, and are, I think, the least sumptuous of any that I saw. Next to the bathing-room, which is hung with muslin lined with blue, and ornamented with mirrors, is the Cabinet de Travail. This is a neat apartment, the hangings being composed of white silk, with colored flowers; and the sofa, made to compare, has for arms two beautiful gilt swans, with a little ball suspended at the beak of each.

The next room contains, among other pictures, a very interesting one of Marie Antoinette surrounded by her children. … From this room, you enter the bed chamber, that contains nothing remarkable, and which finishes the suite.

The succession of apartments that we were next shown through was truly splendid. The first, called Salon de Reception, is hung with rich crimson velvet, and furniture of the same trimmings. Candelabras of bronze, ornamented with gilding, are placed round the room, together with a variety of handsome vases, among which is one of great beauty, and much celebrated, made at the Sevres Manufactory. From the beautifully painted ceiling are suspended two remarkably large and elegant glass lustres. The next apartment, the Salon de Jeu, has likewise a painted ceiling, and the hangings and furnishings are of blue silk. Those of the Salon de Louis Seize are of a superb red silk ground, with raised velvet figures upon it. The Salon de Mars is remarkable for the beauty of its painted ceiling, but it contains no other object of interest, although a large picture, representing the Dauphin in Spain, shows conspicuously upon one side of the room.

The Galerie d’Apollon is strikingly beautiful. The ceiling is richly painted and gilded, and a large number of pictures, several of them very fine, adorn the walls. A range of windows opens upon the Park, each being hung with white silk curtains. Opposite each window is a mirror, to compare with it in size, and also hung with curtains to match. Various little ornaments, such as vases, small statues, and busts, farther ornament the room; and at one end of it is a handsome bronze model of the statue of Henry Fourth upon the Pont Neuf.

Adjoining the gallery is another apartment, in which are several beautiful pictures. One of them represents the Maison Carree at Nismes, a second the ruins at Orange and Saint Remy, and a third, a well executed portrait of Louis Eighteenth in his youth. As we reached this apartment intelligence was brought to our guide that the Dauphine had arrived from Paris: a hint, of course, to us, that we must retire, which we did without delay, and directed our steps towards the Park.

The Park of Saint Cloud is, in many respects, much inferior to that of Versailles. It presents, however, a more natural appearance, and is very extensive and beautiful. It possesses one very celebrated fountain, said to be finer than any at Versailles. This I could imagine from its situation and form, and also from the innumerable spouts, which I could discover in every part of it. But only when the waters are playing can this, or indeed any other fountain, be seen in perfection. Having sauntered around for some time amid the fine groves of majestic horse chestnut trees, all in full blossom, with which the Park abounds, and amused ourselves by watching the graceful motions of several stately swans, which were swimming in the large basin of water constructed for their use, we ascended the hill, to which a broad noble avenue leads from the Chateau. On the summit of this hill stands a monument, erected by Napoleon, … known by the name of the Lantern of Napoleon. It is a kind of needle or obelisk, and is a very conspicuous object, from many points in the neighborhood…. The view from this Lantern is remarkably extensive and delightful. A number of pretty villages, together with widespread meadows and a fertile country, meet the eye, while the lofty domes and towers of Paris may be seen rising in the distance. (10)

Dinner at Saint-Cloud with Louis-Philippe

Marriage of the Duke of Nemours to Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha at Saint-Cloud, by Henri Félix Emmanuel Philippoteaux, 1840

In 1830, Charles X was overthrown in a revolution. Saint-Cloud once again became a residence of the Orléans family when King Louis-Philippe ascended the throne. He had the apartments renovated and richly furnished. A member of the American legation to France described a dinner at the Palace of Saint-Cloud in 1840.

From the vestibule [we] mounted a noble flight of marble stairs, which terminates at a landing, where the upper servants are stationed, and where a register is kept of all the visitors who enter. From here [we] passed into a large square apartment, decorated with some superb pictures, and then into a billiard hall, which is hung around with rich Gobelins tapestry, wrought with various scenes in the life of Henry the Fourth, and copied from the pictures of Rubens. … Passing through this room as slowly as propriety allowed, but too rapidly to give us more than a glance at its treasures, we entered the Salon of Reception.

Here we found several ladies and officers of the court assembled; and after the usual interchange of compliments, we looked around this beautiful apartment. The furniture was in excellent taste; at the same time rich and comfortable, but not gorgeous in its material, nor overloaded with ornament. …

This room is called the ‘Salon of Mercury’ because the ceiling is painted with the attributes and deeds of the light-fingered god. Various allegories, drawn from the heathen mythology, are represented, and among them the Delivery of the Apple and the Judgement of Paris. The walls are hung with Gobelins tapestry. …

In a few minutes the Queen, with her youngest daughter, the Princess Clémentine, entered the room, and after saluting the company, and conversing with the American guests, took her seat in a kind of alcove, opening into a gallery, which surmounts the court, and commands a full view of the magnificent environs. The Minister [Lewis Cass, American Ambassador to France] soon arrived, and then different members of the Royal Family, who were followed by the King. … Bowing to the company as he entered, in such a manner as to seem to neglect no one, [Louis-Philippe] advanced to the Minister, and with much kindness of manner asked him several questions. …

Very soon the double doors were thrown open, by a principal servant, and the Aide-de-camp de Service, approaching the Queen, intimated, by a slight inclination, that the dinner was served. The Queen, walking up to the Minister, took his arm, and led the way to the dining-hall. The King followed, leading his beautiful daughter-in-law, the Duchesse de Nemours, and then the Duc de Nemours, with his sister the Princess Clémentine. The Duc d’Aumale, the youngest son of the King, gave his arm to one of the ladies of the court, and the two American guests then succeeded, each honored in a similar manner. After us came the military officers, and the other persons invited to the table. We passed through a kind of vestibule, where a band of military music, belonging to the troops on duty at the chateau, was arranged, but concealed from view, and which played while we proceeded and took our seats, and during a considerable portion of the repast. Entering the dining-room, we found ourselves in a long apartment, modestly decorated and furnished, and having in its centre a table with thirty covers. … It may well be supposed that the dinner service of the King of France, and the richest individual, perhaps, in the world, is befitting his station and country; and I must leave the reader to draw upon his imagination for a just conception of it….

The King placed himself in the centre of one side of the table, having a vacant chair on his left, and the Duchesse de Nemours on his right. The Queen was on the opposite side, having the American Minister on her right, and the Duc de Nemours on her left. The Princess Clémentine was on the right of the Minister, and the Duc d’Aumale on the left of the vacant chair. The other guests seated themselves as they entered, without confusion, and apparently without any previous arrangement. Before we had finished the soup, Madame Adelaide, the King’s sister, entered very quietly, and without disturbing anyone, took the chair by the side of the King, which had been reserved for her. As she remarked, ladies cannot prepare their toilettes as speedily as gentlemen; and having accompanied her brother from Paris, she had not had time to complete her arrangements when the dinner was announced. …

The dinner at St. Cloud passed as dinners usually pass, in some conversation, but still more in the laudable operations of eating and drinking. …

The order and silence with which the domestic service of the dinner was conducted were honorable to the interior organization of the royal household. There was no hurry nor confusion on the one hand, nor indifference nor carelessness on the other; but the servants were alert and attentive; and there was at least one domestic for each person at the table. Like the customary arrangements at the French dinners, there were three removes, and the dishes were changed and renewed with promptitude and regularity, being brought in by a long file of servants, each of whom delivered his charge to a superior attendant, by whom it was placed upon the table. The whole ceremony did not exceed one hour, when we returned to the Salon of Reception in the order we had left it. In French society, the practice, which prevails in England, and which we have borrowed from that country, of sitting at table after the ladies have retired, and guzzling wine…is unknown. … I have never been at a dinner in Continental Europe, where the ladies and gentlemen did not retire from the table together. …

When we reached the family parlor, as it may be called, we found the Duke and Duchess of Orleans there. They have a separate establishment at the chateau, and had dined en famille, but had come to join the circle of the court, and to pass the evening with it. …

The Queen took her seat at one of the round tables, with her sister, her two daughter-in-laws, and her daughter, and some other ladies; while the rest placed themselves at a similar table in another part of the room. …

The King invited the Minister to accompany him to another wing of the chateau. They passed through the two rooms I have already described on arriving, and then entered a long apartment called the Gallery of Apollo. The ceiling is splendidly painted, and the walls ornamented with medallions, and hung with upward of ninety pictures; and there are superb vases, and other works of art, distributed through the apartment. This is a favorite promenade of the King, who frequently walks here after diner, seeking exercise, which is necessary to his health, and which his duties and the attacks to which his life is exposed do not permit him to take in the open air. …

In about half an hour, the King returned from his promenade, and soon after the musicians, who are nominally attached to the royal household, and called the Musique du Roi, made their appearance. The band contains some of the most celebrated composers and performers of France, who have this honorary title, and who serve at the palace upon all state occasions, and whenever called there for the gratification of the royal family. …

Adjoining the salon in which we were assembled is the library, a beautiful room, finished and fitted up with great taste, and what is better, supplied with a valuable and extensive collection of books. The performers were introduced into this apartment, and the folding-doors being thrown open, they entertained the company with some of their happiest efforts. …

As the evening advanced, the persons who are entitled to what is called the right of entrée, or in other words, who are expected to present themselves occasionally in the evening at the royal residence, began to make their appearance. … Here the Diplomatic Corps, and various members of French society, are admitted without special invitation, and enjoy the facilities of communication with the royal family. …

After a short time we quitted the apartment, without any formal leave-taking; and thus pleasantly passed three hours at Saint Cloud. (11)

Saint-Cloud under Napoleon III

The Palace of Saint-Cloud, by Charles-François Daubigny, circa 1865

Louis-Philippe was forced to abdicate in the French Revolution of 1848. Napoleon’s nephew, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, became the president of France. In 1852, he proclaimed himself Emperor Napoleon III. He and his wife, Empress Eugénie, spent their honeymoon at Saint-Cloud and used the palace as a summer residence. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert stayed there when they visited Paris for the first Exposition Universelle in August 1855.

At a quarter of nine they reached the chateau of Saint-Cloud. The drums beat the general; the trumpets blew, shouts blended with salvos of artillery. The Empress, the Princess Mathilde, the officers and ladies on duty, were awaiting the august travellers at the foot of the grand staircase with columns of marble. The cortège entered the palace. They went up the steps on which stood the hundred guards like caryatides…. On reaching the grand apartments, the Emperor presented to Her Britannic Majesty the ministers, the grand officers, and the functionaries of his household. After dinner, served with marvelous luxury in the salon of Diana, they returned to the state apartments, where Their Majesties remained until eleven o’clock. … From the windows could be seen a magnificent spectacle. Saint-Cloud and Boulogne were illuminated, Paris appeared on the horizon like a giant stretched out in the light. (12)

The reception of Queen Victoria by Napoleon III at Saint-Cloud, 18 August 1855, by Charles Louis Müller

In 1859, the world’s first documented model railway was built in the park of Saint-Cloud, for the amusement of Napoleon III’s then three-year-old son.

What happened to the Palace of Saint Cloud?

The Palace of Saint-Cloud in flames, 1870

In July 1870, Napoleon III declared war on Prussia. The war did not go well for France, and by September German forces were besieging Paris. They occupied the Palace of Saint-Cloud and shelled the city from its grounds. The French fired back. On October 13, 1870, an explosive shell hit the palace and set it on fire. By the time the blaze fizzled out, all that was left was the palace walls. Fortunately, most of the palace’s contents had been removed prior to the Prussian occupation.

The palace interior after the fire

In 1891, the remains of the building were pulled down and the stones were auctioned off. The pediment of the palace’s north wing, along with some other material, was bought by Ferdinand I of Bulgaria and incorporated into the palace of Euxinograd, on the Black Sea coast.

Today all that remains of the Palace of Saint-Cloud are a few outbuildings and the large and beautiful gardens of the Parc de Saint-Cloud, which is open to visitors. Fun fact: the music video for Sinéad O’Connor’s 1990 hit, “Nothing Compares 2 U,” was filmed there. France’s National Furniture Museum (Mobilier National) has put together excellent videos of what the Empress’s reception room and apricot salon looked like during Napoleon’s time at Saint-Cloud.

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Napoleon the Horseman

Francis Miltoun, Royal Palaces and Parks of France (Boston, 1910), p. 234.
Claude-François de Méneval, Memoirs to Serve for the History of Napoleon I From 1802 to 1815, translated by Robert H. Sherard, Vol. I (London, 1895), pp. 176-179.
Louis Étienne Saint-Denis, Napoleon from the Tuileries to St. Helena, translated by Frank Hunter Potter, (New York and London, 1922), pp. 13-14.
Jean-Roch Coignet, The Note-Books of Captain Coignet, Soldier of the Empire, edited by Jean Fortescue, (New York, 1929), p. 197.
Méneval, Memoirs to Serve for the History of Napoleon I, Vol. I, pp. 213-214.
Coignet, The Note-Books of Captain Coignet, p. 196.
Méneval, Memoirs to Serve for the History of Napoleon I, Vol. II, p. 406.
Edward Herbert, Lord Clive’s Journal, 1814-1815 (London, 1858), pp. 15-17.
John Wilson Croker, The Croker Papers, edited by Louis J. Jennings, Vol. I (London, 1885), p. 67.
Caroline Cushing, Letters Descriptive of Public Monuments, Scenery, and Manners in France and Spain, Vol. I (Newburyport, 1832), pp. 317-322.
Lewis Cass, France, its King, Court, and Government; and Three Hours at Saint Cloud (New York, 1841), pp. 189-201.
Imbert de Saint-Amand, Napoleon III and His Court, translated by Elizabeth Gilbert Martin (New York, 1898), p. 326.

If you were taking a trip before the onset of rail travel, you’d likely be spending time at a post-house. Post-houses – often called stage-houses, especially in the United States – were essential stopping places in the days when vehicles were pulled by horses. Situated approximately every 10-15 miles (16-24 km) along routes known as post roads or stage roads, post-houses were houses or inns with stables, where coaches could obtain a fresh set of horses for the next stage of the journey. Mail, packages, and passengers could be dropped off and picked up. Drivers could be swapped out. Travellers could get something to eat, and spend the night. If you wanted to travel in a private vehicle, rather than a public one, you could rent horses and a small carriage at a post-house, along with postilions. The postilions (also known as post boys or post riders) would steer the horses and return them to the original post-house after they were exchanged at the next post. At least that’s the range of amenities one could find at a post-house in a large town or a city. Post-houses in smaller places, or along less-populated routes, could offer considerably less. Here’s a peek at what some travellers found at post-houses and stage-houses in the early 1800s.

Changing Horses outside the ‘George’ Post house

Changing Horses to a Post-Chaise outside the ‘George’ Posting-house, by Charles Cooper Henderson, 1830-1840 © Tate. Image released under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND 3.0 (Unported)

Post-houses in England

In 1807, English poet Robert Southey published Letters from England, ostensibly written by a Spanish tourist named Don Manuel Alvarez Espriella. Although Espriella was fictitious, the comments Southey made about post-houses undoubtedly drew on his own experience. This is how he described a post-house between Truro and Bodmin in Cornwall.

Our second stage was to a single house called the Indian Queens, which is rather a post-house than an inn. These places are not distinguished by a bush, though that was once the custom here also, but by a large painting swung from a sort of gallows before the door, or nailed above it, and the house takes its name from the sign. Lambs, horses, bulls, and stags, are common; sometimes they have red lions, green dragons, or blue boars, or the head of the king or queen, or the arms of the nearest nobleman. One inconvenience attends their mode of travelling, which is, that at every stage the chaise is changed, and of course there is the trouble of removing all the baggage. (1)

At the Post House, by George Wright

He went into details about the change of horses and chaise (a light travelling carriage) at the post-house in Honiton, East Devon.

There was a demur about procuring horses for us; a pair were fetched from the field, as we afterwards discovered, who had either never been in harness before, or so long out of it as to have become completely unmanageable. As soon as we were shut in, and the driver shook the reins, they ran off – a danger which had been apprehended; for a number of persons had collected round the inn door to see what would be the issue. The driver…had no command whatever over the frightened beasts; he lost his seat presently, and was thrown upon the pole between the horses; still he kept the reins, and almost miraculously prevented himself from falling under the wheels, till the horses were topped at a time when we momently expected that he would be run over and the chaise overturned.

This adventure occasioned considerable delay. At length a chaise arrived; and the poor horses, instead of being suffered to rest, weary as they were, for they had just returned from Exeter, were immediately put-to for another journey. One of them had been rubbed raw by the harness. I was in pain the whole way, and could not but consider myself as accessory to an act of cruelty: at every stroke of the whip my conscience upbraided me, and the driver was not sparing of it. It was luckily a short stage of only two leagues and a quarter. …

The life of a post-horse is truly wretched…post-masters find it more profitable to overwork their beasts and kill them by hard labour in two or three years, than to let them do half the work and live out their natural length of life.” (2)

Interior of a Post-House Stable, With Horses Feeding, by Charles Cooper Henderson. Source: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

Later, travelling from London to Oxford in a stagecoach (this was public transport, as opposed to the private chaises), he had breakfast at the post-house in Slough.

The room into which we were shown was not so well furnished as those which were reserved for travelers in chaises; in other respects we were quite as well served, and perhaps more expeditiously. The breakfast service was on the table and the kettle boiling. When we paid the reckoning, the woman’s share was divided among us; it is the custom in stage coaches that if there be but one woman in company, the other passengers pay for her at the inns. (3)

Overall, Southey found the journey agreeable.

These stage-coaches are admirably managed: relays of horses are ready at every post: as soon as the coach drives up they are brought out, and we are scarcely detained ten minutes. The coachman seems to know everybody along the road; he drops a parcel at one door, nods to a woman at another, delivers a message at a third, and stops at a fourth to receive a glass of spirits or a cup of ale, which has been filled for him as soon as the sound of his wheels was heard. In fact, he lives upon the road, and is at home when upon his coach-box. (4)

Post-houses in Europe

A French Post-House, by Thomas Rowlandson. Source: Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru – The National Library of Wales

Accustomed to the conveniences of English post-houses, British traveller Robert Bremner found things less to his liking in a journey across Russia in 1836.

[N]ight found us only forty-seven miles from Moscow, in the long miserable village of Plotawa, where we were doomed to meet a specimen of the pleasures of travelling in Russia more impressive even than any we had yet seen. We had already experienced delay from coming in contact with the emperor, and now had to do penance for encountering one of his couriers, Prince Butera, whom we met here on his way from a journey through the Ural Mountains. As his convoy of three or four carriages required nearly twenty horses, none remained for us. It was impossible to go farther that night. This, it will be said, could be no great misfortune; better to sleep in peace than be jolted all night on a villainous road. But the reader forgets that we were not in England, the land of beds and comfort: here there was not a single bed to be got in the post-house – nay, not even a room to sit or lie down in, till the horses should return. We could not get so much as hole to eat our dinner in; and therefore putting as good a face on matters as possible, we set bravely to work, and made a dining-room of our carriage, devouring in our hungry wrath a whole hetacomb of cold fowls; an operation which we performed to the complete satisfaction of all the boys and girls of the village, who had gathered round us on the occasion. The poor vehicle was also our bed-room, for – not a single hole having been opened to us, not even an out-house of any kind – unless we had chosen to sleep on the cold ground and in the open air, there was absolutely no place in which we could shelter ourselves but in the useful limits of the carriage. As already hinted, it was not…of the smallest dimensions; but nothing that ever ran on wheels could have been a very sufficient bed-chamber for four persons with such gifts of chest and limb as all of us laid claim to. (5)

Travelling in Sweden in 1845, Austrian explorer Ida Pfeiffer described the post-houses she encountered on a journey to Uppsala.

On this short excursion I had travelled post; and having no carriage of my own, I found it necessary to engage a conveyance at every station, which was nothing more than a common cart with two wheels, the seat being a bundle of hay covered with a horse-blanket. …

The stations are unequal, some longer and some shorter. The post-horses are owned, as in Norway, by the country people, who go by the name Dschus peasants; every evening they are obliged to collect a certain number of horses, and when a traveller presents himself, he can ascertain from a book how many horses a peasant owns, how many are then in use, and how many still in the stable; he must, on his side, enter his name on the book, as well as the hour of his departure, and the number of animals he requires; in this manner the whole thing is easily settled, and if any difficulty arise, it is soon adjusted. …

At every station there was a delay of fifteen or twenty minutes, to prepare the wagon and harness the horse, but never longer; and I must do the Swedish postmasters the justice to say, that they never exacted a double price, or endeavoured to tire me into offering it. (6)

Bribes were not infrequent complaints among travellers visiting European post-houses. French nobleman Pierre-Marie-Louis de Boisgelin de Kerdu experienced this on a journey to Scandinavia in 1805.

There are conveniences for sleeping at all the post-houses between Hamburgh and Copenhagen; though some indeed are very indifferent; and we would recommend to all travelers to make their bargains beforehand, otherwise they run a chance of being most completely duped. (7)

At a post-house in what is today northern Germany, he was told that there were no horses ready, and that he could not possibly have any for seven or eight hours.

Two light carriages-and-four arrived at the same moment, and received the same answer as myself. I entered into conversation with these travellers, who were Jews from Leipsick [Leipzig], and who told me they had been constantly within sight of the French [army] ever since they had left that town; adding that they would give any sum for horses sooner than fall into their hands. This induced me to bribe my postilion with a species dollar, who presently procured me a pair, and I went the twenty miles into Escheburg so fast that I soon passed the two light carriages, though they had paid enormously for double the usual number of horses, and rewarded the postillions most handsomely. (8)

Stage-houses in the United States

The Concord Stage, by E. Percy Moran. Source: Library of Congress

In the United States, the first regular stagecoach runs were established in New England in the 1700s. The stagecoaches stopped at taverns that provided food and accommodation for passengers and stables for the horses. These stage-houses were also gathering places for the locals, and way stations for private travellers, like Joseph Bonaparte and his entourage in Napoleon in America.

Scottish traveler John M. Duncan visited the United States in 1818-1819. He wrote:

One great inconvenience connected with stage travelling here is the frequency with which you are obliged to shift from one carriage to another. Travelling by land between New Haven and New York we were in no less than five different carriages, and obliged to keep a sharp look-out at each change that our luggage did not go astray; this in bad weather is excessively annoying. The fare by the road is collected in the same piecemeal way, half a dollar here, three quarters there; each stage proprietor taking payment for his own portion of the road, and turning you out of his vehicle as soon as he has got you to the end of it. …

The inns are the least comfortable part of road accommodation; and it is almost impossible for a stranger to enjoy in them that quietness, retirement, and sedulous attention to his comfort and convenience, which in general are so easily attainable at home. On arriving, the traveller and his luggage are ushered into the bar-room, as it is called, opening in general immediately from the street; behind a railing at one corner stands a man making punch at almost all hours, and a number of idlers hang about smoking cigars and reading newspapers. In this room or in your bed-room you must spend your leisure time, as you best can; every door open and every person at liberty to scrutinize your motions, and you his. I have been told that a private parlour may sometimes be obtained, but I never saw one, nor ever heard it asked for. (9)

American writer Jacob Abbott described a stage-house in Connecticut in the 1830s:

Our driver, for the purpose of watering his animals, or changing them for a fresh team, frequently draws up his horses at the door of a small tavern, standing close to the road, with its light sign creaking in the wind. If your feet are cold, you descend from the coach and go in, following your fellow passengers into an apartment with the inscription, ‘Bar Room,’ upon the door. An open stove stands upon a sheet-iron hearth, in front of the place where the fireplace once was, and a crooked, crazy pipe, confined in its place by wires in all directions, carries the smoke to the chimney. Around this fire the stage passengers hover, excepting the ladies and their friends, who go into a rather more parlor-like looking apartment, on the other side of the entry. The floor of the bar room is sanded. Old worn out newspapers are lying about upon the chairs, and especially upon the lid of a great chest, whose top serves customers for a seat by day, and whose interior makes the ostler’s bed by night. On the back side of the room, or in one corner of it, is an enclosure, made by a partition about four feet high, within which are drawers, and shelves filled with bottles of ardent spirits, with a tray of biscuit and gingerbread, and another of applies, and a row of tumblers, bottom upwards, surmounted each with a lemon or an orange. Coarse, rough looking men are lounging about the room, smoking or drinking. Some are mere idlers, and others are wagoners, or travellers of that description, who have stopped to warm themselves and eat their bread and cheese by the bar room fire.

While we are speculating upon this scene…the driver enters, buttoning up his coat and drawing on his mittens, with his ‘stage is ready, gentlemen,’ and we are soon re-established in our seats and again upon our way. (10)

Scottish politician James Stuart journeyed by stagecoach across the southern United States in 1830. Between Montgomery and Mobile, Alabama, the coach stopped at a stage-house in the form of a small cabin kept by a person whose last name was Bonum. Stuart and his companion had some difficulty procuring a meal.

[We] found Mrs. Bonum seated at the head of a table, on which there was still some remains of a breakfast. The driver who was to proceed with us was just about finishing his meal. Mrs. Bonum seemed to remain inactive on our taking our places at the table; and upon our telling her that we could not breakfast upon what we saw on the table, she said that was none of her business, that she had put a good breakfast on the table at the stage hour, but that we were far too late. In the meantime, she appeared to commence making some preparation, and I, for the sake of talking, asked the driver where in the world he lodged, as there did not seem to be another habitation in the forest… He replied that he lived in the same apartments with the landlord and landlady and their children. My question and the reply enraged…Mrs. Bonum to such a degree that she intermitted all preparation for breakfast, muttering that the inquisitiveness of stage-passengers was past bearing. I immediately gave her to understand that unless we got a good breakfast, the half dollar, which is exacted at all the hotels in the south for breakfast, would not be paid; and that we must have broiled chickens and eggs, of which we saw the first breakfast had been composed. She denied having any eggs for a long time, but at last, finding us resolute, she produced them. Still, however, to preserve a consistency of character, she told me, when I asked for salt, which was nowhere to be found on the table, that she ‘thought I had no occasion for it, as the butter was salted, and would make very good spice for the eggs.’

In the end, however, we prevailed, and got everything necessary for making a good breakfast, though from the worst-tempered American female I had seen on my travels; but this road passes through a country, a very small portion of which is yet settled, and where there are no other hotels than those at which the mail-stage stops. The hotel-keepers, therefore, if they deserve the name, and the drivers, usurp an authority which would not be submitted to in peopled parts of the country. The drivers place the mails in the stage so as very much to annoy the passengers, and give themselves no trouble about [the passengers’] baggage, which must be constantly looked after from the interior of the stage. It would be far better for the passenger to give a regulated trifling fee to the driver, than to be subjected to this never-failing sort of annoyance. (11)

A post-house in Lower Canada (Quebec)

Lieutenant Francis Hall, a member of Britain’s 14th Regiment of Light Dragoons, travelled from Albany to Quebec City in the winter of 1816-1817. He wrote:

I prefer the travelling of Lower Canada to that of every other part of the American Continent. You arrive at the post house (as the words ‘maison de post,’ scrawled over the door give you notice, though the premises present no further hint of the appointment, than perhaps a tattered caliche under the adjoining shed.) ‘Have you horses, Madame?’ ‘Oui, Monsieur, tout de suite.’ – A loud cry of ‘Oh! bon homme’ succeeds to forward the intelligence to her husband, at work in the adjacent field – ‘Mais, asseyez vous, Monsieur,’ – and if you have patience to do this quietly for a few minutes, you will see Crebillon, Papillon, or some other ‘on’ arrive from pasture, mounted by honest Jean in his blue night-cap, with all his habiliments shaking in the wind, at a full canter. The invariable preliminary of splicing and compounding the broken harness having been adjusted, the whip cracks, and you start to the exhilarating cry of ‘marche donc,’ at the rate of six, and often, seven miles an hour, with no stoppages. Should a further degree of speed be required, the place of the English ‘extra shilling’ is cheaply supplied by a few flowers of rhetoric, bestowed in the shape of an eulogium on Jean’s punchy, fumbling nag. ‘Oh Monsieur, il est bien capable,’ is his complacent reply…and straight-way, an additional mile in his hour’s driving makes good his boast, and places beyond the slur of sceptical doubt or criticism, Crebillon’s fame. (12)

The end of the post-house

The growth of passenger rail service in the mid-1800s, followed by the emergence of the automobile, led to the death of most post-houses and stage-houses. Some still survive as atmospheric old inns or taverns, often with “post,” “stage” or “coach” in their names, where you can have a drink and a bite to eat and imagine yourself in the era that produced them.

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Don Manuel Alvarez Espriella [Robert Southey], Letters from England, Vol. I, Third Edition (London, 1814), p. 11.
Ibid., pp. 31-33.
Ibid., p. 358.
Ibid., pp. 362-363.
Robert Bremner, Excursions in the Interior of Russia, Vol. II (London, 1839), pp. 188-190.
Ida Pfeiffer, Journey to Iceland: and Travels in Sweden and Norway (London, 1852), pp. 318-319.
Pierre-Marie-Louis de Boisgelin de Kerdu, Travels through Denmark and Sweden, to which is prefixed a Journal of a Voyage Down the Elbe from Dresden to Hamburgh, Vol. I (London, 1810), p. 6.
Ibid., p. 23.
John M. Duncan, Travels Through Part of the United States and Canada in 1818 and 1819, Vol. II (Glasgow, 1823), pp. 317-319.
Jacob Abbott, New England and Her Institutions (Boston, 1835), pp. 204-206.
James Stuart, Three Years in North America, Vol. I (New York, 1833), pp. 113-114.
Francis Hall, Travels in Canada and the United States, in 1816 and 1817, Second Edition (London, 1819), pp. 97-98.

Further to my earlier posts about Napoleon quotes and misquotes, here are 10 more quotes by Napoleon Bonaparte, with information about the context in which he wrote or said them.

Napoleon in his study in 1807, by Paul Delaroche

1. It is better to eat than be eaten.

Napoleon wrote this on June 1, 1793, when he was a 23-year-old captain in France’s 4th Artillery Regiment. He was on Corsica, the island where he was born, which was in the midst of a civil war. Though Corsica was a French province, most of the island was in the hands of an independence movement led by Pasquale Paoli. Napoleon had initially supported Paoli, but now he was committed to the cause of France. In May, a French attempt to retake the city of Ajaccio failed and the Bonaparte house was ransacked by Paoli’s supporters. Napoleon wrote a memorandum on the political and military situation in which he put forward a plan for reconquering the island. In explaining why some Corsicans supported Paoli, Napoleon wrote:

[Paoli] caresses, he threatens, he burns, he allows looting. At the same time, he persuades people that the Commissioners have been abandoned by France and will receive no help, since the Convention has changed its mind. In any case, he maintains that France is lost and that he will soon have help from England. In such a situation, good men become confused and moan; the doubtful become bad. Moreover, the active and restless spirit natural to the Corsicans is involved. You have to take sides; you might as well be on the one who is winning, on the one who devastates, plunders, burns; in the alternative, it is better to eat than be eaten. (1)

During the night of June 10, the entire Bonaparte family fled from Corsica to Toulon. Napoleon henceforth saw his opportunities as lying in France, rather than in Corsica.

2. All great events hang only by a hair.

Variant: All great events hang by a hair.

This Napoleon quote comes from a letter he wrote to Talleyrand, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, on September 26, 1797. Napoleon – by now a general – was commander-in-chief of France’s Army of Italy. He had conquered northern Italy and pushed into Austria. The Directory (France’s governing body) was pressing him to conclude a treaty with the defeated Austrians and return to France. Napoleon had completed the preliminaries of a peace settlement at Leoben on April 15. However, the final negotiations at Udine were being dragged out by both sides.

In his letter, Napoleon complained that the government was not sending him reinforcements, with which he could threaten Austria. He was also frustrated that the Directory had not ratified the peace treaty France had signed with Piedmont-Sardinia on May 15, 1796. This risked the King of Sardinia becoming a “secret enemy.”

It seems to me that Italy is very poorly seen and very poorly known. As for me, I have always taken care to make things happen according to the interests of the [French] Republic. If one does not believe me, I do not know what to do.

All great events hang always only by a hair. The skillful man takes advantage of everything and neglects nothing that can give him a few more chances; the less skillful man, sometimes by neglecting a single one, loses everything. (2)

Napoleon Bonaparte on the bridge at Arcola, by Antoine-Jean Gros

Napoleon on the bridge at Arcola, by Antoine-Jean Gros, 1796

3. The true conquests, the only ones that cause no regret, are those made over ignorance.

Variant: The only victories which leave no regret are those which are gained over ignorance.

On December 25, 1797, Napoleon was elected to the Institut de France as a member of the Section of Mechanical Arts of the Academy of Sciences, in recognition of his skills as an artillery general. On December 26, he wrote a thank you letter to Armand-Gaston Camus, President of the Institute.

The vote of the distinguished men who make up the Institute honors me. I feel that before becoming their equal I will be their pupil for a long time. If there were a more expressive way to make known to them the esteem I have for them, I would use it.

The true conquests, the only ones that cause no regrets, are those made over ignorance. The most honorable occupation, as well as the most useful for nations, is to contribute to the extension of human ideas. The true power of the French Republic must henceforth consist in not allowing a single new idea to exist that does not belong to it. (3)

In 1800, Napoleon became president of the Academy of Sciences in recognition of the scientific component of his Egyptian expedition.

4. I am the revolution.

According to 19th-century French historian Adolphe Thiers, Napoleon said this in March 1804 when he learned of the death of the Duke d’Enghien. Enghien was a member of the House of Bourbon, the French royal family that had been overthrown during the French Revolution. On March 15, Enghien was kidnapped on Napoleon’s orders and taken to the Château de Vincennes near Paris. There he was sentenced to death on trumped-up charges and executed by a firing squad on March 21. This attack on a royal prince violated international law. René Savary went to the Château de Malmaison to tell Napoleon what had happened.

In the evening some members of the family dined at Malmaison. Their faces were serious and melancholy. No one ventured to speak – none did speak. The first consul [Napoleon] was as silent as the rest. On leaving the table, he broke it himself. M. de Fontanes, having arrived at the same moment, became the only interlocutor with the first consul. He was astounded at the act of which the rumour now filled Paris, but he did not permit himself the avowal of his sentiments in the spot where he then was. He listened a good deal, but rarely replied. The first consul spoke continually, endeavouring to fill up the void left by the silence of the company; he talked of the princes of every age; of the Roman emperors; of the kings of France; of Tacitus, and the opinions of that historian; of the cruelties to which the heads of the empire often lent themselves, when they forced to give way to an inevitable necessity; finally, arriving by a long circuit at the tragic subject of the day, he spake these words: ‘They wish to destroy the revolution in attacking my person; I will defend it because I am the revolution, me myself! They will respect it from this day, because they will know of what we are capable.’ (4)

5. Death is nothing; but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.

Variant: Death is nothing, but to live defeated and without glory is to die every day.

This Napoleon quote comes from a letter the recently-crowned Emperor of the French wrote to General Jacques Lauriston on December 12, 1804. Lauriston was about to embark on an expedition to South America and Martinique with Vice-Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve. Napoleon planned the voyage as a decoy to lure the British fleet to the West Indies and trick Britain into thinking France would not launch an invasion across the British Channel. Villeneuve was then supposed to hurry back to Brest and take part in such an invasion. Napoleon provided the following advice to Lauriston:

The Ministers of War and of Marine have sent you your instructions. … It is already rather late in the season. Start at once; justify my confidence in you; and hoist my flag on this fine continent. If, when you have established a footing there, you are attacked by the English, and experience vicissitudes of fortune, never forget three things – to keep your forces together, to be up and doing, and to be firmly resolved to die a soldier’s death. These three great principles of the art of war have brought fortune to my side in all my operations. Death is nothing; but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily. Have no fears for your family; devote all your energies to that part of my family to whose conquest you are bound. (5)

Lauriston sailed with Villeneuve from Toulon on January 18, 1805. The expedition returned to port three days later, after being caught in a storm. Villeneuve sailed again at the end of March, but when he reached Martinique in May, he refused to land Lauriston and his men. They did succeed in capturing Diamond Rock, off Martinique, from Britain. Villeneuve then sailed to the Spanish port of Cádiz, where his ships were blockaded by Admiral Nelson’s fleet. When Villeneuve attempted to break out in October, he was defeated at the Battle of Trafalgar. By then the troops had been disembarked and Lauriston had returned to Paris.

Napoleon and General Lauriston in Moscow, by Vasily Vereshchagin, circa 1899

6. Religion associates heaven with an idea of equality that keeps the rich from being massacred by the poor.

Variant: Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.

According to Joseph Pelet de la Lozère, a member of the Council of State, Napoleon said this during a meeting of the Council on March 4, 1806. Napoleon was talking about burials, and then offered some thoughts on baptism and religion more generally.

At Cairo and in the desert the mosques are, at the same time, inns; six thousand people are sometimes sheltered and fed in them; they even find a fountain and water to bathe in; this is where our ceremony of baptism comes from. It could not originate in our climate, water is not sufficiently precious here; this year we have it over our heads. The Egyptians, lacking water, make baptisms of sand. As for me, I do not see in religion the mystery of the incarnation, but rather the mystery of the social order; it associates heaven with an idea of equality that keeps the rich from being massacred by the poor. Religion is a kind of inoculation or vaccine which, by satisfying our love of the marvelous, guarantees us against quacks and sorcerers: priests are better than the Cagliostros, the Kants and all the dreamers of Germany. (6)

7. Imagination rules the world.

Variant: Imagination governs the world.

In 1815, Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo. He abdicated the French throne, gave himself up to the British, and was exiled to the remote South Atlantic island of St. Helena. There he had plenty of time to talk and several people to write down what he said. Napoleon’s quote about imagination comes from a conversation Emmanuel de Las Cases recorded on January 7, 1816.

I [Las Cases] was walking one afternoon in the garden with the Emperor, when a sailor…approached us with gestures expressive of eagerness and joy, mingled with apprehension of being perceived from without. He spoke nothing but English, and told me in a hurried manner that he had twice braved the obstacle of sentinels and all the dangers of severe prohibition, to get a close view of the Emperor. He had obtained this good fortune, he said, looking steadfastly at the Emperor, and should die content; that he offered up his prayers to Heaven that Napoleon might enjoy good health, and be one day more happy. … We frequently met with such unequivocal proofs of the good-will of these sailors. Those of the Northumberland [the ship that carried Napoleon to St. Helena]…considered themselves as having formed a connexion with the Emperor. While we were residing at Briars…they often hovered on a Sunday around us, saying they came to take another look at their ship-mate. The day on which we quitted Briars, I was with the Emperor in the garden when one of the sailors presented himself at the gate, asking me if he might step in without giving offence. I asked him of what country he was, and what religion he professed. He answered by making various signs of the cross…. Then looking steadfastly upon the Emperor, before whom he stood, and raising his eyes to Heaven, he began to hold a conversation with himself, by gestures, which his stout jovial figure rendered partly grotesque, and partly sentimental. Nevertheless it would have been difficult to express more naturally admiration, respect, kind wishes, and sympathy; whilst big tears started in his eyes. ‘Tell that dear man,’ said he to me, ‘that I wish him no harm, but all possible happiness. So do most of us. Long life and health to him!’ …

The Emperor could not refrain from evincing some emotion at these two circumstances; so strongly did the countenances, accents, and gestures of these two men bear the stamp of truth. He then said, ‘See the effect of imagination! How powerful is its influence! Here are people who do not know me – who have never seen me; they have only heard me spoken of; and what do they not feel! What would they not do to serve me! And the same caprice is to be found in all countries, in all ages, and in both sexes! This is fanaticism! Yes, imagination rules the world!’ (7)

8. I never was truly my own master but was always controlled by circumstances.

Variant: I never was truly my own master but was always ruled by circumstances.

On St. Helena, Napoleon knew that his words were being recorded for posterity. He was determined to shape his legacy by putting forward his version of events. On November 11, 1816, he told Las Cases:

My enemies always spoke of my love of war, but was I not constantly engaged in self-defence? After every victory I gained, did I not immediately make proposals for peace?

The truth is, I never was master of my own actions. I never was entirely myself. I might have conceived many plans; but I never had it in my power to execute any. I held the helm with a vigorous hand, but the fury of the waves was greater than any force I could exert in resisting them, and I prudently yielded, rather than incur the risk of sinking through stubborn opposition. I never was truly my own master, but was always controlled by circumstances. Thus, at the commencement of my rise, during the Consulate, my sincere friends and warm partisans frequently asked me, with the best intentions, and as a guide for their own conduct, what point was I driving at? and I always answered that I did not know. They were surprised, probably dissatisfied, and yet I spoke the truth. Subsequently during the Empire, when there was less familiarity, many faces seemed to put the same question to me, and I might still have given the same reply. In fact, I was not master of my actions, because I was not fool enough to attempt to twist events into conformity with my system. On the contrary, I moulded my system according to the unforeseen succession of events. This often appeared like unsteadiness and inconsistency, and of these faults I was sometimes unjustly accused. (8)

Napoleon at St. Helena © The Trustees of the British Museum

9. You medical people will have more lives to answer for in the other world than even we generals.

Variant: Doctors will have more lives to answer for in the next world than even we generals.

Napoleon said this to his physician on St. Helena, Irish surgeon Barry O’Meara, on September 29, 1817. According to O’Meara, they were having a “jocular conversation” about patron saints, which turned into a discussion of good and evil. Napoleon recounted how he had once heard an Italian priest preaching about a poor sinner who had departed this life.

[The sinner’s] soul appeared before God, and he was required to give an account of all his actions. The evil and the good were afterwards thrown into opposite scales, in order to see which preponderated. …

Napoleon then began to rally me about my profession. ‘You medical people,’ said he, ‘will have more lives to answer for in the other world than even we generals. What will you say for yourself,’ said he, laughing, ‘when you are called to account for all the souls of poor sailors you have despatched to the other world? Or what will your saint say for you, when the accusing angel proclaims, such a number you sent out of the world, by giving them heating medicines, when you ought to have given cooling ones, and vice versa; so many more, because you mistook their complaints and bled them too much; others because you did not bleed them enough; numbers because they were canaille, and you did not pay them as much attention as you would have done to the captain or the admiral, and because you were over your bottle, or at the theatre, or with a fine girl and did not like to be disturbed, or after drink [in English] when you went and distributed medicines, a dritto ed a torto [right and wrong]. How many because you were not present at the time a change in the complaint took place, when a medicine given at the moment might have saved them? How many others because the provisions were bad, and you would not complain for fear of offending the fournisseurs?’ (9)

I drew on this quote, among others, when writing Napoleon’s conversations with Dr. Formento in Napoleon in America.

10. One must never ask of fortune more than she can grant.

This Napoleon quote also comes from the St. Helena years, in the context of a conversation about Prince Eugene of Savoy, a field marshal in the army of the Holy Roman Empire in the late 1600s-early 1700s. Napoleon told General Gaspard Gourgaud:

Prince Eugene committed several faults. The affair at Cremona was a piece of foolishness. One must never ask of fortune more than she can grant. Everything was going well for him. Villeroy was taken, but the removal of two boats out of the bridge made the whole thing fail. The battle of Turin was fought against all rules, but it succeeded and had immense results. Prince Eugene was a great general, higher up the ladder than the rest of them. He fought on the Rhine, in Italy, and in Turkey. (10)

Napoleon died on St. Helena on May 5, 1821, at the age of 51.

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Texas Governor José Félix Trespalacios

“Dans l’alternative, il vaut mieux être mangeur que mangé.” Frédéric Masson and Guido Biagi, Napoléon Inconnu: Papiers inédits (1786-1793), Tome II, Deuxième edition (Paris, 1895), pp. 468-469.
“Tous les grands évenéments ne tiennent jamais qu’à un cheveu.” Correspondance de Napoléon Ier Publiée par ordre de l’Empereur Napoléon III, Tome III (Paris, 1859), p. 342.
“Les varies conquêtes, les seules qui ne donnent aucun regret, sont celles que l’on fait sur l’ignorance.” Ibid., p. 465.
“On veut détruire la Révolution en s’attaquant à ma personne; je la défendrai, car je suis la Révolution, moi, moi.”A. Thiers, Histoire du Consulat et de l’Empire, Tome IV (Paris, 1845), p. 608. English translation from M.A. Thiers, The History of the Consulate & The Empire of France Under Napoleon, (Edinburgh, 1879), p. 535.
“La mort n’est rien; mais vivre vaincu et sans gloire, c’est mourir tous les jours.” Correspondance de Napoléon Ier Publiée par ordre de l’Empereur Napoléon III, Tome X (Paris, 1862) p. 69. English translation from J.M. Thompson, Letters of Napoleon (Oxford, 1934), p. 104.
“[La réligion] rattache au ciel une idée d’égalité qui empêche que le riche ne soit massacré par le pauvre.” Privat Joseph Claramond Pelet de la Lozère, Opinions de Napoléon sur divers sujets de politique et d’administration (Paris, 1833) p. 223.
Emmanuel-August-Dieudonné de Las Cases, Mémorial de Sainte Hélène: Journal of the Private Life and Conversations of the Emperor Napoleon at Saint Helena, Vol. I, Part 2 (London, 1823), pp. 101-103.
Ibid., Vol. IV, pp. 133-134.
Barry E. O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile; or, A Voice from St. Helena, Vol. II (London, 1822), pp. 246, 248-249.
Gaspard Gourgaud, Talks of Napoleon at St. Helena, edited and translated by Elizabeth Wormeley Latimer, (Chicago, 1904), p. 213.

When Napoleon fictionally arrives at San Antonio in Napoleon in America, he finds an insecure and impoverished outpost in the sparsely-populated Mexican province of Texas. In the early 1800s, San Antonio was made up of the military presidio of San Antonio de Béxar, the civilian town of San Fernando de Béxar, and the religious-Indian settlements of several Franciscan missions. What follows is a look at how San Antonio appeared to early-19th-century visitors and residents. But first, some background.

The origins of San Antonio

The Villa and Presidio of San Antonio de Béxar together with the Franciscan Missions, 1713-1836. Source: Library of Congress

Spain conquered Mexico in the 1500s and called it Nueva España (New Spain). Although Texas was considered part of New Spain, it was not until the late 1600s that the Spanish began to establish a permanent presence there. In the 1680s, they established several missions along the Rio Grande. These were intended to convert the indigenous tribes to Christianity, teach them the Spanish language and customs, introduce Spanish farming methods, and encourage settlement. In 1690, the Spanish founded two missions in eastern Texas, with the additional aim of warding off incursions from the French in Louisiana.

In 1691, General Domingo Terán de los Ríos, the first governor of Spanish Texas, embarked on a trip to explore the province and set up additional missions. He was accompanied by 50 soldiers, 10 friars and three lay brothers. The missionaries were led by Damián Massanet, a Franciscan priest who had assisted in the creation of the eastern Texas missions. On June 13, the expedition reached a Payaya Indian village called Yanaguana along a river in south-central Texas. As it was the feast day of St. Anthony of Padua, Massanet named the site and the river “San Antonio de Padua.”

In 1718, Spain decided to start a settlement in San Antonio. This would provide travelers with a way station on the long route between the Rio Grande and eastern Texas. Texas Governor Martín de Alarcón travelled to the area with 72 people – including soldiers and their families – and a considerable amount of livestock.

Under the guidance of Father Antonio de Olivares, the group constructed a temporary mission out of brush and mud on the west side of the San Antonio River. They then built a presidio, or fort, to protect the mission. The mission, which by 1724 had been moved to the east side of the river, was named San Antonio de Valero. The presidio, located approximately half a mile away on the west side of the river, was called San Antonio de Béxar. Alarcón established a settlement called Villa de Béxar, near the headwaters of San Pedro Creek, for the soldiers’ families and other civilians. A bridge was built across the river. The missionaries and the Payaya Indians constructed a dam and dug a six-mile long irrigation ditch, known as the Acequia Madre de Valero, to divert river water for the mission’s use and for the irrigation of fields near the mission. This was later expanded into a network of irrigation ditches. In 1720, a second mission, San José, was established a few miles south of San Antonio.

The Spanish authorities hoped that more civilians would settle in Villa de Béxar. When this did not happen, Spain transported people from the Canary Islands, via Havana and Veracruz, to populate the area. These settlers – 56 people – arrived in 1731. A new town, called San Fernando de Béxar, was founded next to the presidio to accommodate them. Also in that year, three missions (San Juan Capistrano, San Francisco de Espada and Concepción) were relocated from eastern Texas to locations south of Mission San José.

In 1762, France ceded western Louisiana to Spain. Since there was no longer a French threat on the Texas border, Spain decided there was no longer any need to maintain Los Adaes, the Texas capital located just west of the Louisiana town of Natchitoches. The acting governor moved his headquarters and garrison to San Antonio. The settlers were also forced to march there. Thus, in 1772, San Antonio became the capital of Texas.

In 1793, San Antonio de Valero was secularized, meaning it ceased to be used as a mission. Its religious offices passed to the parish of San Fernando de Béxar. The mission’s lands, houses, tools and animals were distributed among the Indians who still lived there, the refugees from Los Adaes, and local residents.

Arrival of the Alamo Company

By the start of the 1800s, San Antonio was the largest Spanish settlement in Texas. Approximately 1,500 people lived in the town and presidio. In 1803, the garrison was reinforced with 100 mounted militia from La Segunda Compañía Volante de San Carlos de Parras (the Second Flying Company of San Carlos de Parras). Although the presidio of San Antonio de Béxar had never been walled in, the mission of San Antonio de Valero had been fortified against Indian raids. The new company used the abandoned mission for its barracks. Since the flying company had been stationed at the town of San José y Santiago del Álamo in the Mexican state of Coahuila, it was also known as the Alamo Company. The former San Antonio mission thus became known as the Alamo.

Visit of the Pike expedition

San Antonio, Texas, by Seth Eastman, 1849. Source: Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Gift of Maxim Karolik for the M. and M. Karolik Collection of American Watercolors and Drawings, 1800–1875

In 1807, US Army Lieutenant Zebulon Pike visited San Antonio as part of his exploratory travels through western North America.

St. Antonio…is situated on the head waters of the river of that name, and perhaps contains two thousand souls, most of whom reside in miserable mud-wall houses, covered with thatch grass roofs. The town is laid out on a very grand plan: to the east of it, on the other side of the river, is the station of the troops. (1)

Pike estimated the total population of Texas at 7,000. “These are principally Spanish creoles [people of Spanish descent born in the Americas]; some French, some Americans, and a few civilized Indians and half-breeds.” (2)

On their arrival, Pike and his companions were met by Antonio Cordero, the acting governor of Coahuila and Texas, and Lieutenant Colonel Simón de Herrara, governor of the province of Nuevo León. The latter was temporarily in Texas to patrol the Louisiana frontier and improve Texan defences. Pike stayed at the home of Governor Cordero.

In the evening his levee [reception] was attended by a crowd of officers and priests. After supper we went to the public square, where might be seen the two governors joined in a dance with people who in the day time would approach them with reverence and awe. … When we left St. Antonio, everything appeared to be in a flourishing and improving state, owing to the examples and encouragement given to industry, politeness and civilization by their excellent Governor, Cordero, and his colleague Herrara; and also to the large body of troops maintained at that place, in consequence of the difference existing between the United States and Spain. …

About two, three, and four miles from St. Antonio are three missions, formerly flourishing and prosperous. These buildings for solidity, accommodation, and even majesty, were surpassed by few that I met with in New Spain. The resident priest treated us with the greatest hospitality, and was respected and beloved by all who knew him. He made a singular observation relative to the aborigines who had formerly formed the population of those establishments under charge of the monks. I asked him what had become of the natives. He replied that it appeared to him that they could not exist under the shadow of the whites, as the nations who formed those missions had been nurtured and taken all the care of that was possible, and put on the same footing as the Spaniards; yet they had, notwithstanding, dwindled away, until the other two [missions] had become entirely depopulated; and the one where he resided had not more than sufficient to perform his household labor. From this he had formed an idea that God never intended them to form one people, but that they should always remain distinct and separate. (3)

Regarding the “morals and manners” of the Texans, Pike observed:

Cordero, by restricting (by edicts) the buffalo hunts to certain seasons, and obliging every man of family to cultivate so many acres of land, has in some degree checked the spirit of hunting, or wandering, life which had been hitherto so very prevalent; and has endeavored to introduce, by his example and precepts, a general urbanity and suavity of manners which rendered St. Antonio one of the most agreeable séjours [stays] that we met with in the provinces. (4)

Pike wrote that there were 988 soldiers in Texas the time, 388 of whom were at San Antonio. “The militia (a rabble) are made somewhat respectable by a few American riflemen who are incorporated amongst them; they are about 300 in number, including bow and arrow men.” (5) He noted the religion was “Catholic, but much relaxed.” (6) He also observed that the residents traded with Mexico (via Monterrey and Monclova) for merchandise, and with New Orleans (via Natchitoches) for contraband. In return, they provided coins, horses and mules.

A Spanish governor’s report

A Mexican Adobe House, San Antonio

The year after Pike left, a new governor of Texas arrived. Manuel María de Salcedo was an infantry officer who had been born in Spain, had served in the Canary Islands, and had lived in Louisiana, where his father had been the Spanish governor from 1801 to 1803. Salcedo was living in Spain when he was appointed governor of Texas. Salcedo, his New Orleans-born wife, and their daughter arrived in San Antonio in November of 1808.

In 1809, Salcedo wrote a detailed report on the province of Texas. He counted the population in the Spanish settlements at 3,122, seventeen hundred of whom lived in the San Antonio area.

The industry of these inhabitants is non-existent because neither have they had nor do they have elements for it. And one even marvels at how the most of them cultivate their lands without the necessary farming tools by substituting for them as best they can, how some have built houses without artisans and how others suffer the rigorous cold and hot weather in those homes that they have made with sticks and shed-roofs of straw, and lastly at how in this poverty they have been able to dress themselves and their families, since this province has no other port of entry than that of Veracruz distant more than five hundred leagues. The soil is capable of producing anything that is planted, particularly cotton, indigo, tobacco, cochineal, wheat, corn, etc. with other product native to the country, such as viperina, sassafras and other medicinal plants most abundant in it. …

At present this province has six missions, two of them without a missionary; and in all of them combined is the extremely small number of three hundred and forty-three souls. The system seems useful and good; but in my opinion it is much too slow and perhaps of little value. The Indians who come to the mission are not attracted because faith has entered through their ears but through their mouths by dint of gifts and food to eat. Those who are there hardly understand Spanish. They repeat the doctrine like automatons. It, therefore, would be better to bring them into missions with considerable population and with frequent friendly intercourse, for if one works only with the parents it is absolutely impossible to make them accomplished in our language and in the understanding of religious principle. (7)

San Antonio during the Mexican War of Independence

The Mexican War of Independence began in 1810 with an uprising led by a Mexican-born Catholic priest. In 1811, Juan Bautista de las Casas, a retired militia captain, led a revolt at San Antonio. He arrested Governor Salcedo and proclaimed himself the head of a provisional government. The revolt was crushed by royalist counter-insurgents. Las Casas and his associates were executed and Salcedo was reinstated.

The following year, Bernardo Gutiérrez de Lara, a Mexican merchant and blacksmith, traveled to the United States seeking support for an invasion of Texas to support the independence movement, something that was contrary to the US Neutrality Act. He gained the ear of former US Army lieutenant Augustus Magee. They gathered a force in Louisiana, crossed into Texas, and captured Nacogdoches and La Bahía, where Magee died of illness. The royalists (Spanish loyalists) under Governor Salcedo and Colonel Herrera (the same one Pike had met) retreated toward San Antonio. They were defeated at the Battle of Rosillo Creek – also known as the Battle of Rosalis – on March 29, 1813. On April 1, Salcedo unconditionally surrendered San Antonio. Gutiérrez formed a provisional government and condemned Salcedo, Herrera and 13 other royalist officers to death. They were tied to trees and executed; the corpses were mutilated and left unburied. On April 6, Gutiérrez declared Texas independent of Spain.

Royalist forces under General José Joaquín de Arredondo marched north to reclaim Texas for Spain. On August 18, 1813, they destroyed Gutiérrez’s army at the Battle of Medina. Arredondo executed prisoners and left their corpses hanging in trees. He then rounded up the families of the rebel soldiers and had some of them publicly executed in the plaza of San Antonio. His men pursued those who tried to flee to Louisiana. Many were shot, or rounded up and escorted back to San Antonio, where the women were imprisoned and put to work grinding corn and making tortillas for Arredondo’s troops.

Texas statesman José Antonio Navarro (the nephew of José Francisco Ruiz) wrote in 1841 about the “fatal year of 1813” in San Antonio:

[M]ore than 25 prisoners were suffocated in close quarters in the month of August with over 400 placed in very small dimensions….dozens put to death each day…. [T]here was a tyrant named Corporal Ribal of the Vera Cruz regiment who by force of the lash terrorized the whole city…. [H]e governed with absolutism over the prisoners, and when the sun’s rays were hidden and the dark night closed round, many officers & soldiers met with their friend, the guardian, to be treated each one of them to the victim (woman) that he might think proper to assign them for that night, upon which, each one of those monsters would satiate his lasciviousness, and then turn her over to the Guardian Acosta, to continue the day following in the work of the tortillas for the soldiers. It is due to justice, however, to say that there were among these prisoners many heroines who struggled arm to arm against addressing & resisted the delivery of their persons to the commands of that infamous jailor; this class of heroines never would consent to stain their honor, but they had to suffer the torment of cruel & daily lashes. [T]here are yet surviving in Béxar some of these matrons…. I know two of them, one of whom for having opposed herself to the iniquitous treatment of the said Acosta, he bound and hung up a public spectacle …stripping her even of her underclothes and leaving her nakedness an object of public gaze. Arredondo knew all that passed, and when in his court of officers any of these cruel anecdotes would be cited, a pleasant smile would close the scene. During three months [of] tyrann[y], very few families escaped. (8)

Over the following years, San Antonio suffered from its isolation, the small size of its population, attacks by the Comanches and Apaches, and a chronic lack of money. While the descendants of the original Spanish and Canary Island settlers formed an elite, controlling the best farmland and living in stone houses near the main plaza, most residents were poor, engaged in subsistence farming, and living in mud and thatch huts. Problems were compounded in July 1819, when heavy rains led to a massive flood on the San Antonio River, destroying homes, corrals, a new bridge connecting the town to the Alamo, and anything that was not strong and secure. Many residents rebuilt on higher ground, east of the river, in the area known as La Villita.

San Antonio in 1828

Mexican Jacales, by James Gilchrist Benton, 1852. Source: Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas

In 1821, Mexico gained its independence from Spain. José Félix Trespalacios became the first governor of Mexican Texas. Since Texas was underpopulated, the Mexican government granted permission to Stephen Austin and other Americans to start colonies in the province. In 1824, Coahuila and Texas were united into a single state, with the capital in Saltillo. San Antonio was demoted to the seat of government of the new Department of Texas.

In 1827, Mexico sent an expedition to survey the boundary between Texas and the United States and to catalogue the natural wealth of Texas. The commissioners visited San Antonio in March of 1828. Jean-Louis Berlandier, a native of France, was the expedition’s botanist and zoologist. Describing the former mission of San Antonio de Valero, he wrote:

An enormous battlement and some barracks are found there, as well as the ruins of a church that could pass for one of the loveliest monuments of the area, even if its architecture is overloaded with ornamentation like all the ecclesiastical buildings of the Spanish countries. In the barracks of that mission lives a presidial company, long since come from…a presidio called Alamo de Parras, which has retained the same name in Texas. It is to be regretted that those who founded San Fernando de Béxar did not join it to the presidio of the Alamo, located on a much more favorable site. Convinced of the dangers which another flood could produce, recent authorities have several times proposed establishing the town there. Composed of some one hundred houses, the quarters of the Alamo is considered as part of San Fernando de Béxar. It is subject to the same authorities, and is separated [only] by the river. (9)

Berlandier then described the town.

The streets of Béxar are not very straight, not only because of the windings of the river which flows to the east of the houses, but also because that admirable regularity characteristic of every town founded by the Castilians in the New World was disregarded there. Two large squares, separated from each other by the [San Fernando] church and some houses, do not draw the traveler’s attention at all. The houses are for the greater part jacales [huts] roofed with thatch. The better ones are of a heavy and course construction, and the larger number have fireplaces…. The inhabitants are gay and not very hardworking, and the dance is the chief amusement among the lower classes. Most of the families are linked to the military of the presidial companies, and it is to the great defect in the organization of these troops that the lack of agricultural progress observable in the region should be attributed. These soldiers, continually in the wilderness, or going from one presidio to another, cannot devote themselves to laboring in the field. They content themselves with their pay, albeit this reaches their hands only after a thousand detours. The most comfortably off of the private citizens at the Mexican presidios are not lovers of farming; I have often seen them go elsewhere, sometimes even to the Anglo-American colonies, to seek the grain necessary for their subsistence. They much prefer to carry on a wretched trade, in which they have an infamous monopoly, to the detriment of the poor people…. When they are reproached for their indolence, they allege that the Indians do not allow them to go out to cultivate the fields, which is partly true. But what I have never understood is why, although there are well-watered lands about the houses and the missions – even inside the presidio – one sees no planting there, whereas, moved by a principle of laziness, they go to sow de temporal [dry farming] fields of corn six or seven leagues from the dwellings (in localities truly exposed to attacks by the indigenes), solely in order not to have to take the trouble of watering the fields. …

Béxar resembles a large village more than the municipal seat of a department. There is no paved street and no public building. Trade with the Anglo-Americans, and the blending in to some degree of their customs, make the inhabitants of Texas a little different from the Mexicans of the interior, who those in Texas call foreigners and whom they scarcely like because of the superiority which they recognize in them. In their gatherings, the women prefer to dress in the fashion of Louisiana, and by so doing they participate both in the customs of the neighbouring nation and of their own…. Unfortunately for the creoles [locally-born descendants of the Spanish] of Texas, the agricultural industry which they have shown in our times is so wretched that a monopoly over them by the American colonies founded in this department is to be feared. Several times have Béxar and Goliad gone to seek grain and cattle in these colonies. They cannot vie in any respect with those industrious colonists, much more hardworking than they, who are supplied with implements useful to their labors. If the creoles have some well-built wagons, they are very few; in general, on seeing them one would believe oneself to have gone ten centuries backwards in the elementary and necessary arts. …

In regions where man struggles with the land, it is only when cultivation is extended and perfected that herds multiply. In Texas the inhabitants find themselves in completely opposite circumstances, for the raising of domestic animals on the immense plains covered with pasture is completely independent of the progress of agriculture. I agree that the great obstacle to the prosperity of the herds is the presence of the indigenes who steal or kill them. Nevertheless, those errant and nomadic tribes – enemies of the sedentary arts and of peace and [who are] continually at war with one another – raise horses. Lastly, the foreign colonies have had to overcome the same obstacles and today are full of such animals as oxen, cows, horses, pigs, etc. (10)

Views of an American visitor

Military Plaza, San Antonio, Texas, 1857

Joseph Clopper, a young trader from Cincinnati, also visited San Antonio in 1828, a few months after the boundary commissioners had left. Clopper described entering San Antonio from the east.

We come to a Spanish fort and magazine commenced some years since and left unfinished – this stands on the summit of the circular ridge within one mile of San Antonio commanding a view of the town and the vast plain on which it stands. From this spot San Antonio has a very striking resemblance to one of Uncle Sam’s handsomest and largest country villages….. [The traveller] comes to a little canal…watering beautifully verdant and flourishing fields of corn, enters a regular avenue of huge cotton wood trees…. On the right stands a massy pile of ruins…one of the strongholds…in which the Royalists in 1810-11 sought refuge from the avenging fury of the Patriots who battered down the mighty walls with their cannon. It is now a garrison. A few yards before him he sees the exceedingly serpentine San Antonio, coming winding around the town and gliding by…. He looks with mortification and disgust at the order of architecture which suddenly presents itself on his left. He crosses the little river and beholds the same wigwam style of building which constitutes the principal part of the town.

He proceeds on, finds that the streets intersect each other very irregularly, presently enters the public square…in the centre of which stands the church – a large clumsy stone building…. It has a steeple of the same materials, very well modelled of octagonal form. In this is hung 2 bells kettle-toned and of different sizes. These have their tongues tied with ropes and made to bellow most horribly by two barbarous boys who stand close by and jerk these engines of torture to the utter dismay and confusion of the astounded stranger perhaps 40 times per diem. …

In the midst of this square the traveller stands and contemplates the buildings around him. He had before entering been disgusted with their dwellings that [he] first met, being formed of branches of the musquite tree set up endways in all the zigzag varieties of their growth, having the interstices daubed with mud. These hollow squares are then thatched over with the swamp flag and stand ready to receive their inhabitants, who carry in a few chests, a palate or two, and some dried skins and the mansion is furnished. But the public square presents to the stranger’s eye a more solemn picture. Each side is formed of one unbroken solid wall except where the streets pass through. These walls have doors at neighbourly or family distances opening into what may more properly be termed cells than rooms, as few of them have windows. None indeed have sashes nor is there a pane of glass in the town. They seem more like port holes than windows, having bars like a prison grate, or dark shutters. … The roof is invisible from the outside – is formed of huge cedar logs as rafters on which are laid small boards. These beams have a descending inclination from the back walls outwardly so as to rest upon the front walls about two and a half feet below their height. The roof is then covered with a cement from 8 inches to a foot in thickness, from off which the rain is conducted by wooden troughs passing through the walls and projecting 3 or 4 feet into the square. Through this square and the heart of the town runs a canal for the purpose of watering the garden lots….

The traveller hears around him a confusion of unknown tongues, the red natives of the forest in their different guttural dialects, the swarthy Spaniard of a scarce brighter hue, the voluble Frenchman, a small number of the sons of Green Erin, and a goodly few of Uncle Sam’s nephews or half expatriated sons. (11)

Entertainments and cuisine

Clopper attended some dances in the town.

[F]andangos – waltzes and reels the principal forms of dance among them – [were] always performed in the streets. Men do not select their partners – this is more gallantly left to the ladies – the former placing themselves in a line on the floor and when the latter arise and face the object of their choice, it sometimes happens that two or more make the same selection and then there is a good deal of elbowing among the fair ones. There are always managers to regulate matters…. Delicacy forms but a small part of female character in San Antonio. … The men…are extremely ignorant in all the advanced arts of civilization – the majority not being able to read – they are astonishingly expert in the management of horses, not surpassed perhaps by any other people on the globe.” (12)

He also described how, on September 16, 1828, San Antonians celebrated the anniversary of the declaration of Mexican independence “with a great deal of order and unanimity and considerable enthusiasm of feeling.”

A stage was erected in the public square very much resembling a huge bedstead with a tester and curtains reaching down like drapery to the platform and made fast to the four posts at the tops of which were flying their own national flag, that of the United States, of Great Britain and of France – while that of Old Spain formed a carpeting for the staircase ascending to the stage. The soldiery and citizens, both ladies and gentlemen, paraded the streets in the afternoon. In the evening an oration was delivered from the stage by a priest. [I] was told it was an excellent and patriotic composition, but I though it badly delivered and apparently with but very little effect on the multitude. A large table was set covered with wines and other liquors, sweetmeats, etc. ‘pro bono public.’ The square was then [lit] up with lamps and candles and everything cleared off for the enjoyment of the ‘dearly loved fandango,’ five or six sets at it at once. Never before did I witness so large a collection of such happy beings. (13)

Clopper learned some Spanish and got to know some local families. He gave an account of their cooking techniques, including the making of tortillas.

Every family has in the yard an oven built in form of a cone solely for the purpose of roasting the heads, legs and tails of animals. On such occasions, all the connections round are invited, skins are spread on the earth, when these delicacies are thrown down in the centre of the waiting circles, and every one that is fortunate enough to have a knife makes a lively use of it till the whole head is fairly demolished and as many of the legs as can be possibly crowded after it. When they have to pay for their meat in market a very little is made to suffice a family. It is generally cut into a kind of hash with nearly as many peppers as there are pieces of meat. This is all stewed together.

The way in which they obtain their bread is worthy of notice. They raise only Indian corn. This is soaked in lime or ley till the rind of the grain is taken off. It is then ground on a concave stone about 12 inches wide and 20 in length with legs cut to it 6 to 8 inches long, the hinder being somewhat longest so as to give the stone an inclination from the body of the grinder. A handful of corn is laid on this and masticated with another stone resembling a roller but cut so as to fit the concavity. This operation is always performed by the women, and in a kneeling posture. They generally go over it a third time. If they wish to treat their friends with very white bread the whole family gather round the pot of corn and grain by grain bite off the little black speck at the end of the germ. When the dough is already, a small portion at a time is taken and patted in the hands till thin as a flannel cake. This cake making operation is always accompanied with tunes and words that seem peculiarly to chime in with the patting ceremony. … These cakes are baked on sheet iron and when eaten hot with butter or gravy are very palatable – but soon get tough. They answer the natives for spoons with which they all dip into the same dish of meat and peppers prepared as above, one spoon not lasting longer than to supply with two mouthfuls when a new one is made use of. Very few families are supplied with the common necessary kitchen and household utensils – not even with chairs – sitting on skins spread upon the earthen floors of their dwelling. Thus live the commonality throughout the northern provinces of Mexico. (14)

Clopper noted that the population of San Antonio was variously estimated as being from 3,000 to 5,000. This was probably an overestimate. He observed that the garrison consisted of 300-400 soldiers, and was kept up mainly for defence against the Indians, particularly “that very powerful tribe, the Comanches, who are supposed to be 6 or 7,000 warriors strong and are continually at war with the Mexicans in some part of the province of Texas.” (15)

The Texas Revolution

By the end of the 1820s, American colonists in Texas (known as Texians) outnumbered Texans of Mexican or Spanish origin (known as Tejanos). The new residents increasingly clashed with their distant Mexican rulers. The American colonists were primarily Protestants; Mexico’s religion was Roman Catholicism. Many of the colonists were slave owners; in 1829 Mexico abolished slavery. These and other issues, including a Mexican attempt to ban Anglo-American immigration to Texas, led a group of Texians to organize an armed resistance to Mexican authority.

In December 1835, Texian forces led by Ben Milam and Frank Johnson captured San Antonio. In response, the Mexican president, General Antonio López de Santa Anna, marched with a hastily-recruited army to San Antonio. The Mexicans besieged the Alamo – to which the Texian defenders and local residents had retreated – for thirteen days, starting on February 23, 1836.

On March 6, the Mexican army attacked the fort. Almost all of the defenders, including Texian commanders James Bowie and William B. Travis, were killed. Despite losing the Alamo, the Texas army led by General Samuel Houston, won the war. On April 26, Houston’s forces defeated Santa Anna’s army at the Battle of San Jacinto. Texas became an independent republic. Its capital moved from place to place before settling in Austin; none of them were San Antonio.

San Antonio in 1838-39

Sketch of the Alamo, by Mary Maverick, 1838

Mary Maverick, an American from Alabama who settled with her family in San Antonio in 1838, later wrote some recollections of her early years in the town.

June 29th, 1838, thirty-eight Comanches came into the edge of town and killed two Mexicans and stole one boy – on the 30th they killed a German and a Mexican. July 1st, the flag of Texas waves on the Plaza in front of the Court House, and a company of volunteers are assembling for pursuit of the Indians. Later, our company of volunteers fell in with a considerable party of Comanches, attacked them, killed two and wounded many others – but the wounded were carried off by the others, all of whom beat a hasty retreat. Our people captured all their horses and provisions.

The Mexicans of Mexico have not forgotten us. About this time, a party of Mexicans, 200 strong under Agaton, learing that valuable goods had been landed at Capano, and were being carted by friendly Mexicans to the San Antonio merchants, crossed the Rio Grande at Matamoras, captured the train and compelled the cartmen to haul the goods to the Nueces river where the cartmen were dismissed. Of the two Americans who were with the train when it was captured, one was killed and the other was wounded but escaped.

During July, 1838 many rumors from the west came to the effect than an army of centralists was marching to capture Bexar – also that the Comanche Nation had entered with the Mexicans and would act with them for our extermination. But in a day or two, it was ascertained that Aristo had pursued the ‘President of the Republic of the Rio Grande,’ General Vidauria, who having been defeated in battle had fled to Texas for refuge. Aristo turned back at the Nueces. … (16)

Early in February, 1839, we had a heavy snow storm, the snow drifted in some places to a depth of two feet, and on the north side of the house it lasted five or six days. Anton Lockmar rigged up a sleigh and took some girls riding up and down Soledad Street. Early in February, we moved into our own house, at the north east corner of Commerce and Soledad Streets, being also the north east corner of the Main Plaza (Plaza Mayor). …

The main house was of stone and had three rooms, one fronting south on Main Street and west on Soledad Street and the other two fronting west on Soledad Street – also a shed in the yard along the east wall of the house towards the north end. This shed we closed in with an adobe wall and divided into a kitchen and servant’s room. We also built an adobe servant’s room on Soledad Street, leaving a gateway between it and the main house, and we built a stable near the river.

We built a strong but homely picket fence around the garden to the north and fenced the garden off from the yard. In the garden were sixteen large fig trees and many rows of old pomegranates. In the yard were several China trees, and on the river bank just below our line in the De la Zerda premises was a grand old cypress which we could touch through our fence, and its roots made ridges in our yard. … It made a great shade and we erected our bath house and wash place under its spreading branches.

Our neighbours on the east, Main or Commerce Street, were the De la Zerdas. In 1840, their place was leased to a Greek, Roque Catahdie, who kept a shop on the street and lived in the back rooms. He married a pretty, bright-eyed Mexican girl of fourteen years, dressed her in jewelry and fine clothes and bought her a dilapidated piano – he was jealous and wished her to amuse herself at home. The piano had the desired effect, and she enjoyed it like a child with a new trinket. The fame of her piano went through the town, and, after tea, crowds would come to witness her performance. One night Mrs. Elliott and I took a peep and we found a large crowd inside laughing and applauding, and other envious ones gazing in from the street.

Our neighbor on the north, Soledad Street, was Dona Juana Varcinez, and I must not omit her son Leonicio. She had cows and sold me the strippings of the milk at twenty-five cents per gallon, and we made our butter from this. Mrs. McMullen was the only person then who made butter for sale, and her butter was not good, although she received half a dollar per pound for it. Old Juana was a kind old soul – had the earliest pumpkins, a great delicacy, at twenty-five cents, and spring chickens at twelve and a half cents. She opened up the spring gardening by scratching with a dull hoe some holes in which she planted pumpkin seed – then later she planted corn, red pepper, garlic, onions, etc. She was continually calling to Leonicio to drive the chickens out of the garden, or bring in the dogs from the street. She told me this answered two purposes – it kept Leonicio at home out of harm’s way, and gave him something to do. She had lots of dogs – one fat, lazy pelon (hairless dog) slept with the old lady to keep her feet warm. …

This year [1839] our negro men plowed and planted one labor above the Alamo and were attacked by Indians. Griffen and Wiley ran into the river and saved themselves. The Indians cut the traces and took off the work animals and we did not farm there again. …

In November, 1839, a party of ladies and gentlemen from Houston came to visit San Antonio…. They were, ladies and all, armed with pistols and bowie knifes. I rode with this party and some others around the head of the San Antonio river. We galloped up the west side, and paused at and above the head of the river long enough to view and admire the lovely valley of the San Antonio. The leaves had mostly fallen from the trees and left the view open to the Missions below. The day was clear, cool and bright, and we saw three of the missions, including San Juan Capistrano seven miles below town. We galloped home down the east side and doubted not that Indians watched us from the heavy timber of the river bottom. (17)

In 1845, with the concurrence of the Texians, the United States annexed the Republic of Texas and made it a state of the Union. This led to the Mexican-American War, which lasted from 1846 to 1848 and ended in an American victory. During the last half of the 1800s, San Antonio finally experienced a period of peace and prosperity.

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Zebulon Montgomery Pike, Exploratory Travels Through the Western Territories of North America (Denver: W.H. Lawrence & Co., 1889), p. 332.
Ibid., p. 333.
Ibid., pp. 286, 290, 332-333.
Ibid., p. 334.
Ibid., p. 334.
Ibid., p. 334.
Nettie Lee Benson, “A Governor’s Report on Texas in 1809,” The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Vol. 71, No. 4 (April, 1968), pp. 611, 614.
“José Antonio Navarro, 1795-1871” Sons of Dewitt Colony Texas, http://www.sonsofdewittcolony.org/Navarro.htm. Accessed May 19, 2022.
Jack Jackson, ed., Texas by Terán, translated by John Wheat (Austin, 2000), p. 15.
Ibid., pp. 15-17.
“J.C. Clopper’s Journal and Book of Memoranda for 1828,” The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Vol. XIII, No. 1 (July 1909), pp. 69-71.
Ibid., pp. 71-72.
Ibid., p. 73.
Ibid., pp. 73-74.
Ibid., p. 75.
Rena Maverick Green, ed., Memoirs of Mary A. Maverick (San Antonio, 1921), pp. 27-28.
Ibid., pp. 22-26.

An example of an alternate history book by Canadians

If you’re looking for a fascinating read for Canada Book Day, consider the often overlooked category of alternate history books by Canadians. Alternate history – also called alternative history – is a genre of speculative fiction that explores what might have come to pass if particular historical events had happened differently. Alternate history involves a point of divergence from actual history: a moment at which the fictional timeline departs from the historical record. Alternate history books explore questions of “what if,” or what might have been. Canadians are among the most prominent writers in the genre.

Alternate history books by Canadian authors

This list is intended to be a starter, rather than exhaustive. It includes a sample of alternate history books by Canadians published in English within the last four decades. It leaves out many alternate histories by Canadians that fall more into the science fiction, steampunk, fantasy, or time travel categories, as well as books intended primarily for children and teenagers, and books published in French. Some of the authors on the list might surprise you, either because you didn’t realize they were Canadian, or because you’re used to seeing their names in another context.

The Draka Series by S.M. Stirling (1988-2000)
What if British Loyalists escaped to South Africa after the American Revolution, rather than to Canada?

The Difference Engine by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling (1990)
What if Charles Babbage perfected his Analytical Engine during the Industrial Revolution and the computer age arrived a century ahead of its time?

The Years of Longdirk Trilogy by Dave Duncan writing under the name of Ken Hood (1995-1997)
What if Ogedai Khan did not die in 1241 and the Mongols continued their advance into and conquest of Europe?

Darwinia by Robert Charles Wilson (1998)
What if Europe and parts of Asia and Africa were suddenly replaced by a vast alien wilderness in 1912?

Arrowdreams: An Anthology of Alternate Canadas edited by Mark Shainblum and John Dupuis (1998)
An anthology of Canadian “what-ifs.”

The Neanderthal Parallax Trilogy by Robert J. Sawyer (2002-2003)
What if Neanderthals became the dominant branch of humanity on Earth in a parallel universe?

Conquistador by S.M. Stirling (2003)
What if the Europeans never conquered the Americas?

The Peshawar Lancers by S.M. Stirling (2003); sequel: Shikari in Galveston (2005)
What if the world was hit by some comet fragments in 1878, depopulating much of the Northern Hemisphere?

The Small Change Series by Jo Walton (2006-2008)
What if Britain made peace with Adolf Hitler in 1941?

War Plan Crimson by Michael Cnudde (2011)
What if an attempt by a group of Wall Street power brokers to overthrow Franklin Roosevelt in 1933 had succeeded?

Faultline 49 by Joe MacKinnon writing under the name of David Danson (2012)
What if the September 11, 2001 bombings happened in Edmonton with American perpetrators?

Napoleon in America by Shannon Selin (2014)
What if Napoleon escaped from St. Helena and wound up in the United States in 1821?

My Real Children by Jo Walton (2014)
What if John F. Kennedy was killed by a bomb in 1963? Or what if he chose not to run in 1964 after an escalated Cuban Missile Crisis led to the nuclear obliteration of Miami and Kiev?

All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai (2017)
What if the invention of a unlimited-energy producing system in the 1960s led to very rapid technological advancement?

Agency by William Gibson (2018)
What if Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump in 2016, and Britain voted “remain” in the EU referendum?

Tales from the Black Chamber Series by S.M. Stirling (2018-2022)
What if Theodore Roosevelt became president of the United States in 1912?

The Oppenheimer Alternative by Robert J. Sawyer (2020)
What if physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and the team of scientists behind the Manhattan Project had to direct their nuclear weapon expertise towards protecting Earth from the sun?

The Good German: A Novel by Dennis Bock (2020)
What if German anti-fascist Georg Elser succeeded in assassinating Adolf Hitler in November 1939?

Billy (the Kid) by Peter Meech (2020)
What if Sheriff Pat Garrett hadn’t shot and killed William Bonney in 1881?

The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield (2021)
What if there had been an Apollo 18 moon mission in 1973?

Other Covenants: Alternate Histories of the Jewish People edited by Andrea D. Lobel and Mark Shainblum (2022)
The first-ever anthology of Jewish alternate history fiction.

I invite readers to add other alternate history books by Canadians in the comments.

You might also enjoy:

Alternate History Books by Women

Napoleon in Alternate History

Alternate History by Napoleon

What if Napoleon won the Battle of Waterloo?

What did Napoleon like to read?

The Duke of Wellington, best known for commanding the coalition of forces that defeated Napoleon’s army at the Battle of Waterloo, was a man of sincere, unpretentious religious belief and habits.

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, by John Jackson, 1830-1831, NPG 1614 © National Portrait Gallery, London. Used under license: CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

A Protestant

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, was born as Arthur Wesley on May 1, 1769 in Dublin, Ireland. Although the majority of Ireland’s population was Catholic, Wellington’s parents were Protestants. They were members of the Anglo-Irish aristocracy and worshipped at the Church of Ireland, which was Ireland’s established church. When Ireland and Great Britain merged to form the United Kingdom in 1801, the Church of Ireland united with Britain’s established church, the Church of England. In short, the Duke of Wellington was an Anglican. He was baptized in St. Peter’s Church, Dublin. In 1806, he married Kitty Pakenham at St. George’s Church, Dublin, in a temporary chapel on Whitworth Road. The ceremony was conducted by Wellington’s clergyman brother Gerald. Wellington’s funeral was held at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London in 1852.

A churchgoer

The Duke of Wellington was a churchgoer. When he was resident in London, he went to the early morning service at St. James’s Church in Piccadilly. Sometime after 1822 he stopped going, as he found the London church too cold. However, he continued to regularly attend services at the local parish church when staying at Stratfield Saye (his country estate in Hampshire) or at Walmer Castle in Kent, where he spent every autumn in his role as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports from 1829 until his death.

In 1832, the Bishop of Exeter encouraged Wellington to attend public worship more often and show “before the world that you glory in being the servant of God.” (1) Wellington replied:

[T]hat which I am particularly anxious to remove from your mind is the notion that I am a person without any sense of religion. If I am so, I am unpardonable; as I have had opportunities to acquire, and have acquired, a good deal of knowledge upon the subject. …

I am not ostentatious about anything. I am not a ‘Bible Society Man’ upon principle, and I make no ostentatious display either of charity or of other Christian virtues, though I believe that, besides enormous sums given to hundreds and thousands who have positive claims upon me, there is not a charity of any description within my reach to which I am not a contributor….

Whenever or wherever my presence at church can operate as an example I do go. I never am absent from divine service at Walmer or when I am in Hampshire, or in any place in the country where my presence or absence could be observed.

But it must be recollected that some ten years ago I met with an accident which affected my hearing, and, in point of fact, I never hear more than what I know by heart of the Church service, and never one word of the sermon.

Then observe that during at least eight months of the year I should have to sit for two hours every week uncovered in a cold church: this would certainly have the effect of depriving me of the sense of hearing altogether. … [I]t is true that I do not attend divine service in any parish in London. But excepting that duty, which I never fail to perform in the country, I don’t know of any that I leave unperformed. (2)

One of the charities to which Wellington contributed was the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, of which he became a member in 1819. One of his biographers noted that, “having been reminded by a greatly daring secretary two years later that he had so far paid no subscriptions, he gave £50 that year and 5 guineas annually until practically the end of his life.” (3)

In 1839, the artist Benjamin Haydon stayed at Walmer Castle and attended church with the Duke of Wellington, sitting in the Duke’s pew.

From the bare wainscot, the absence of curtains, the dirty green footstools, and common chairs, I feared I was in the wrong pew… .The Duke pulled out his prayer-book and followed the clergyman in the simplest way. … At the name of Jesus Christ the Duke bowed his silvery hairs like the humblest labourer, and yet not more than others, but to the same degree. He seemed to wish for no distinction. At the epistle he stood upright, like a soldier, and when the blessing was pronounced he buried his head in one hand, and uttered his prayer as if it came from his heart in humbleness. (4)

The following year, in conversation with Viscount Mahon, Wellington condemned the practice of wealthy parishioners buying pews. “He said that if space were wanted in Stratfield Saye he should certainly offer to give up his pew, retaining only a chair for himself. ‘The system of a church establishment is,’ added he, ‘that every clergyman should preach the word of God, and that every parishioner should be able to hear the word of God. Is it not then quite contrary to that system that by means of handsome family pews twenty or thirty persons of rank should take up the space of two or three hundred?’” (5)

In 1849, Wellington explained his churchgoing to his friend Angela Burdett-Coutts as follows:

[T]he law requires that we should all attend divine service in the church of our parish if possible; and I do so invariably excepting in London. My deafness and liability to catch cold in my head and ears render it necessary to attend divine service in a warmer place…. I have been satisfied with attendance once a day because, my public duties being very extensive, I find myself under the necessity of attending to them on Sundays, at times even till late in the night. I consider that the attendance at divine service in public is a duty upon every individual in high station, who has a large house and many servants, and whose example might influence the conduct of others. I have never thought it necessary to attend twice in the day at any time. But I may be altogether wrong; and I should be sorry to advise you to neglect a duty which, if not necessary, cannot be otherwise than meritorious and cannot do you an injury! (6)

A man of faith

Duke of Wellington by Robert Haydon who observed him at religion

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, by Benjamin Robert Haydon, 1839, NPG 6265 © National Portrait Gallery, London. Used under license: CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

The Duke of Wellington’s attention to religious observance was not just a matter of duty or keeping up appearances. He had faith in God, and a belief that he was under God’s protection. When he narrowly escaped from French forces after winning the Battle of Sorauren in Spain in 1813, he wrote to his brother William, “I escaped as usual unhurt and I begin to believe that the finger of God is upon me.” (7) After the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, he similarly wrote, “The finger of Providence was upon me, and I escaped unhurt.” (8) In one of his conversations with Mahon, Wellington “alluded to the religious state of England, and in very solemn and emphatic terms declared his confidence – which he said often rose in his mind – that God Almighty would not allow our Church to be subverted.” (9)

Wellington believed that the Lord’s Prayer contained “the sum total of religion and morals.” (10) And here’s a fun fact: he told Mahon more than once that he had learned Spanish while on his way to fight Napoleon’s forces in the Iberian Peninsula “by means of a Spanish prayer-book – that is, a translation into Spanish of the English Common Prayer.” (11)

Wellington also took to heart Christian teachings on forgiveness. “When an army colonel asked him how he could forgive and reinstate Sir Robert Wilson, a soldier who had intrigued so much against him, the Duke answered that he himself had done many things which required forgiveness, ‘& he hoped God who was a God of Peace would forgive him.’” (12)

Wellington called Alexander Keith’s Demonstration of the Truth of Christianity “the most interesting work upon any subject that I ever perused” and told a friend he sat up “half the night” reading it. (13)

The importance of religious education

The Duke of Wellington considered that religious faith was essential to civic peace and order. Mahon noted the “energy and earnestness of manner with which…he deprecated mere ‘secular education’ – knowledge without religion – and doubted whether the devil himself could devise a worse scheme of social destruction.” (14)

In December 1840, Mahon wrote:

I cut out the following from yesterday’s Standard; it is an extract from a speech of the Bishop of Exeter last week at his Diocesan Board of Education: ‘He had been told by a distinguished individual that when the Duke of Wellington returned from India, now about thirty years since, he found the whole country hot upon the subject of education, for the system of Lancaster was just then breached, and the matter appeared to have excited in every quarter the most lively interest. The Duke happened to be present one day at the house of a nobleman of high station when the subject was taken up with considerable earnestness by the company, and he then took occasion to say, ‘Take care what you are about, for unless you base all this on religion, you are only making so many clever devils.’ (15)

Two years later, Wellington had a long conversation with Mahon on the topic of education.

The Duke said that the necessity of national education, and the best means for it, often occupied his thoughts, and he explained to me the outlines of a plan which he thought would best meet the difficulties of the case. He spoke with much emphasis and deep and earnest feeling on the public duty as well as the public interest involved in teaching every man what he owes to the Almighty, to his neighbours, and to the State – recurring more than once to each of these three branches. …I remember these precise words on the Church: ‘It is the Church of England that has made England what she is – a nation of honest men!’ (16)

Role of the clergy

Wellington did not, however, believe that clergymen should get involved in “the broils of the county.” (17) He refused to appoint them as magistrates, and thought they ought to concentrate on ministering to their parishioners. In 1832, he responded to a rector of an Irish parish who, in the context of local disturbances, had written to him wondering whether he should remove his family to Canada.

You are a minister of the Church of England. You have, I understand, a cure of souls. Can you abandon your post in a moment of crisis and danger for worldly objects? Your flock ought to provide for your decent and comfortable subsistence, and they not only do not perform their duty, but they persecute you. Well, ought you then for this to abandon them? Is it not your duty to remain at your post and hope for better times? Make every exertion, every sacrifice, to enable you to do justice by everybody, including your family; but I confess that if I was in your situation I would not quit my post. (18)

View of other religions

The Duke of Wellington was tolerant of Catholics. When he was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, he worked hard to ensure passage of the Roman Catholic Relief Act (also known as the Catholic Emancipation Act) of 1829, including threatening to resign if King George IV did not provide royal assent. The Act allowed Catholics to sit in Parliament.

However, Wellington opposed a similar measure for the Jews. When the Jewish Civil Disabilities Bill came before the House of Lords in 1833, he said:

I have not the least doubt that there are many officers of that religion of great merit and distinction, but still I must again repeat they are not Christians; and, therefore, sitting as I do in a Christian legislature, I cannot advise the Sovereign on the throne to sanction a law to admit them to seats in this House, and the other House of Parliament, and to all the rights and privileges enjoyed by Christians. (19)

Wellington voted against the bill, which was defeated.

Anecdotes of the Duke of Wellington at church

Our hero caught napping at last! By John Doyle, 1844

In a book published over 40 years after the Duke of Wellington’s death, Anglican priest Samuel Hole wrote that Bishop Jackson, Rector of St. James’s Piccadilly, had told him that “one morning, when he was preaching in the Chapel Royal of St. James’s, he was much perplexed by the conduct of a verger, who, at the close of the sermon, opened the door of the pulpit, and just as the preacher was about to step through, suddenly closed it with all his force, and with a noise which rang through the building. ‘I looked at him for an explanation,’ the bishop continued, ‘and he informed me in a whisper that his Grace the Duke of Wellington was asleep, and that, not liking to touch him, they adopted this method of rousing him from his slumbers.’ There was no necessity to repeat the bombardment, as ‘that good gray head, which all men knew,’ was no longer nodding.” (20)

Closer to Wellington’s time, another cleric, Henry William Maddock, included the following in a sermon he preached at All Saints’ Church, St. John’s Wood on the Sunday after the Duke of Wellington’s funeral.

[O]n one occasion attending at his parish church the Lord’s Supper, [the Duke’s] fellow-worshippers, not at first aware of his presence, were advancing before him to the altar, and afterwards, perceiving him to be amongst them, were making way for him to pass, he waived the distinction, declaring, emphatically, we are all equal here. (21)

This anecdote was enthusiastically taken up and embellished by subsequent clergymen and Sunday School teachers. Here’s an example from an 1863 American publication.

It is related of the Duke of Wellington, that once when he remained to take the sacrament at his parish church, a very poor old man went up the opposite aisle, and reaching the communion table, knelt down close by the side of the duke. Someone (probably a pew owner) came and touched the poor man on the shoulder, and whispered to him to move further away, or to rise and wait until the duke had received the bread and wine. But the eagle eye, and the quick ear of the great commander caught the meaning of that touch and that whisper. He clasped the old man’s hand, and held him, to prevent his rising, and in a reverential undertone, but most distinctly, said, ‘Do not move – we are all equal here.’ (22)

At this point it is worth recalling Wellington’s poor hearing.

By 1889, the parishioner had become “a poor labourer who was making way for the duke to kneel first at the altar.” (23) In some renditions, the Duke puts his hand on the fellow’s shoulder, rather than clasps his hand, and so on. The anecdote continues to crop up even today.

Thanks to Beatrice de Graaf and Lotte Jensen for suggesting a post about the Duke of Wellington and religion.

You might also enjoy:

Was Napoleon religious?

Assassination Attempts on the Duke of Wellington

Giuseppina Grassini, Mistress of Napoleon and Wellington

What did the Duke of Wellington think of Louis XVIII?

The Wellington Door Knocker & Other Door Knocker History

Arthur Wellesley, Despatches, Correspondence, and Memoranda of Field Marshal Arthur Duke of Wellington, Volume VIII (London, 1880), p. 146.
Ibid., pp. 148-149.
Elizabeth Longford, Wellington: Pillar of State (New York, 1972), p. 88.
Tom Taylor, ed. Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon, Second Edition, Volume III (London, 1853), pp. 125-126.
Philip Henry Stanhope, Notes of Conversations with the Duke of Wellington, 1831-1851, Third Edition (London, 1889), pp. 234-235.
Seventh Duke of Wellington (ed.), Wellington and His Friends (London, 1965), pp. 279-80.
Elizabeth Longford, Wellington: The Years of the Sword (New York, 1969), p. 330.
Arthur Richard Wellesley, ed., Supplementary Despatches, Correspondence and Memoranda of Field Marshal Arthur Duke of Wellington, Volume X (London, 1863), p. 531.
Notes of Conversations with the Duke of Wellington, p. 160.
Wellington: Pillar of State, p. 406.
Notes of Conversations with the Duke of Wellington, p. 291.
Wellington: Pillar of State, p. 406.
Wellington and His Friends, 153-154.
Notes of Conversations with the Duke of Wellington, pp. 179-180.
Ibid., p. 261.
Ibid., p. 282.
Wellington: Pillar of State, p. 88.
Notes of Conversations with the Duke of Wellington, p. 35.
The Speeches of the Duke of Wellington in Parliament, Volume I (London, 1854), p. 674.
Samuel Reynolds Hole, The Memories of Dean Hole, New Edition (London, 1893), pp. 126-127.
Henry William Maddock, A Sermon, Preached on Sunday Morning, Nov. 21, 1852, Being the Sunday After the Funeral of the Duke of Wellington at All Saints’ Church, St. John’s Wood, pp. 10-11.
H. Harbaugh, ed., The Guardian: A Monthly Magazine Devoted to the Social, Literary and Religious Interests of Young Men and Ladies, Vol. XIV (Chambersburg, PA, 1863), p. 100.
C. Dunkley, ed., The Official Report of the Church Congress Held at Cardiff on October 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th, 1889 (London, 1889), p. 98.

Although Ukraine has not always been an independent state, it has a long history as a region with its own identity. Here are some captivating descriptions of Ukraine provided by visitors to the Russian Empire in the mid-19th century.

A Fair in Ukraine, by Aleksey Kivshenko, 1882

Visiting Ukraine in 1836

British traveller Robert Bremner journeyed to Russia in 1836 as part of a general tour across Europe. Russia was then under the rule of Tsar Nicholas I, the younger brother of Alexander I, who was the tsar during Napoleon’s failed 1812 invasion of Russia. Bremner visited St. Petersburg (which was then the capital of Russia), Moscow and Nizhny Novgorod. He then headed southwest to Ukraine, which received relatively few tourists from Britain.

Ukraine was not a separate country at the time. Most of present-day Ukraine was part of the Russian Empire, while a portion of western Ukraine (including Lviv) fell under the Austrian Empire. Bremner arrived with a romantic view of the region, based in part on Lord Byron’s poem Mazeppa, about the legendary early life of Ukrainian military leader Ivan Mazepa. Bremner referred to Ukraine as “the land of freedom; for no Cossack is a serf, like the degraded Russian peasant.” He also called it “the land of romance and of wild adventure.” (1)

Kharkiv

The first sizable place Bremner encountered in Ukraine was Kharkiv (Kharkoff, Kharkov), the administrative capital of the area.

The outskirts of the town present some very good buildings, especially a hospital and a lunatic asylum, adjoining each other, both highly spoken of for their excellent arrangements. The university is also said to be very flourishing. Nor need the reader start at the announcement: why should not the Ukraine have a university, as well as a scientific association, all very well lodged in large, dull, white buildings? The information that the university is in such a thriving state we could hardly reconcile, however, with the fact, that though there are upwards of ninety professors or teachers connected with it, yet there are only somewhere about three hundred students in attendance. But the anomaly was explained by the circumstance that many of the university people are employed in correspondence and business of various kinds, connected with the wide extent of country over whose educational interests this alma mater watches. The Crimea, Astrakhan, the Caucasus form part of her charge, to say nothing of the Cossacks of the Don and those of the Black Sea. …

The chief part of the town lies in a wide slope looking to the south. The streets, and the deserts (nicknamed squares) surrounded by houses, are as ample as usual, but with the uncomfortable addition of sand – oceans of it, so wide and deep that the laden steers, many of which were entering from every side, could scarcely wind through it with all their patience….

So far from being deserted, Kharkoff is both very showy and prosperous, as we soon began to discover by the busy fair which was going on near the quarter where we found shelter, at one of the best hotels in Russia. The streets and squares in this part of the town were filled with lines of booths, and open tables loaded with goods, ranged so thick that we could scarcely make our way through them. Several fairs are held here in the course of the year, and during the time that these continue, the stationary population of fourteen thousand is increased by many thousands belonging to the various Cossack tribes, who flock thither from all the surrounding districts to buy and sell. …

The wool sold here is chiefly raised from the flocks of Merino sheep, now spread all over the south of Russia, but towards the Crimea, in particular, and partly from Silesian fleeces. … [T]he commerce, generally speaking, is of a much more humble character than that of [Nizhny Novgorod], the articles being chiefly of the kind suited for an agricultural population. Farming implements of every description, from wooden ploughs and pitchforks to rude beams for the horse’s neck, were strewed about in great profusion. The quantity of iron articles surprised us; there was a greater bulk of them than of anything else. Church bells, a curious stock to bring to a market, heavy and new, were exposed in considerable numbers. Coarse cloths and cotton stuffs occupied some temporary booths. The groceries were in a handsome bazaar. Fish of all kinds constitute a valuable portion of the stores: besides our old friends, the sturgeon and sterlet dried, we here found some other varieties of the sterlet tribe. Large casks of ikri, or caviar, were also displayed in the sun – an article of such importance in Russia, that it cannot be dismissed without more explicit notice. (2)

Bremner enjoyed visiting the “penny-shows,” one of which he recognized.

It was a panorama of Constantinople, which began its career in London, and after making the tour of all the capitals of Europe, had now come to close its days among the Cossacks of the Ukraine! In other corners trumpet and drum announced the usual muster of peeps, giants, jugglers, dogs, – and such dogs! All drilled by a man as stiff and as solemn as his master the emperor at a review. The weeping philosopher himself would have laughed had it only been to see how the Russians enjoyed the grave bowing of the dogs, their dignified politeness, their courtly minuets, their coach-driving, their love-making, their flounces, their petticoats, their red uniforms. Then there was the puppy with the impudent tail and dubious attire. Oh! wonderful dogs, and more wonderful puppies! A lady, who came with her children, seemed to wonder that Englishmen could care for such things. (3)

Rural Ukraine

Haymaking in Ukraine, by Mykola Pymonenko, late 1800s

The journey from Kharkiv to Poltava gave Bremner a chance to express his enthusiasm for rural Ukraine.

The crops had been gathered in, but it was easy to see that the soil we were travelling through is one of the finest in the world. It is so rich that our notes, taken on the spot…contain repeated entries of ‘Wonderfully productive!’ ‘What crops they have been reaping!’ ‘Never have seen such a rich tract!’ …

The convoys of cattle and wagons with provisions, of which we had met many throughout the whole of the last three or four hundred miles that we had travelled, here became larger and more numerous. The sun was setting as we entered one of them, which had halted for the night…. The oxen had been unyoked from the wagons and allowed to mingle with the droves wandering loose in the fields. Many, wearied by the long march, had sunk down in the ruts; and the large half-gnawed heads and thigh-bones both of oxen and horses, scattered among the surrounding bushes…showed how probable it was that some of the poor brutes which we were now disturbing with our wheels would not join the forward throng in the morning. …

Fires had been lighted at different points in the wide bivouac; and at some of these the waggoneers were preparing their meal; while at others the blacksmiths of the band had pitched their implements, and were busy repairing the damages of the day. We had been told that there was danger in passing these convoys at night; but neither here, nor in passing through others at later hours, when it was much darker, did anything occur to us of a nature to confirm the charge. Flocks of oxen meet the traveller in the Ukraine so frequently that we cannot dismiss them without more particular mention. They are destined for the markets of Moscow and St. Petersburg; the one five hundred and the other nine hundred miles distant. If many die in this long journey, the price obtained for the survivors fully covers the loss. …

The Ukraine ox…is large in limb and horn, and has altogether a very different look from our own fine breeds. … The head in particular is different from that of any ox we ever saw, being very short from the horn downwards, and terminating in a broad muzzle, reminding one of that of the lion. The long limbs and flabby sides must take much time to feed compared with our tidy race; yet it is said that on good pasture they fatten very soon, and bring great profit to the dealers. The flesh is juicy, and far superior to anything found in France or Germany. …

After getting through the first of these vast herds, the evening became so beautiful, that, with the aid of the moonlight, we drove along most delightfully. In every hamlet nothing but singing was to be heard, from the young women walking arm-in-arm on the little foot-paths. … The cricket, too, was chirruping in the thatch; and just as we were musing in the porch on all these pleasant themes, and especially on the cheerful contrast which this part of the emperor’s dominions affords to that which we had left, up came a mule, the first of his tribe seen in Russia, to tell us that we were in quite a new region, where the people are as different from the Russian in origin and manners as the droschky-horse of the Neva is from his reverence the mule of the Ukraine. …

Most of our party were fast asleep as we passed through a cottage-looking place, of very strange appearance, and so lost a very singular scene. The struggling light of the moon, just about to sink, falling upon it, produced such a picture of dreary repose as has seldom been surpassed: the place seemed the Wyoming of Russia – a spot where gentle beings might dwell, and never dream of a world without. The small thatched cottages, clean and comfortable, with tapering roofs descending almost to the ground, standing in the middle of large fresh gardens, well stocked with shrubs and fruit-trees, looked exactly like large bee-hives, of which plenty of small ones were to be seen among the shrubs. …

[J]ust as we reached the last straggling lanes of the place, a troop of peasant girls were heard returning from some wake, singing, though it was now near midnight, as merrily as if it had been noonday. The people of the post-house…wondered greatly to see folks taking their dinner at one o’clock in the morning; but a few roubles sent them back pleased to their sleep, and we jogged on through this strangest of countries. We could see that it was very populous; there were villages at the end of every mile, and many lay far back on either hand. But there was a kind of population soon began to make themselves heard, that we had not reckoned on … the poultry: cocks, hens, and chickens— geese, turkeys, every winged creature that man ever tamed — long before dawn filled the air with such a crowing, droning murmur, as at first we could in nowise comprehend. It seemed as if the whole region had been one large hen-roost. …

The villages were scattered around us by hundreds. The country is not picturesque; for scarcely any wood grows in it. Near the road it is very flat, but farther back on the west is an irregular ridge, by the foot of which a stream is seen. The whole space commanded by the eye is dotted with houses — some in hamlets, some solitary, but all surrounded by such careful ingenious cultivation as is seldom to be seen in any country. Many of the farm-steads stand by themselves, which is rarely seen in the higher parts of Russia; and in general they have a very comfortable look. Each farm has its windmill, and the hamlets are guarded by whole squadrons of them; water-mills are also frequent. Had anything been wanting to convince us of the industrious habits of the people, it would have been furnished by the early hours which…they are in the habit of observing. Obedient to the call of chanticleer, they were moving before it was light; and when day had fully appeared, not one was to be seen idle. Some were driving cattle to the pasture, some searching for pigs that had wandered overnight, and some, finally, were marshalling the feathered stock, which had puzzled us so much. (4)

Poltava

In the Poltava Region, by Serhii Vasylkivsky, late 1800s

Bremner arrived in Poltava (Pultava), which was best known as the site of the 1709 Battle of Poltava, in which a Russian army led by Peter the Great gained a decisive victory over a Swedish army under King Charles XII. The battle was part of the Great Northern War, in which Sweden was ultimately defeated. Sweden’s allies included the Cossacks under the above-mentioned Ivan Mazepa.

The white towers of Pultava…began to appear on their lofty point, while we were yet twenty miles away from them; and the gay sight enabled us to fast, with tolerable patience, for a few hours more. Our self-denial…was probably aided…by the knowledge…that here, in the midst of plenty, the post-houses are even more scantily stored than in less wealthy provinces; for the hospitable people of the Ukraine like better to give a man a dinner than to send him to the tavern to pay for one.

We had long remarked that the Russian roads are always worst near towns; and that leading to Pultava did not contradict the rule. For the last ten miles it runs through a tract of heavy sand, with wooded swamps on either hand. What these swamps must have been in winter, the season in which Charles XII was wandering through them, may easily be imagined when we see that even in summer they are almost impassable….

The scene of action, now covered with rich corn-fields, lies to the south-west of the town, on a plain about four miles from the principal gate. In going to it, we first followed the road to Kieff [Kyiv], but soon struck off to the right, by a path leading through fields where nothing was left by the reaper but some patches of buckwheat. A little hill, if we may apply the term to an artificial height, rising not much above thirty feet from the ground, with a large, white cross on its summit, which had for some time attracted our attention, proved to be the mound which marks the burial-trenches of the enemy. On ascending the naked sides of this funeral mount – for even the green sod has never flourished on its mould – we found an inscription in Russian, painted on the transverse part of the cross, stating, without any pompous exaggeration, in less than a dozen of words, ‘Here are interred the Swedes who fell in the great day of Pultava.’…

Pultava must in former days have been a place of great strength; now it is merely a showy town, with abundance of green domes and crowding pinnacles, scattered along the extensive height. An ill-kept rampart still surrounds the most exposed parts; but, finding only six hundred soldiers here, we inferred that little importance is attached to it in a military point of view. It covers a great deal of ground, but the streets, though as straight and as long as all other streets in Russia, are not so decaying and dull in their look as those of many other towns. The larger and more ancient of the houses are of wood, but there are many handsome structures of recent date built of stone; among which are the imperial institution for the education of young ladies…. A fine building for the corps des cadets is now in progress. Near it is a vast market-place, which must be more than half a mile long, with a square bazaar in the centre and small shops in the piazzas which run round the whole space. On the side of the town lying nearest the field of battle is a very handsome square, round which stand the mansions of the governor, the director of police, and other high officials, with a fine shady garden, London-fashion, in the centre, – the only thing of the kind seen in Russia. This garden is adorned with a fine monument to Peter the Great, consisting of a green bronze column, fifty feet high, surmounted by the Russian eagle, which eagerly raises its neck, and flutters its wings, as if impatient to fly toward the field of battle, on which its gaze is fixed. Some extremely handsome mansions, scattered through the town, are occupied by the nobility of the district, many of whom are very rich. …

A good many Germans, chiefly tradesmen, are mixed with the population of the town; and the Jews…are in great force. We were surprised to find here one of the finest public walks on the continent. It is called the Imperial Garden, and forms the boundary of the town to the south-east, where it covers one of the slopes, and part of the bottom of a beautiful valley, closed in on every side by lofty ridges. There are some very fine trees, with walks through them, and well-kept seats, commanding the finest points of view. In this valley we first saw the vine in Russia. There were some rich clusters of fruit on the plants, but the people of the town who accompanied us in our walk assured us that, from the frosts setting in so much earlier than formerly, grapes now never ripen here. …

Though so highly distinguished by its fidelity to Russia during the desperate struggles with Sweden in Peter’s time, Pultava appears now to have cooled in its loyalty. We were amazed – for there are few places in Russia chargeable with the same crime – that the Pultavians rejoiced at the first successes of the French, and prepared to welcome them as deliverers. When Napoleon was in Moscow, pikes and arms were secretly prepared here for a general rising throughout the district; but the sudden reverses of the great soldier put an end to all their schemes of insurrection. When the French were defeated, however, as the people of Pultava had shown so much anxiety to have these foreigners amongst them, a good many of the prisoners were sent to them. …

One of the branches of industry prosecuted here is singular enough: it is the gathering of leeches for the Hamburg dealers. … Having exhausted all the lakes of Silesia, Bohemia, and other more frequented parts of Europe, the buyers are now rolling gradually and implacably eastward, carrying death and desolation among the leeches in their course – sweeping all before them, till now they have got as far as Pultava, the pools and swamps about which are yielding them great captures. Here a thousand leeches are sold for four roubles (3s. 4d.); at Hamburg…the same number is sold for 120 roubles (near £5); and in England the country apothecary pays £9 and £12. 10s. for the quantity which originally only cost 3s. 4d. But of every thousand at least seven hundred die before reaching England.

In wandering through the deep ravines outside the town, we came on a merry scene of peasants and soldiers, enjoying their holiday. This part of the vicinage is really romantic; straw-thatched cottages, neat and clean, are scattered among well-stocked orchards and large trees, with pieces of water and broken dells all round. Among these, crowds of little black Cossack soldiers were seated in groups on the turf, drinking their vodki in loving harmony, with pears, apples, and cucumbers passing freely from hand to hand. They were greatly pleased when we partook of their proffered cheer, but particularly when the crazy strains of a violin tempted us to enter a low hut, where their wives were waiting to be invited to the dance. And there they footed it right merrily, Cossack and Cossack’s bride, on the hard clay floor. Their dance is a kind of reel, very decent and inoffensive – much more so than the waltzing of French or German peasants. One dance was performed solely by females, three together: two advance hand-in-hand towards their companion, who moves a little to meet them; after some becks and bows, the parties, handkerchief in hand, dance away from each other, and then commence some mazy evolutions, executed with great solemnity of face, the handkerchiefs being always waved round the head at certain turns of the air. (5)

Odessa

Bremner’s last stop in Ukraine was Odessa, which enchanted him.

Odessa, 1843

After the dreary and decaying cities to which we had been so long accustomed, its fresh houses and well paved streets recalled us to ideas of prosperity and comfort. Instead of the deep sloughs which adorn most streets of the interior, we now had good and smooth pavement, on which our wheels, so long silent on the soft grass of the steppes, sounded very pleasantly. People were seated at the windows, and gay robes were seen at every crossing…. Most of the men were in the ordinary dress of Europe, the Russian garb being seldom seen here, and never but in the remote quarters of the city. The shops too were like those of our more familiar experience, with large windows exhibiting the usual display of gaieties. What struck us most, however, was the improvement in the appearance of the women. …

Odessa overhangs a wide and beautiful bay of the Black Sea, situated near two important estuaries, called the Khodjabeyskoi and the Kuialskoi estuaries, both formed by the great Kuialnek rivers. Its principal division extends along the top of a bold range of cliffs, commanding an extensive sea-view, and the ever-varying clusters of the ships of all nations floating in the harbour below. Immediately on the top of this cliff is the beautiful public walk, planted with flowering shrubs and trees, whose verdure is doubly welcome in a country so completely destitute of woods. A conspicuous spot near this walk is adorned with a statue of the late Due de Richelieu, who was governor of the city…. On either side of this statue, and parallel to the summit of the cliffs, runs a line of splendid mansions, comprising the residences of the governor and the principal inhabitants. From this terrace a street branches off at right angles, communicating with the quarter in which the Opera, the Exchange, and the principal hotels are situated. From the Exchange run broad and regular streets in every direction, a few of them paved with broad slabs like the streets of Naples, and the rest macadamized. Some stretch along the shore, both north and south, some through a deep and rugged ravine to the south-west, and some, of great length, extend towards the country. In this last direction lie the public markets, the streets beyond which are exceedingly mean. The houses in the best quarters are very lofty and handsome, being generally built of a light-coloured stone, and roofed with sheets of iron, or painted wood. The stone used in building is of the same composition as the rocks on which the city stands, and the many others which abound in the neighbourhood. It is a kind of semi-indurated lime-stone, containing a considerable portion of oxide of iron, and with such immense quantities of cockle-shells mixed up with the principal substance, that many of the houses have the rough appearance of an artificial grotto. …

Of its 45,000 inhabitants, which was stated to us to be the amount of the population at the time of our visit, 4,000 are foreigners, or at least not naturalized Russians. Not less than 8,000 Poles now visit the city every year; the better classes for the sake of sea-bathing, and the poorer to seek employment about the harbour. Nor has Odessa yet reached its full splendour. No one who has considered the many advantages which it enjoys, as the key to a vast district of country whose wants are daily increasing and whose inexhaustible resources are only now beginning to be appreciated, can doubt that it is destined to become one of the greatest commercial cities in the world. …

Nothing that we heard among the merchants surprised us more than the fact that they now export grain all the way to America! It had never been done until the year before our visit; but some cargoes of rye then sent to New York had paid so well that it was intended to make shipments of grain on a much larger scale. … The exportation of oak staves for making barrels, &c. chiefly to England, would appear to be another new branch of trade. They are brought down the Dniepr from the forests of the interior. … Some traffic also now takes place also in the wines of the Crimea, which are fast rising into repute, though we cannot agree with the Russians in thinking that they will supplant the wines of Oporto. … The population of Odessa is at times increased to an enormous degree, by the influx of boors employed in transporting grain. …

To complete the statistics of Odessa it must be added that it contains a very important academic institution, not unknown to the learned world as the Richelieu Lyceum. Though it does not enjoy the nominal rank of a university, this establishment exercises most of the functions of one; for it contains professors (chiefly Germans) of Greek, natural and general history, and all the higher departments of science. It is also provided with a botanic garden, astronomical instruments, &c., and superintends the educational interests of the extensive governments of Kherson, Ekaterinoslaf, and Taurida. It is generally attended by 450 students. …

Of the thousand cities of Russia, Odessa is decidedly the least Russian; for, as in all the other seaports of the empire, the best branches of the trade are in the hands of foreigners. The only portion of it conducted by Russians is the petty traffic along the coast, or on the rivers.

One part of the city is, indeed, sufficiently Russian, both in filth and misery; but it lies so far out of the stranger’s way that he seldom visits it. The quarter best known to him looks very like some of the gayer cities of Italy…. There is also an Italian opera, as well-appointed and patronized as most in Italy…. Of the Italians here, many are engaged in the higher departments of trade. Some are jewellers; some booksellers, or merchants on a small scale; and not a few are employed at the opera.

This being the only place to which the Poles are allowed to resort out of their own country, the number of them here…is very great. In summer, the wealthiest families now remaining all meet at Odessa during the bathing season; and, notwithstanding the jealous and severe surveillance of the emperor’s police, they manage to lead a very gay life. Not a step can they take, however, nor a word can they utter, that is not watched. Many Polish Jews live here as pedlars, valets de place, and servants. … German mechanics of every description are very numerous; and some of the first bankers and merchants belong to that nation. Greeks flock hither in great numbers. … Of the many Frenchmen resident in Odessa, some carry on trade on a very extensive scale, some are employed under government, and others are hotel-keepers, &c. …The least numerous, but not the least important, part of the foreign population is composed of English merchants. …

The villas to which the wealthy residents generally retire every evening during the summer and autumn, are called hutors …. Nothing can be more delightful than these retreats, situated, as they generally are, among shrubs and flowers, on the sea-shore, at the foot of a magnificent range of cliffs, running south-east from the city. The evening at these places is spent by some of our countrymen in fishing excursions, on one of the most beautiful seas in the world. Every walk round these mansions is overhung with fine specimens of the acacia, which is almost the only tree that can be brought to thrive in the country. It is not often, however, that the hutors of Odessa are surrounded by verdure so rich as that which we found near them; for in some years the country is invaded by immense flights of locusts, which leave not a single green leaf either on herb or tree….

Undisturbed…by fear of locusts, or of any other evil to which the land may be subject, we enjoyed ourselves at Odessa as if it were the most favoured spot on earth. … The genial climate and the refreshing watermelons would of themselves make Odessa an Elysium after the chills and the turnips of Muscovy. Though September was now far advanced we were able to bathe in the sea every day. In short — boating parties on the beautiful bay, good dinners with our friends, twilight walks on the promenade where all the best society of the place is to be met, and plenty of music at night — all these helped to make time pass very agreeably, without reckoning certain oriental luxuries, such as the Turkish bath, — which, though the building is not very elegant, may here be enjoyed in as great perfection as at Constantinople itself, — and the seductive chibouque, which he who once touches it seldom lays aside, so long as tobacco can be procured or cherry-tubes will hold together. The gentlemen of Odessa rival the Turks themselves in their passion for smoking. Nor are they here the only lovers of the narcotic weed, for ladies of rank also use it. …

The nobles of this city lead a very gay, and, we fear, a very dissolute life. Sad stories are current regarding their private habits, but we forbear to soil our page with them. Their great place of resort is the opera, without which…they could scarcely live. So fond are the Polish visitors of this amusement, that the boxes are generally all engaged by them two or three years in advance. …. Besides costing the nobles themselves a great deal every year, this theatre is a very serious charge on government; as may be inferred from the fact that a tenor had been engaged for it at an annual salary of 15,000 roubles, with a free house and appointments, worth about 5,000 more; in all about £800; which, it will be allowed, is no bad salary for a singer in a town not much larger than Chester, and in a country where a lieutenant of many years’ standing is thought sufficiently paid with twenty-eight pounds a year. (6)

Kyiv

The Kiev Pechersk Lavra, between 1890 and 1905

Bremner’s tour of Ukraine did not extend to Kyiv (Kieff, Kiev). For a description of this city, we will turn to an unnamed British traveler who visited what he called the Jerusalem of the Slavs in the late 1850s or early 1860s.

On Saturday…we came within sight of the domes and pinnacles and the lofty tower of the far-famed ‘Lavra,’ which proclaimed our approach to the ancient city of Kieff. The heat was certainly intense (it was the beginning of July), and we anticipated a melting sojourn in this semi-tropical climate; but scarcely had we entered the city and been snugly housed amongst our own people (there was a large English engineering staff resident there at that time), when a terrific tempest, ushered in by a rushing whirlwind of sand and dust, and accompanied by thunder and hail, burst over the place. It was, in fact, a complete cyclone, which, before our astonished gaze…threw down everything in its way, uprooted trees, and even tore off the sheet-iron roof of one of the large circular forts which had been newly erected at the entrance to the arsenal, within sight of our residence. This storm effectually dispersed the heat, which did not return during the few weeks of our stay, and this enabled us to enjoy our visit to Kieff most thoroughly.

The aspect of this ancient city is very impressive, more especially when viewed from the far end of the new suspension-bridge crossing the river from the termination of the great causeway which traverses the immense plain of forest and swamp lying northwards on the left bank of the Dnieper. The whole of the settlement is placed on the south, or right, bank of the river; the commercial, or lower town, called the ‘Podohl,’ being much the more ancient, and lying with its mass of closely-packed churches and houses on a large plateau, contiguous to the stream. Going eastwards there is a gradual ascent through the medieval portion, till you arrive at the highest summit of the steep cliffs which overhang the river on its southern bank, and on which are placed some of the chief government buildings, and especially that huge cluster of sacred edifices, truly Oriental in its architecture and splendor, called the ‘Lavra.’ The church and monastery of this ancient and very famous ‘Pecherskaya Lavra’ (to give it its full title) are now enclosed within a series of massive earthwork fortifications, with single circular forts of stone as detached outworks, the whole covering an immense area, with frowning bastions meeting you at every turn, speaking in silent but most convincing of the mighty power of the Czar, by whose permission you have succeeded in penetrating thus far, and who never suffers you to forget that whilst in his dominions you are but an insect in the grasp of a giant.

The entrance to this impressive cluster of edifices, half ecclesiastical, wholly autocratic, is through a splendid gate, ornamented with full-length saintly figures. Then a noble alley, having the cells of the brotherhood placed on each side, conducts the visitor to the cathedral outside, a finer structure – thoroughly Eastern in character, of course – can scarcely be seen in Europe. Seven turrets with gilt cupolas rear their glittering posts upon the roof, connected by chains of solid gold; while, lifting its superb top far above all, stands the belfry tower, isolated from the cathedral itself, and rising to a height of three hundred feet, forming a noble landmark, and affording from its summit a truly magnificent view. … Indeed, but for the view of the interminable ‘steppes’ spreading northwards till closed in by the horizon, I could without difficulty have imagined myself in Constantinople. Looking westwards, we see the far-spreading houses, mingled with trees, gently receding towards the river, till merged in the dense mass of the Podohl three miles away. On the spurs of the high land, whose cliffs formed the boundary of the Dnieper, were placed, on conspicuous sites, the university, the museum, the college, and the other public buildings, all their walls white, all their roofs bright green or deeply ruddy brown; while, shooting up from the sloping sides of the ravine which intersects the town, rise the minarets, the Oriental pinnacles, and the burnished domes and cupolas of the Holy City, glittering in the July sun, and fairly dazzling the eyes with their piquant splendor. And, to relieve all this, on the highest summit of the steep river banks, where the stream gracefully bends inwards, disclosing the old town in the distance, are planted the public pleasure gardens of Kieff, the walks charmingly laid out amidst the trees and shrubberies; and from this elevation, at every opening on the woody crest of the cliff, the delighted traveler looks down along the broad channel of the Dnieper, flowing on its mighty stream more than three hundred feet below, and visible far away till its silvery windings are finally lost to view in the mazy distance of the still summer air.

But we have taken an unexpected flight from the Lavra tower to the wooded cliffs of the public gardens two miles away. Let us return by the same aerial and easy method, and then, descending from our giddy climb, look inside the Lavra cathedral, dedicated to the ‘Ascension of the Virgin’…. You must not look for the groined roof, or lofty pillars, or pointed arches of our Western fanes, but you will scarcely be disappointed amidst the burst of subdued splendor which meets your gaze from every side. The light is almost entirely artificial, dimly streaming from innumerable wax tapers, and the sickly flame of sacred lamps which burn before every gilded shrine, and which are ranged in countless profusion before the gorgeous altar-piece of the Virgin at the eastern extremity. This magnificent reredos is known to be of solid silver, and is richly gilt; the image of the Virgin, as well as of the many saints who…are worshipped in this cathedral, are set with precious stones and gems. The walls are frescoed with pictorial scenes from Scripture history, and the ceiling is richly and elaborately decorated. …

One very remarkable feature in connection with the Pecherskaya Lavra is the labyrinth of catacombs excavated in the face of the steep cliff on which this monastery settlement is built. In fact, there are two series of these catacombs, the smaller dedicated to St. Theodosius, while the larger, and by far the most venerated – indeed, the great attraction to pilgrims – contains about eighty bodies of saints in open coffins, ranged on either side of a dark, narrow gallery, black with age and with the thick crust of torch smoke. These are the catacombs of St. Anthony, whose stiffened corpse is enshrined at the farther end of the passage; and, incredible as it may seem, these shriveled tenants of the open coffins are the actual bodies of the venerable dead, wrapped in rich and costly grave-clothes, their clay-cold withered hand stretched out to receive the oblations of the faithful. Even a more horrible sight is a row of small windows, behind which, walled up into the sandy rock, are built in the remains of self-made martyrs, who, though they did not refuse the food supplied through these apertures, yet all, as may be imagined, soon came to a miserable end.

Leaving this subterranean scene of horrors, let us emerge into the bright sunlight on the cliff side, and make our way down to the edge of the deep-flowing Dnieper. Now let us cross the stream, but not by that decaying old bridge of boats, with its leaking planks swaying and shifting at every step; this is needless now, for an English engineer has just thrown across the river a magnificent suspension bridge, one of the longest and beyond comparison the finest in the world. Its length is half a mile, the openings between the five massive piers being four of a span of 440 feet each, besides two openings of 225 feet at either extremity. On the side next the city is a swivel bridge-opening, fifty feet wide, by which such craft as cannot pass beneath the fixed platform are enabled to pursue the rest of their voyage down the river. …

Our stay at Kieff was prolonged for some weeks, and the writer of this paper by no means found the time hang heavy on his hands. The society in the place contained several families of high birth and accomplishments, descended from the oldest and purest Polish lineage, the ladies certainly being remarkable perhaps above all other European nations for their beauty of face and form, and their manners of unrivalled fascination. May every traveler enjoy Kieff as much as we did, and leave it by a less laborious and venturesome route. (7)

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Robert Bremner, Excursions in the Interior of Russia, Vol. II (London, 1839), p. 356.
Ibid., pp. 359-362.
Ibid., p. 368.
Ibid., pp. 370-378.
Ibid., pp. 388-411.
Ibid., pp. 480-504.
“A Summer Tour in Northern Europe,” The Leisure Hour: A Family Journal of Instruction and Religion (London, 1866), pp. 747-749.

The Palais-Royal, a former royal palace in Paris, was a spectacular shopping, entertainment and dining complex for the first half of the 19th century. It attracted all of Parisian society, from the high to the low. In Napoleon in America, when General Jean-Pierre Piat is trying to confuse the policeman who is following him, he heads for the galleries of the Palais-Royal, “aiming to lose himself among the philosophers and rogues, the idle and the profligate, the pickpockets and ladies of fair virtue.” (1)

Galleries of the Palais-Royal in 1800

Royal palace

The Palais-Royal was built between 1633 and 1639 for Cardinal Richelieu, King Louis XIII’s chief minister. When Richelieu died, the property was left to the king. During the reign of Louis XIV, the Palais-Royal became the residence of the king’s younger brother, the Duke of Orléans, and his family.

The Palais-Royal continued as the off-and-on dwelling of the Orléans family until the late 18th century, undergoing several renovations in the process. In 1780, it came into the possession of Louis Philippe II d’Orléans. His extravagant lifestyle had left him deep in debt, so he decided to turn the palace into a money-spinner. He built rows of apartments and arcaded commercial space around the palace garden, rented them out, and opened the garden and arcades to the public. Only drunkards, women clothed exceptionally indecently, and people dressed in rags were refused entry. The Palais-Royal became home to shops, cafes, restaurants, theatres and more, including gamblers, pickpockets and prostitutes. In 1787, the Cirque du Palais-Royal – a glass-roofed hall that hosted performances, food, boutiques and gaming – opened in the centre of the garden. The Palais-Royal was the social, shopping and entertainment centre of Paris.

Revolution

Camille Desmoulins speaking at the Palais-Royal on July 12, 1789

Philippe was liberal-minded, so the Palais-Royal was also a gathering place for political dissidents. On July 12, 1789, journalist Camille Desmoulins stood on a table outside a café in the Palais-Royal garden and urged the crowd to take up arms against the Bourbon monarchy. Two days later the mob stormed the Bastille, starting the French Revolution.

Philippe supported the Revolution. In 1792, he changed his name to Philippe Égalité. The Palais-Royal became the Palais-Égalité. Philippe even voted in favour of the execution of his cousin, King Louis XVI. However, because of his royal background he was himself guillotined in November 1793. The Palais-Royal was confiscated by the French state. The government continued to rent it out to respectable tenants. In December 1798, the Cirque du Palais-Royal was destroyed by fire.

The Palais-Royal under Napoleon

Napoleon visiting the Tribunat, by Merry-Joseph Blondel

Napoleon visiting the Tribunat in the Palais-Royal in 1807, by Merry-Joseph Blondel

As a young officer in Paris, Napoleon visited the garden and arcades of the Palais-Royal. After coming to power in 1799, he installed the Tribunat – a legislative assembly created on January 1, 1800 – in the palace.

[T]o make the locality available a number of market-stalls were compulsorily removed and the owners forcibly ejected; casinos and houses of ill-fame were also suppressed. The choice of such a locality was the object of many pleasantries, and it was generally considered that the place was chosen on purpose to throw contempt on the Tribunat.

One of the Tribunes…brought forward a motion of order on this subject. Instead of blaming the place chosen, he felicitated the Tribunat on sitting in the Palais Royal. ‘As soldiers of liberty,’ he said, ‘we are well placed in the very spot where the national cockade was first worn. If monarchical ambition were once more to send here its armed satellites we could point them to the places where the soldiers of the former Monarchy first waved over their heads the new-born banner of liberty. If they dared to reproach us with an idol of fifteen days [a reference to Napoleon], we could remind them that here began the overthrow of an idol of fifteen centuries [a reference to the French monarchy].’ (2)

An Englishman who visited Paris shortly after peace was temporarily concluded between Britain and France in 1801 wrote a description of the Palais-Royal on January 1, 1802. It was the French custom to celebrate New Year’s Day by giving gifts to relatives and friends.

The Palais Royal, as it is universally called (notwithstanding its first revolutionary and already superannuated name of ‘Jardin d’Égalité’ and its present constitutional one of ‘Palais du Tribunat’) was thronged this morning with persons of all classes, who soon dispersed themselves among the various shops, in order to purchase these little annual presents, or ‘étrennes,’ as they are called in the language of the country. The jewelers vied with each other in displaying, in their windows, all the taste, fashion, and magnificence of their choicest merchandise; and diamond rings, pearl lockets, and amber necklaces offered to gallantry elegant but expensive means of testifying its ardour. The milliners brought forth their finest lace, their most tawdry colours, and their most extravagant patterns; and the confectioners, with streamers at their door, ornamented cakes within, perfumed bon bons, and amorous mottoes, soon found the means of filling their respective shops.

What an extraordinary place is the Palais Royal! There is nothing like it in any town in Europe. I remember hearing an English epicure once observe, ‘that as soon as the peace took place, he would give himself the happiness of passing six weeks in the Palais Royal, without once going out of its gates.’ Certainly, if a man be contented with sensual pleasures, there is not one which he may not gratify within the walls of this building. Restaurateurs, or taverns, where dinners are served from ten sols to two louis a head. Coffee houses, where, for three-pence, the lounger may pass the whole of his day in playing chess, talking politics, or reading the papers. Gambling houses, where the man of pleasure, at the risk of all that is dearest to him in life, purchases the anxious feelings which fear and hope excite, and where the chevalier d’industrie finds the disgraceful means of a dishonourable existence. Taylors, haberdashers, silversmiths, and watchmakers offer every variety of clothing, of ornament, and of machinery. Booksellers’ shops are seen in every corner, where the homme de lettres finds his favourite authors, the romantic young lady her novels, and the politician his pamphlets. Opticians, where the frequenter of spectacles purchases his opera glass, and the philosopher his telescope. Crowds of unfortunate, and sometimes lovely females, challenge, with every variety of dress, the attention of passengers, and, while they offer a too easy banquet to libertines and dotards, fill every reflecting mind with pity and with sorrow….

[W]hile the cellars are filled with inferior restaurateurs, or eating houses, where bands of music are constantly playing, frequently dressed in theatrical costumes, the upper rooms are occupied with gambling parties, cabinets of intrigue, and coffee-houses. The latter have every variety of decoration; some are painted to represent the Alps, and others are covered with glass, reflecting in every direction a different room. The gambling tables are numerous; and I am assured, that on the stairs, descending from one of these, there is a pawnbroker’s shop, where it sometimes happens that a ruined gamester, after losing the contents of his purse, deposits, for the sake of making a last and desperate effort, his watch, his buckles, and sometimes his coat. With the trifle advanced him he returns, and, if successful, redeems, on going away, the objects he has pledged. If he fail, a pistol, or the river, ends his miserable days. Such is the consequence of play, and such are the scenes which this profligate place presents.

The buildings which formerly filled the centre are now pulled down, and that part is really a garden, which many persons frequent for exercise. There are ice houses at each end, and chairs scattered about on which the Parisians sit in rows, and take lemonade and other refreshments. The space under the arcades, not occupied by the shops, is, as formerly, filled every hour of the day, and the greatest part of the night, with figures of all descriptions, with persons of every class, and I might add, of every nation in the world.

‘Le théâtre de Monteaussier’ is still in the Palais Royal, besides many smaller play houses. Puppet shows, dwarfs, giants, quack doctors, vociferating newsmen, and quiet venders of libels, who in a whisper offer you indecent and forbidden publications, complete the catalogue of many coloured curiosities which this place presents. (3)

In 1807, Napoleon dissolved the Tribunat, as it was too liberal for his liking. That same year he temporarily installed the Paris stock exchange at the Palais-Royal.

The Palais-Royal during the Bourbon Restoration

Prostitution at the Palais-Royal in 1815, by Georg Emanuel Opiz. Source: Bibliothèque national de France – Gallica

After Napoleon abdicated in 1814, the French throne was given to Louis XVI’s brother, King Louis XVIII. The Palais-Royal was handed to Philippe Égalité’s son, Louis Philippe, who was then the Duke of Orléans.

British journalist John Scott left a detailed description of the Palais-Royal at the time.

It is a square enclosure, formed of the buildings of the Orleans Palace; piazzas make a covered walk along three of its sides, and the centre is an open gravelled space, with a few straight lines of slim trees running along its length. There is a neat compact elegance visible in the architecture of what was the palace, but the building is now insignificant compared with its purposes, and you can no more attend to its proportions than you could fix your attention on the prospects adorning the banks of a river, if you were hurried down one of its cataracts. …

The Palais Royal…is dissolute, gay, wretched, elegant, paltry, busy, and idle; it suggests recollections of atrocity, and supplies sights of fascination; it displays virtue and vice living on easy terms, and in immediate neighbourhood with each other. …

[I]t puts on its air of bustling dissipation and lounging sensuality at an early hour of the morning. The chairs that are placed out under the trees are to be hired, with a newspaper, for a couple of sous a piece; they are soon occupied; the crowd of sitters and standers gradually increases; the buzz of conversation swells to a noise; the cafés fill; the piazzas become crowded; the place assumes the look of intense and earnest avocation, yet the whirl and the rush are of those who float and drift in the vortex of pleasure, dissipation, and vice.

The shops of the Palais Royal are brilliant: they are all devoted to toys, ornaments, or luxuries of some sort. Nothing can be imagined more elegant and striking than their numerous collections of ornamental clock-cases; they are formed of the whitest alabaster, and many of them present very ingenious fanciful devices. One, for instance, that I saw, was a female figure, in the garb and with the air of Pleasure, hiding the hours with a fold of her scanty drapery: one hour alone peeped out, and that indicated the time of the day…. The beauty and variety of the snuff-boxes, and the articles in cut-glass, the ribbons and silks, with their exquisite colours, the art of giving which is not known in England, the profusion and seductiveness of the Magazines des Gourmands are matchless. There are also several passages at the back of the place itself all full of this sort of display, though of an inferior kind, and including the features of vice in more distinct deformity. Many of the shops in these are kept by small booksellers, who expose their wares beyond their windows on stalls, and the mentioning of this fact induces me to notice here two circumstances highly characteristic of Paris….

The first is the extreme profligacy and filthiness of the books and prints that are exposed for sale. The vilest publications lie about every where, throwing in your face a grossness which amounts rather to brutality than mere sensuality. … They make the display of nudity their principal object; it is evidently not done by them in the natural and necessary course of the subject, but in the depravity of the artist, addressed to the depravity of the observer. …. United in view to this shameful feature is one of another kind…. [T]he shops that present the grossness above alluded to, are crowded with elegant literature, placed out evidently for numerous purchasers. The best French classics, histories, poets, &c. are heaped on every stall, and lie among the trash of political pamphlets. …

[T]he salons of the Restaurateurs are all full. … From five to half past seven, crowds of both sexes pour into all the numerous receptacles of this description, the invitations to which hang forth so thick as to astonish the British stranger. The price charged within for dinner, is specified on many of the signs, and varies from twenty-five sous, — about one shilling, — to four francs, above three. For these sums four or five dishes a-head are promised; half a bottle, or a bottle of wine, a desert of fruit, and bread ‘at discretion.’ …

The advance of the evening throws out, still more prominently, the native and most peculiar features of the Palais Royal. When the numerous windows of this immense mass of building are lighted up, and present to the eye, contemplating them from the dark and deserted ground in the center, a burning exterior, leading the imagination to the lively scenes within, perhaps a more impressive spectacle is not to be found in the world. From its foundations floods of light stream up, and illuminate crowds that make their ingress and egress to and from the cellars, which are places as well of amusement as of refreshment. Here there are dancing dogs, blind men who play on musical instruments, ballad singers, petite plays, and the game of dominos. The seats are crowded with men and women, — wives mingle with prostitutes, tradesmen with sharpers: the refreshments are all of a light nature; nothing like intoxication is seen, and there is no very gross breach of decorum in behaviour. …

Above the cellars and the shops of the Palais Royal, there are the elegant Cafés, the common and licensed gambling houses and bagnios, and, still higher, the abodes of the guilty, male and female, of every description. The first mentioned (the Cafés) are in fact brilliant temples of luxury: on entering them for the first time, one is almost struck back by their glare of decoration and enjoyment. Ladies and gentlemen in their colours, and statues in their whiteness, and busy waiters, and painted walls, and sparkling delicacies of every kind, are mingled, and repeated, and extended in appearance to infinity, by numerous mirrors, which add vastness to elegance, and the effect of a crowd to the experience of accommodation. …

Leaving these scenes where Pleasure puts on her gayest trappings, and appears in all her smiles and fascinations, you may enter others where her attire is coarser, and she has assumed more of the louring, jaded, desperate look of vice. The Café Montansier was a theatre during the revolutionary period, and it still continues to be divided into galleries and pit — the stage is covered with a vast bouquet of flowers. Here the company is understood to be of a loose description: the men are chiefly military, the women prostitutes. …

The gambling rooms constitute spectacles purely shocking. They are licensed and inspected by the government, and therefore they are orderly and regular on the surface of their arrangements and behaviour: but they are licensed by the government, and therefore they destroy the foundations of order, morals, honour, and loyalty. … About these odious tables, half-pay officers, private soldiers, clerks, and ex-employés are seen in a desperate contention with treacherous fortune: the expression of the face, as the trembling hand puts down the piece of money is awful: one piece follows another, gold is succeeded by silver, and, from five franc coins, the unfortunate wretch is reduced to the risk of a single franc. He loses it, and leaves the room with a face that bespeaks him drained and desperate. For what atrocity is he not now prepared? The appearance of women at these tables is still more horrible….

There is yet much more that belongs to the Palais Royal, but I believe I have described all that will bear description. Prostitution dwells in its splendid apartments, parades its walks, starves in its garrets, and lurks in its corners. … Old men and old women are employed as regular inviters, and they think they consult the interests of those who employ them, by putting their invitations in terms the most offensive to a manly taste.

Such is the Palais Royal; — a vanity fair — a mart of sin and seduction! Open, not on one day of festival, or on a few holidays, but every day of the week. Every day does it present stimulants and opportunities to profligacy and extravagance, to waste and riot, and idleness. … There is but one Palais Royal in the world, say the Parisians, and it is well for the world that there is but one. (4)

Louis-Philippe’s renovations

Staircase at the Palais-Royal, by Jean-Baptiste Arnout, 1824-29

Louis-Philippe embarked on a grand renovation of the palace, spearheaded by one of Napoleon’s favourite architects, Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine. This included a suite of apartments for the Duke and his family, apartments for their servants, a long gallery of paintings, and the Galerie d’Orléans, among other things. According to one of Louis Philippe’s sons, François d’Orléans, Prince of Joinville, the place was in need of improvement.

In winter time we lived in the Palais-Royal, which then was not at all what it is nowadays. Where the Galerie d’Orléans is now to be seen, there were hideous wooden passages, with muddy floors, exclusively occupied by milliners’ shops, and peopled, it was said, by thousands of rats. To get rid of this collection of shanties, they were sawn through below, and allowed to come down with a crash. Crowds of people came to witness the collapse, in the hope of seeing the expected multitude of rats rush out. There was not a single one! They had all cleared out in good time. (5)

American journalist Nathaniel Carter visited the Palais-Royal in 1825, after some of the renovations had been completed.

The Palais Royal is in all respects a perfect unique, and baffles description. It is emphatically a little world in itself, sui generis, comprising every possible variety of character, occupation, and amusement, from the highest to the lowest, from the gravest to the most trifling, from the most refined to the most brutal….

The Palais Royal is in the form of a parallelogram, half a mile in circumference, and standing round an open court, which contains six or eight acres. The area is handsomely laid out, planted with trees and adorned with a garden which has a large fountain in the centre, together with jets d’eau constantly throwing the water in fanciful forms to the height of twenty or thirty feet. Originally the whole court from end to end was unobstructed; but necessity or cupidity induced the proprietor to extend across the middle of it several ranges of small buildings, filled with boutiques or hucksters’ shops and forming a kind of market. The proportions of the palace itself are grand and rich in architectural ornament. Lofty arcades, forming a covered walk, extend the whole way round the interior. They are about two hundred in number, enclosed by an iron railing, and lighted in the evening by a lamp to each pillar. Many of the shops in the basement story are occupied by jewelers and other trades equally showy, whose wares are tastefully displayed at the windows, and present a spectacle seldom equaled in brilliancy. Every article which ingenuity has been able to devise, or the wants and luxuries of man require, is here exposed for sale, though generally at a higher price than is asked in other parts of the metropolis.

The description of tenants is as various as the commodities of the market, or as the motley multitude that throng the arcades from morning until midnight. In one end of the palace the noble family of the proprietor resides, and splendid equipages of Dukes and Duchesses are seen at the door; while at the other end, theatrical buffoons, blind fiddlers and dancing automata amuse the crowd, or debauchees and harlots hold their subterranean orgies. The intermediate regions are inhabited by all classes of society, good, bad, and indifferent, high and low, learned and illiterate. A lecture on the abstract sciences is liable to be disturbed by the rattling of dice, or the concussion of billiard-balls in the next room; and the voice of the female calling from the boutique for purchasers of books is drowned in that of her neighbor, who cries bonnets or bonbons. Such is the variety and confusion which this busy, bustling scene forever presents.

In the first and second stories of the Palais Royal are almost innumerable cafés and restaurants, or coffee and eating houses. … The coffee-houses are entirely distinct from the restaurants. Both are furnished in a style which would not disgrace a palace of more elevated character than that of the Duke of Orleans. The whole walls are frequently covered with large mirrors, in elegantly gilt frames, and the windows hung with crimson curtains. In some conspicuous part of the room, a throne is erected to the height of several feet from the floor, ornamented in the most tasty manner, and furnished with silken or velvet cushions. Here the presiding goddess sits in state, dressed with all the showy elegance of the French women. On entering and leaving the room, each person takes off his hat and bows to her with as much reverence as he would manifest in approaching or taking leave of a princess. She returns the salute, and sometimes deigns a smile, or whispers a soft word to those whom she recognizes. But generally she sits in silent and motionless dignity, overlooking the tables beneath her, and frowning at any impoliteness. …

As our object was general information, we went the rounds of the gambling-houses, which are accessible to well-dressed and well-behaved persons, without the necessity of adventuring. … The games of chance are – rouge et noir, roulette, trente et un, and par et impar – played with cards, and with balls thrown into a wheel set in motion. With one slight exception, the chances appear to be exactly even, and the play is doubtless managed with fairness. …

The central situation of the Palais Royal, and the crowds of people who daily resort thither on business and pleasure, have led to many improvements in the vicinity, and among the rest to the construction of several Passages, opening from one principal street to another, through blocks of buildings, and all the way under cover. They are occupied as extensive bazars, consisting of a connected series of stores of every description, where ladies may do their shopping without damping their feet in the worst weather. Some of them are very splendid, particularly at night, when the shops are brilliantly lighted up with gas. The improvement has increased the value of property ten-fold. (6)

More revolutions

Louis-Philippe leaving the Palais-Royal to go to the Paris city hall on July 31, 1830, by Horace Vernet

By 1830, Parisians were fed up with King Charles X, who had succeeded his brother, Louis XVIII, in 1824. The Prince of Joinville recalled a fête that was held at the Palais-Royal in May 1830, when he was 11 years old.

The Royal Family, headed by Charles X, was present at this fête, whereat pre-eminence of every kind was gathered together and every class represented, and where cordiality seemed universal. After the entrance of the two sets of dancers in costume, the King went out to walk on the terrace which runs along the top of the Galerie d’Orléans. The night was so warm and lovely that the ladies were walking about in their low gowns, and the dazzling illuminations made it as bright as day. The courtyard of the Palais-Royal was closed, but an immense crowd filled the gardens, trying to see as much as possible of the gay doings. I was running in front of Charles X as he walked along, and I saw his tall form advance to the parapet of the terrace on the garden side, with that truly royal air he had about him. He waved his hand several times in greeting to the crowd, which at that short distance, and under that brilliant light, must have recognized him perfectly, not by his features only, but by his full uniform of Colonel-General of the Guard, and also by the retinue that followed him. But there was no shout of ‘Vive le Roi!’ nor any hostile one either. The surging crowd only seemed to be rather more stirred, and the same uproar rose from it as one may hear on a firework night, when some fine set-piece is set alight. One last wave of the hand, with a ‘Bonjour, mon people!’ which the King spoke half in jest and half in earnest, and Charles X departed. I was never to see him again. Immediately afterwards, or nearly so, the crowd laid hands on the chairs in the garden, piled them up on the grass plots where the midday gun stood, and set them on fire. The troops had to be called out to clear the garden, and that first scene of public riot, so new to me filled me with astonishment and rage as well. (6)

In July, Charles X was overthrown by a revolution, and Louis-Philippe became king of the French. In 1831, he and his family moved from the Palais-Royal to the Tuileries Palace. In 1836, the gaming rooms were closed (prostitution had been banned in 1830).

Louis-Philippe abdicated during the Revolution of 1848. The Palais-Royal was looted. Furniture and works of art were thrown out the windows. The palace again became the property of the French state and was known as the Palais-National.

The Palais-Royal under Napoleon III

The Palais-Royal in 1880, by Theodor Josef Hubert Hoffbauer

Napoleon’s nephew, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, was elected president of the French Republic in December 1848. In 1852, he proclaimed himself Emperor Napoleon III. He put the Palais-Royal at the disposal of Napoleon’s youngest brother, Jérôme, who lived there for eight years until his death in 1860. Jérôme’s son, Prince Napoléon (known as Plon-Plon) and his wife continued to live in the palace until Napoleon III was dethroned in 1870.

In 1871, the Palais-Royal was set on fire by the revolutionary socialist group known as the Paris Commune. Fortunately the fire was brought under control, so the palace was not destroyed, unlike the Tuileries. The damaged facades were restored and the Council of State was relocated to the building. By then much of the Palais-Royal’s commercial traffic had relocated to the fashionable new boulevards of Paris created during the reign of Napoleon III.

British journalist George Augustus Sala visited the city in 1878-79 and wrote:

I am very much afraid that the Palais Royal…has been…slowly fading to the complexion of…the yellow leaf, socially speaking…. It is no longer a place to dine, to promenade, to flirt, or even to conspire in: from a fashionable point of view. It is too far away. … The great restaurateurs, Véfour excepted, have deserted the arcades of the Palais Royal for the western boulevards. The cafés are, socially and intellectually, only the shadows of their former selves; and…the edifice has…lost the slight political importance which under the Second Empire it possessed. …

Napoleon Jerome kept high state at the Palais Royal, gave good dinners and bad cigars, and hatched vain intrigues there against his cousin and benefactor until the Empire tumbled to pieces like a pack of cards…. Very dreary must be the saloons of the palace now. ….

Disestablished politically, ostracised by the fashionable world, the Palais Royal might ostensibly run the risk of sinking to the level of a tenth-rate neighbourhood. It is not only the great eating-house and coffee-house keepers who have quitted it for the boulevards. To a considerable extent it has even suffered abandonment at the hands of the cheap tailors, who have discovered that a ‘coin de rue,’ or corner of a populous street, is a necessity of carrying on the business of a slop-shop palace on a large scale….

It was thus not without a certain feeling of sadness that I sat down in the sunshine outside the Café de la Rotonde, and, looking across the vast quadrangle, and peering into the dim recesses of the distant arcades, I tried to conjure up memories of the days that shall return no more.” (8)

The Palais-Royal today

The Palais-Royal still exists and is worth a visit if you happen to be in Paris. It is located across from the Louvre, on Rue Saint-Honoré. The palace is occupied by the State Council, the Ministry of Culture, and the Constitutional Council. The garden and courtyard are open to the public, and you can visit the arcades, or galleries, which host shops and restaurants. The Théâtre du Palais-Royal and the theatre of the Comédie-Française are also part of the Palais-Royal complex.

You might also enjoy:

The Restaurateur: Dining in Paris in the Early 19th Century

The Tuileries Palace under Napoleon I and Louis XVIII

The Palace of the King of Rome

François d’Orléans, Prince of Joinville: Artist & Sailor

Paris in the Summer of 1820

Shannon Selin, Napoleon in America (Vancouver, 2014), p. 168.
A.C. Thibaudeau, Bonaparte and the Consulate, translated and edited by G.K. Fortescue (London, 1908), pp. 22-23.
John Gustavus Lemaistre, A Rough Sketch of Modern Paris (London, 1803), pp. 98-102.
John Scott, A Visit to Paris in 1814, Third Edition (London, 1815), pp. 117-138.
François d’Orléans, Memoirs (Vieux Souvenirs) of the Prince de Joinville, translated by Mary Lloyd (London: William Heinemann, 1895). p. 7.
Nathaniel H. Carter, Letters from Europe, Comprising the Journal of a Tour through Ireland, England, Scotland, France, Italy and Switzerland in the Years 1825, 26 and 27, Vol. I (New York, 1827), pp. 419-423.
Memoirs (Vieux Souvenirs) of the Prince de Joinville, pp. 29-30.
George Augustus Sala, Paris Herself Again in 1878-79, Sixth Edition (London, 1882), pp. 19-25.

Napoleon Bonaparte was an incredibly hard worker. He had tremendous energy and self-discipline, was action-oriented, and possessed an innate drive to achieve. Napoleon’s obsessive devotion to work made it possible for him to command armies – he fought more than 70 battles in 22 years – while also being a hands-on ruler of France and a vast empire. Here are some of Napoleon’s workaholic habits and characteristics that enabled him to accomplish so much.

Napoleon at the Battle of Friedland in 1807, by Edouard Bernard Debat-Ponsan

Long hours

Napoleon worked long hours. He often said to one of his private secretaries, Méneval, that he had constantly worked 16 hours a day ever since leaving military school. He told another colleague:

I am always at work…. I work all the time, at dinner, in the theatre. I wake up at night in order to resume my work. I got up last night at two o’clock. I stretched myself on my couch before the fire to examine the army reports sent to me yesterday evening by the Minister of War. I found twenty mistakes in them, and made notes which I have this morning sent to the minister, who is now occupied with his clerks in rectifying them. (1)

Napoleon would typically be up by 7 a.m. and would work almost the entire day, taking short breaks for meals. He was impatient and he hated wasting time. Even when shaving or having a bath, he would have someone read the news to him. His day would be filled with meetings; perusing reports and correspondence; dictating letters and decrees; attending sessions of administrative bodies; and working on his many projects, such as the Napoleonic Code, or a palace for his son. He did not have hobbies, although he did enjoy reading and going to the theatre.

Napoleon worked at least as hard when he was travelling or on a military campaign. His carriage was fitted out with a desk and lights, and was filled with plans, maps and reports, so he could work even while on the road. He spent long days consulting his officers; formulating strategy and tactics; supervising preparations for battle; receiving and sending dispatches; making frequent inspections on horseback; speaking to soldiers; and generally attending to details. For example, when planning an invasion of England (an attempt that was never carried out):

He superintended the fitting out of the boats [at Boulogne], and tested different systems of stowage, being anxious to ship munitions and provisions for twenty days. … He had the soldiers and sailors drilled, ordered sham embarkations and landings both at day and at night, and spent the best part of his time with the sailors or the soldiers, sharing their labours, urging them on to renewed effort, and inspiring them with the confidence that he felt. He scoured the beach on foot and on horseback, followed by the admiral and the principal naval and military officers. (2)

An official bulletin put out during the campaign in Germany in 1805 proclaimed:

The Emperor sets the example on horseback night and day, he is continually in the midst of the troops, and in every point where his presence is necessary. (3)

Night work

Napoleon working at night

Napoleon often worked during the night. When he was on campaign in Italy in 1796, he wrote to the Directory: “My life here is inconceivable; I return fatigued to my quarters, and it is necessary to sit up working all night, and to go everywhere to re-establish order.” (4) He might have exaggerated for effect – just as he would later leave candles burning all night in his study at the Tuileries to give the impression he was always working – but he did have a habit of getting up to work in the middle of the night.

It was not that Napoleon slept less than most people. It is rather that his sleep tended to be discontinuous. He would go to bed relatively early, sleep for several hours, then wake up and do some work, go back to sleep, and then get up and start the day. His secretary Bourrienne wrote:

[Napoleon’s] flatterers, probably under the idea that sleep is incompatible with greatness, have evinced [a] disregard of truth in speaking of his night-watching. Bonaparte made others watch; but he himself slept, and slept well. His orders were that I should call him every morning at seven. I was, therefore, the first to enter his chamber; but very frequently when I awoke him, he would turn himself and say, ‘Ah, Bourrienne! Let me lie a little longer.’ When there was no very pressing business, I did not disturb him again till eight o’clock. He in general slept seven hours out of the twenty-four, besides taking a short nap in the afternoon. (5)

Méneval recalled:

The Emperor used to have me waked in the night, when – owing either to some plan which he considered ripe for execution, and which had to be carried out, or to the necessity of maturing the preliminaries of some new project, or to having to send off some courier without loss of time – he was obliged to rise himself. It sometimes happened that I would hand him some document to sign in the evening. ‘I will not sign it now,’ he would say. ‘Be here tonight, at one o’clock, or at four in the morning; we will work together.’ On these occasions I used to have myself waked some minutes before the appointed hour… [H]e used to make his appearance, dressed in his white dressing-gown, with a Madras handkerchief round his head. When, by chance, he had got to the study before me, I used to find him walking up and down with his hands behind his back, or helping himself from his snuff-box…. His ideas developed as he dictated, with an abundance and a clearness which showed that his attention was firmly riveted to the subject with which he was dealing…. When the work was finished, and sometimes in the midst of it, he would send for sherbet and ices. He used to ask me which I preferred, and went so far in his solicitude as to advise me which would be better for my health. Thereupon he would return to bed, if only to sleep an hour, and could resume his slumber, as though it had not been interrupted. …

When the Emperor rose in the night, without any special object except to occupy his sleepless moments, he used to forbid my being waked before seven in the morning. On those occasions I used to find my writing-table, in the morning, covered with reports and papers annotated in his writing.” (6)

Strong focus

Napoleon at the siege of Toulon in 1793, by Édouard Detaille

Napoleon had an admirable ability to focus his attention on whatever he was working on. Pierre Louis Roederer, who helped organize the coup that brought Napoleon to power and served in various government positions during the Consulate and Empire, wrote:

What characterizes the spirit of Bonaparte is the strength and constancy of his attention. He can work eighteen hours at a stretch, on one or on several subjects. I never saw him tired. I never saw him lacking competence, even when weary in body, even when violently exercised, even when angry. I never saw him distracted from one matter by another, leaving the one he is discussing to think about the one he has just discussed, or on which he is going to work. (7)

Méneval noted:

Napoleon would deal with in turn, at one sitting, matters relating to war, to diplomacy, to finance, to commerce, to public works, and so on; and rested from one kind of work by engaging in another. Every branch of the government was with him the object of a special, complete and sustained attention; no confusion of ideas, no fatigue, and no desire to shorten the hours of labour, ever making themselves felt.

Napoleon used to explain the clearness of his mind, and his faculty of being able at will to prolong his work to extreme limits, by saying that the various subjects were arranged in his head, as though in a cupboard. ‘When I want to interrupt one piece of work,’ he used to say, ‘I close the drawer in which it is, and I open another. The two pieces of business never get mixed up together, and never trouble or tire me. When I want to go to sleep, I close up all the drawers, and then I am ready to go off to sleep.’ (8)

As this analogy suggests, Napoleon was well-organized. This was reflected in how he arranged his study and his libraries.

[N]o one knew so well as he how to sort papers, documents, and statements. Lists were to be all of like dimensions, clothed in uniform binding, arranged in identical order. The same with estimates. … For foreign armies and fleets he has boxes with compartments in which slide cards inscribed with the regiments and vessels. … On all subjects he has a collection of information of the same order, dictionaries of individuals arranged by classes or by states. … It is this machinery, this spirit of order and method which he brings to bear on everything, that choice of those around him, which alone are capable, not of explaining, but of rendering credible, the amount of work which Napoleon got through, and which is actually ten times more important than one imagines; for he was not content to grasp the whole, he entered into the smallest detail, and for fourteen years it was he who thought for eighty millions of men. (9)

Attention to detail

Napoleon was a details man. He wanted to know everything about a subject. He was intellectually curious and was constantly thinking. He regularly subjected his staff and his ministers to long interrogations on political and military matters, as well as other subjects. Even in social situations, he peppered his companions with questions. Napoleon was extremely well-informed, thanks to his centralization of the French state, which funneled information to him, as did his network of spies and informants. He also read voraciously. According to Méneval:

There were on his writing-table reports of the exact state of the land and sea forces….supplied by the Ministers of War and Marine…and…renewed on the first of each month. They were divided into columns indicating the number of the infantry and cavalry regiments, the names of the colonels, the number of men composing each battalion, squadron, and company, the departments where they were recruited, and the number of men drafted from the conscriptions, the places where the regiments were garrisoned, the position and strength of the depots, and the state of their troops and material. If marching regiments had been formed, particulars as to their composition, destination, and the dates of their departure and arrival were mentioned in these reports…. The corps of engineers, and of artillerymen, and the batteries of artillery, were also described in these reports. …

The columns of the report referring to the state of the navy contained the names of the officers commanding them, the composition and strength of the crews, the names of the departments where sailors and marines were levied, the names of ships which were in docks and particulars as to what progress had been made in their construction.

The Emperor always had a strange pleasure in receiving these reports. He used to read through them with delight, and would say that no work of science or literature ever gave him so much pleasure. (10)

Excellent memory

Napoleon’s work was aided by his excellent memory. In reference to the reports mentioned above, Méneval remarked:

[Napoleon’s] marvellous memory grasped all their details, and retained them so well that, better than the Ministers of War and Marine, he knew what was the composition and the materials of each corps. The spelling and pronunciation of names were less familiar to him, and he never remembered them rightly. But if he forgot proper names, it needed but the mention of them to bring a man or a place most vividly before his eyes. When he had once seen a man, or visited a place, he forgot neither the one nor the other; and anything connected either with the individual or the locality was never effaced from his memory. (11)

Pons de l’Hérault, the manager of the iron mines on Elba, where Napoleon was exiled in 1814, recounted:

Napoleon remembered perfectly all the work he had ordered and all the measures he had taken for the island of Elba [when he ruled France]. The dates were present in his memory as if he had never occupied himself with anything else. Memory was an immense advantage for the Emperor. The entire past of the Empire was classified in his immeasurable head. There resided in there, at the same time, his codes, his monuments, his battles, and the nomination of a mayor or a priest. He was particularly miraculous when he spoke of armies; he witnessed their evolutions, their marches, their attacks, their defenses, their sorrows, their pleasures, and this with a precise clarity that retained everything. (12)

Abundant resources

In addition to his workaholic tendencies, Napoleon was able to get a lot done because he had the resources of the French state at his fingertips. There were plenty of people to attend to his needs and carry out his orders. He set a high example for his subordinates, made considerable demands on them, and benefited from their efficiency and productivity. Napoleon tended to micromanage people, which was not always a good thing. Even Méneval – a generally sympathetic observer – wrote:

The initiative in the drafting of all laws and regulations almost always came from Napoleon. His ideas of amelioration, improvement, and construction kept his ministers sufficiently occupied to need all their time in prescribing and supervising the numerous details of execution. If any regret can be expressed on this subject, it is that the unceasing activity of the highest intellect which has ever been granted to a human being should have accustomed his agents to await his inspiration and to distrust themselves; and that in consequence, so many men of talent should have found themselves paralysed and taken by surprise in moments of danger. (13)

Periods of inactivity

Napoleon After The Battle Of Waterloo, by François Flameng

Despite Napoleon’s strong work ethic, he occasionally sunk into periods of inactivity. Sometimes this downtime gave him a chance to think, and he would emerge with a fresh round of projects and decisions. Méneval wrote:

He used sometimes to spend whole days without doing any work, yet without leaving the palace, or even his work-room. In these days of leisure, which was but apparent, for it usually concealed an increase of cerebral activity, Napoleon appeared embarrassed how to spend his time. He would go and spend an hour with the Empress, then he would return, and sitting down on the settee, would sleep, or appear to sleep for a few minutes. He would then come and seat himself on the corner of my writing-table, or on one of the arms of my chair, or even on my knees. He would then put his arm round my neck, and amuse himself by gently pulling my ear, or by patting me on the shoulder, or on the cheek. He would speak to me of all sorts of disconnected subjects, of himself, of his manias, of his constitution, of me, or of some plan that he had in his head. (14)

However, Napoleon could also be seized with lethargy when facing bad health (to which his excessive work probably contributed) or great setbacks. During the invasion of Russia, many of Napoleon’s companions observed that he lacked the energy and enthusiasm with which he normally conducted campaigns. He returned to his usual level of activity in early 1814, during the campaign in France. This was not enough to save his throne, and after his abdication in 1814, and again after his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, he became listless and indecisive.

Captain Maitland, who commanded the British frigate that removed Napoleon from France in 1815, commented:

From his having become corpulent, he had lost much of his personal activity, and, if we are to give credit to those who attended him, a very considerable portion of his mental energy was also gone. It is certain his habits were very lethargic while he was on board the Bellerophon; for though he went to bed between eight and nine o’clock in the evening, and did not rise till about the same hour in the morning, he frequently fell asleep on the sofa in the cabin in the course of the day. (15)

Napoleon was exiled to the remote South Atlantic island of St. Helena, where he busied himself with dictating his memoirs, among other things. He died of stomach cancer in 1821, at the age of 51.

Thanks to Joachim Tran for suggesting a post about Napoleon being a workaholic.

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Oeuvres du Comte P.L. Roederer publiées par son fils A. M. Roederer, Vol. 8 (Paris, 1859), p. 494.
Claude-François de Méneval, Memoirs to Serve for the History of Napoleon I from 1802 to 1815, Vol. I, translated by Robert H. Sherard (London, 1895), p. 308.
Official Narratives of the Campaigns of Buonaparte Since the Peace of Amiens (London, 1817), p. 7.
D.A. Bingham, A Selection from the Letters and Despatches of the First Napoleon, Vol. I (London, 1884), p. 72.
Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne, Private Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Vol. I (Philadelphia, 1831), pp. 269-270.
Méneval, Memoirs to Serve for the History of Napoleon I from 1802 to 1815, Vol. I, pp. 368-369.
Oeuvres du Comte P.L. Roederer publiées par son fils A. M. Roederer, Vol. 8, pp. 488-489.
Méneval, Memoirs to Serve for the History of Napoleon I from 1802 to 1815, Vol. I, p. 375.
Frédéric Masson, Napoleon at Home: The Daily Life of the Emperor at the Tuileries, Vol. I, translated by James E. Matthew (London, 1894), pp. 197-198.
Méneval, Memoirs to Serve for the History of Napoleon I from 1802 to 1815, Vol. I, pp. 370-371.
Ibid., p. 371.
André Pons de L’Hérault, Souvenirs et Anecdotes de l’Île d’Elbe(Paris, 1897), pp. 61-62.
Méneval, Memoirs to Serve for the History of Napoleon I from 1802 to 1815, Vol. I, p. 375.
Ibid., p. 376
Frederick Maitland, Narrative of the Surrender of Buonaparte (London, 1826), pp. 209-210.

America’s sixth president, John Quincy Adams, was not a romantic man. He was pedantic, sharp-tempered, domineering and generally hard to get along with. His wife, Louisa, was more charming, with a love of society and a desire to please, however she was also moody, inclined to self-doubt and depression, and a hypochondriac. They frequently exasperated each other. Looking back at their early years together, Louisa wrote, “Happy indeed would it have been for Mr. Adams if he had broken his engagement, and not harassed himself with a wife altogether so unsuited to his peculiar character, and still more peculiar prospects. When we were married every disappointment seemed to fall upon us at once. … [O]ur views of things were totally different on many essential points.” (1)

Louisa Catherine Johnson before her marriage to John Quincy Adams, by Edward Savage, 1791-1794

Despite John Quincy and Louisa Adams’s differences, there was a genuine affection and closeness between them. Their marriage lasted fifty years, until John Quincy Adams’ death in early 1848. In 1822, they marked their 25th wedding anniversary. Their correspondence that summer, at the midpoint of their married life, shows something of the companionable love that bound them together.

John Quincy Adams, by John Singleton Copley, 1796

Engagement

John Quincy Adams got to know Louisa Catherine Johnson at a dinner at her family’s home in London in November of 1795. Adams was a 28-year-old American diplomat to The Hague. Educated at Harvard, he was the eldest son of John Adams, who was then vice president of the United States (in 1797, John Adams became president). Louisa was the 20-year-old daughter of the American consul in London. She had been born in England and raised in France. Her schooling was focused on music, dancing and the arts. They became engaged in the spring of 1796. Adams then returned to Holland.

They continued their relationship through letter writing, although their missives were not all sweetness and light. One of Louisa’s biographers characterized their engagement correspondence as “[c]rackling with raw intensity, misunderstandings, and righteous indignation.” (2) Louisa was frustrated by John Quincy’s refusal to set a date for the wedding. He suggested it could be as long as seven years until he was able to support a wife, and he turned down her suggestion of coming to visit him in Holland. Influenced by his parents, who questioned whether Louisa was a suitable match, John Quincy tried to prepare Louisa for a less comfortable life than she was accustomed to. He bristled whenever she questioned his judgement, or offered opinions that differed from his own.

Notwithstanding their squabbles, they began to understand and accept their differences. When Louisa sarcastically used the phrase “pleasing admonition” in reference to one of John Quincy’s gloomy warnings, he replied:

[P]leasing contemplations…do not alone su[ffic]e for the happiness of any person’s life, and…the tenderest attachment may sometimes discover itself by pointing the attention of its beloved friend to useful reflection. I do most sincerely wish that you may never find from experience that pleasing contemplations are summer friends, ready to fly from the first appearance of difficulty; but I am sure that you will often have occasion to know that reflection, and the habit of seeing by anticipation the inconveniences and evils inevitably annexed to every approaching prospect, is in reality a kind and benevolent adviser. As I prefer suffering the mortification even of a sneer from you, rather than the future reproach of having excited false though pleasing contemplations, I readily renounce all pretensions to address in the art of pleasing, and hope you will find me throughout life rather a true and faithful than a complaisant friend. …

[C]ould you…for a moment harbour the thought that there is any quarter of the world, or any situation in life which can diminish your worth in my estimation, or render your society less essential to my happiness? No Louisa. You are the delight and pride of my life. (3)

Louisa responded, “How much my loved friend shall I atone for the uneasiness my last letter caused you…. May distrust with all its baneful tribe be far, far from our hearts. … [B]e assured the world itself without you will ever be an aching void to your L.C. Johnson.” (4)

Marriage

John Quincy Adams and Louisa Johnson were married on July 26, 1797 at the parish church of All Hallows-by-the-Tower in London. During the next 25 years, John Quincy moved from a diplomatic career to a political one, eventually becoming Secretary of State under President James Monroe. He and Louisa lived in Berlin, Boston, Washington, St. Petersburg and London. They experienced Louisa’s numerous miscarriages, the birth of three sons – George (1801), John (1803) and Charles (1807) –, and the birth and death of a daughter, Louisa (1811-1812). John Quincy and Louisa were frequently apart, because of the demands of his job. Even when they were together he made decisions that substantially affected their life without consulting her. For example, he refused to let Louisa bring their two oldest sons to live with them in Russia. He and Louisa were often annoyed with each other. Yet they also experienced “moments of real tenderness, companionship, support, and joy.” (5)

The summer of 1822

Louisa Adams by Charles Bird King, circa 1821-1825

Louisa Adams by Charles Bird King, circa 1825

Louisa Adams spent the summer of 1822 in Philadelphia nursing her sick brother, Thomas Baker Johnson, who was under the care of the aptly-named Dr. Philip Syng Physick. John Quincy Adams remained in Washington with their son George. They corresponded frequently. Between her departure from Washington in June and her return in October, Louisa sent 56 letters to John Quincy; he sent 25 to her. She gently scolded him for not writing more often.

Louisa’s letters tended to be long. She wrote about her brother’s surgery, her visitors and entertainments, and news and gossip she had heard. Louisa feared that her chattiness might bore her husband. “I must conclude this tiresome tirade which will I think be enough to wear your patience, although it is almost inexhaustible.” (6) “My journal is a potpourri, in which you find much nonsense now and then relieved by something a little better; but if it can afford interest sufficient to amuse you for a few minutes; it fully answers every purpose to your affectionate wife.” (7) John Quincy reassured her. “My dearest Louisa. We continue to be delighted almost daily with your journalizing letters, which together with our visits to the theatre, enliven the dullness of our half–solitude.” (8)

John Quincy was concerned that Louisa not over-extend herself in caring for her brother. “I wish you to remain with your brother as long as your own inclination and sense of duty will prompt you; without thinking a moment of the expense. Only let me caution you for his sake as well as for mine and your own, to measure your exertions for him by your own strength. To beware of overstraining yourself, till you sink under it. Your stock of service to him will hold out the longer for being used with discretion and reserve.” (9)

Louisa worried that John Quincy’s health was being adversely affected by the heat in Washington. “Pray if you are sick do not deceive me, for I could not bear the idea of being absent while you are indisposed.” (10) He wrote back, “I did suffer much for some time from excessive heat, but the cool weather has relieved me. We are all comfortable. The river bathing has been very refreshing and useful both to George and me.” (11)

Politics and manners

John Quincy Adams by Gilbert Stuart, 1818

Louisa’s and John Quincy’s letters were also laced with politics. Louisa wanted to help her husband’s prospects in the 1824 presidential election. She met with people who could aid his cause, relayed their views and counsel to him, and threw in some advice of her own. One of her letters encouraged him to improve his manners.

[T]he constant hints of your most devoted friends would almost urge me who am so far very far inferior to you in every thing, to give you a lecture on common sense; or in other words on that worldly and every day sense, which is so essential to adapt us for the common intercourse of society. In nothings, every one can deal. In true solid sterling sense refined by experience and strengthened by cultivation and acquirement how few! When these things are united, man becomes a paragon and nobody can resist him. To you nothing is impossible. Cease to view a place hunter in every phiz, and you will find yourself at ease. At this critical time when all is warm in your favour, when the flash of superior talent has found its way into every soul susceptible of feeling; you should if possible seize the happy occasion to show yourself to your countrymen; and convince them that the coldness and austerity of which they complain, is not a part of your nature; but has only been produced by situation and circumstance. You will not I know be displeased at this expression of my wishes; for one of the qualities for which I have most respected you has always been that of bearing to hear the truth without impatience when it affects yourself. This is indeed an epitome of my favorite fable, and I think if I go any further I shall certainly share the fate of the Frog, and burst with my new born dignity of adviser. (12)

John Quincy playfully wrote back:

Your letter contains so much excellent advice, that last Saturday evening at the Theatre where I was seeing Booth in Sir Edward Mortimer, and Mrs Burke in Little Pickle, I determined to commence my practice upon it, and I made myself as amiable as possible to Mrs. Gales and Miss Kitty Lee, who were in the same box with me. Now to commence a course of politesse and gallantry with the thermometer at 100 was truly distressing, and that I was enabled to undertake it proves to you how deeply I was convinced by your eloquence. I asked Mrs. Gales how it was possible for a woman to love a man with such honours as those of Sir Edward Mortimer. She said his misfortunes made him interesting, and I loved her the more when I heard [such] tenderness fall from her tongue. But as Mrs. Gales has a husband and I have a wife, I thought it was time to stay the use of my fascinating powers there; and with Miss Lee I was still less successful, having only had the advantage of supplying her with a play-bill. Now you must know there are already two conquests upon which I calculate, both achieved by your advice. And I have a presentiment that if I ever do acquire the faculty of being irresistible my greatest achievement, will be upon the Ladies of the [fair]—who as Montesquieu wisely observes are the best possible judges of some of the qualifications which constitute a great man. (13)

John Quincy Adams’s feud with Jonathan Russell

One matter that preoccupied both John Quincy and Louisa was a pamphlet that had recently been published by Jonathan Russell, a Congressman from Massachusetts who, along with John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay, was one of the negotiators of the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812 between Britain and the United States. Russell’s pamphlet accused Adams of having favoured British interests during the treaty negotiations. His aim was to help Clay’s presidential candidacy against Adams. Adams responded with several pamphlets that fiercely refuted Russell’s claims and destroyed the latter’s reputation.

This became a running theme in their correspondence, as Louisa heard from several visitors, including Robert Walsh, editor of the Philadelphia National Gazette, that Adams had fully made his point and it was in his interest to cease and desist. After several attempts to persuade her husband to let the matter drop, Louisa finally wrote this.

Walsh called on me in the evening and we had a great deal of conversation, particularly on the controversy. … He says that all your best friends are anxious that you should leave Jonathan the remnant of life which your last allowed him; and take as little notice of him as he merits. That the matter stands so fairly for you now, and that the public voice is so strongly expressed and manifested, that any future scourging would look like torturing a poor reptile, already crushed beyond recovery; and create a sensation of pity and compassion towards him which would re–elevate him to the notice and attention of the world, and give him claims upon society which are now lost forever. … You are under a great error as it regards the interest of the late correspondence; the personal part of it has been the only part which has really occupied the public mind, and it has placed you before the world in the character of a private individual, suffering under an unjust and ungenerous persecuted—in this light alone it is viewed and in this light it is powerfully felt, because every man can understand it and make the case his own. Persons long inured to public life accustomed to objects of great magnitude; thinking for a world and ever dwelling not on man individually but on the welfare of mankind at large; are apt to overlook the little passion, and the little every day feelings which contribute so largely to create the strong impulse of civil society; and though superior talents will be appreciated by the multitude, unless a man is sometimes seen en deshabille as a mere mortal, with the same passions and the same errors as his fellow creatures; he will be viewed as we have viewed a bright constellation when strongly pointed out to us, at a particular moment gazed at, and forgotten as if we had ever seen it. For this reason my best friend this controversy has placed you in a new light; not as a negotiator of treaties alone, but as an able man, with the will and the ability to fight his own battles, and to crush the atom that dare insult you with the strong and broad [aegis] of truth, garbed in the brilliant raiment of eloquence and learning.

Once more let me beseech you to spare your miserable opponent, and leave him to write himself into darker and deeper infamy than that into which he has plunged.

I know not how it is but I hate the word advice when you apply it as given from me to you. It sounds so much like caricature or banter. The narrowness of my conceptions and the littleness of my views make it impossible for me to advise with propriety on any subject, unless those which are mere matter of feeling. Here my sex seldom err; and here men may trust them without danger. (14)

Adams responded as follows.

Your journals…have become a sort of necessary of life to George and me. Whatever the cause of the confidence which you say you have but recently acquired of writing to me whatever comes into your head, as I am the principal gainer by the acquisition—hope it will be permanent. Your advice is always acceptable, and if I do not always profit by it, mayhap it is sometimes from the waywardness of my own nature; and sometimes from an honest difference of opinion. Yet it is not always lost upon me as for example in consequence of your good advice, I have withdrawn my controversy with Jonathan, from the newspapers. I hope I have nearly done with him, but you may be sure I shall not be suffered to live in peace, till I am displaced. (15)

Silver anniversary

On July 26, 1822, the date of their 25th wedding anniversary, Louisa Adams – who was mistaken about the year – wrote to her husband:

It is this day four and twenty years since we came together, in which time much of bad and good has fallen to our lot: but take it all in all we have probably done as well as our neighbours, and have been as much blessed as mortals usually are who cannot pretend to any extraordinary degree of perfection. I yet hope that many years are in store for you whatever may befall myself, and that your children will long bless the day that gave them such a father. (16)

John Quincy Adams sent his wife a more eloquent greeting.

With the dawn of this morning I awaked and ejaculated a blessing to Heaven upon the gem jubilee of our marriage. More than a half of your life and nearly half of mine have we travelled hand in hand in our pilgrimage through this valley, not alone of tears. We have enjoyed together great and manifold blessings and for many of them I have been indebted to you. May the Guardian Angel of our Union or that all powerful being whose superintending Providence is the Guardian Angel of all, bless us for the future, in proportion as he has blessed us for the past, in the vicissitudes of sorrow and of joy, which constitute the sum of all human destiny, may we proceed in harmony, and in conscious integrity to the end of our career on Earth. If it be the will of our Creator that we should live to celebrate the full jubilee of this day, may it be with equal and unabated affection for each other, and may it find our children established and prosperous in life, virtuous and useful. And if to either or both of us a shorter date is allotted may we be gathered to our fathers in peace, and leave behind, to our posterity, a memory and a name not, as stimulants to pride but as model, for imitation. And so I bid you my beloved farewell. (17)

He wrote in his diary:

I have been this day married twenty-five years. It is what the Germans call the ‘Silberne Hochzeit’ – the Silver Wedding. The happiest and most eventful portion of my life is past in the lapse of those twenty-five years. I finished the letter to my wife. Looking back – what numberless occasions of gratitude! How little room for self-gratulation! Looking forward – what dependence upon the overruling Power! What frail support in myself! ‘Time and the hour wear through the roughest day.’ Let me have strength but to be true to myself, to my maker, and to man – adding Christian meekness and charity to Stoic fortitude – and come what may. (18)

Louisa responded to John Quincy’s letter on July 29.

Your very very kind letter is just brought…and I find I made a most curious mistake in one year; so that our Silbern Hochseit [silver wedding anniversary] was complete when I supposed it a year off. You possess the happy wit of saying or writing things in so superlative a style it makes every effort on my part appear cold insipid, I might say almost vulgar—but when the heart speaks, it is of little importance whether the language is elegant; as its powerful expression is always felt, and mostly appreciated. In our children we have hitherto been blessed; may the God whom we adore continue to us this to me greatest of all blessings and reward them for the happiness they may afford us in our age. (19)

John Quincy Adams’s first love

A month later, on August 28, 1822, John Quincy Adams confided to Louisa that the first woman he ever loved was an actress, although he never spoke to her and he never saw her off the stage.

She belonged to a company of children who performed at the Bois de Boulogne near Passy, when I lived there with Dr Franklin and my father. She remains upon my memory as the most lovely and delightful actress that I ever saw; but I have not seen her since I was fourteen. She was then about the same age. Of all the ungratified longings that I ever suffered, that of being acquainted with her, merely to tell her how much I adored her, was the most intense. I was tortured with this desire for nearly two years but never had the wit to compass it. I used to dream of her, for at least seven years after. But how many times I have since blessed my stars and my stupidity, that I never did get the opportunity of making my declaration. I learnt from her that lesson, of never forming an acquaintance with an actress, to which I have invariably adhered; and which I would lay as an injunction upon all my sons. … I have burnt none of your journals, and shall keep them all. I do not even ask you to burn this or any other of my letters; but I entreat you not to mislay them, or let them get into any other hands than your own. Consider with what ineffable ridicule you would cover me, if you should suffer my confession of my first love to get abroad—and how I

never told my love,
But let concealment like a woman in the bud
Pray on my damask cheek.

Happily for me, when many years afterwards I did tell my love, and you was the hearer, it was for a worthier object, and a better purpose. That was an affection, for this world, and I humbly hope, for the next. and so I am yours. A. (20)

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Last Words of Famous People

Margaret A. Hogan and C. James Taylor, eds., A Traveled First Lady: Writings of Louisa Catherine Adams (Cambridge, Mass., 2014), p. 55.
Margery M. Heffron, “‘A Fine Romance’: The Courtship Correspondence between Louisa Catherine Johnson and John Quincy Adams,” The New England Quarterly, Vol. 83, No. 2 (June 1010), p. 200.
“John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson, 12 October 1796,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-11-02-0200.
“Louisa Catherine Johnson to John Quincy Adams, 1 November 1796,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/04-11-02-0203.
Louisa Thomas, Louisa: The Extraordinary Life of Mrs. Adams (New York, 2016), p. 449.
“From Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams to John Quincy Adams, 22 July 1822,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-03-02-4094.
“From Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams to John Quincy Adams, 24 July 1822,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-03-02-4097.
“From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 22 July 1822,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-03-02-4093.
“From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 25 June 1822,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-03-02-4065.
From Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams to John Quincy Adams, 29 July 1822,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-03-02-4105.
“From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 6 August 1822,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-03-02-4116.
“From Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams to John Quincy Adams, 31 July 1822,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-03-02-4107.
“From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 5 August 1822,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-03-02-4115.
“From Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams to John Quincy Adams, 7 August 1822,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-03-02-4119.
“From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 12 August 1822,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-03-02-4128.
“From Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams to John Quincy Adams, 26 July 1822,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-03-02-4100.
“From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 25 July 1822,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-03-02-4099.
Charles Francis Adams, ed., Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Vol. VI (Philadelphia, 1875), p. 46.
“From Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams to John Quincy Adams, 27 July 1822,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-03-02-4102.
“From John Quincy Adams to Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 28 August 1822,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-03-02-4145.

In the years after Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821, many visitors arrived from Europe and the United States hoping to establish profitable diplomatic and commercial relations with the new country. Here are glimpses of some of the Christmas celebrations they encountered.

Nativity scene in the main square of Izamal, Mexico, by Alejandro Linares Garcia

Christmas amusements in Guadalajara

British Royal Navy officer Robert Hardy (who served at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815), travelled to Mexico on behalf of the General Pearl and Coral Fishery Association of London. He spent Christmas of 1825 in Guadalajara.

The Portales (colonnades), which are much better than those of Mexico [City], and infinitely more numerous, are all well lighted up with candles, surrounded by coloured-paper shades, standing on little tables, which display a great assortment of sweetmeats and fruits. The ladies and gentlemen, too, walk about finely dressed under the Portale and convert it into a fashionable promenade. From seven till ten, there is perhaps not a single family in the whole town which has not taken a few turns, in their gayest dresses, to witness the sweetmeat exhibition; to see and to be seen! It may be well to give the traveller a gentle hint with respect to the 25th of December, for everything which is borrowed on this day is never returned. It is, in short, to the Mexicans, who call it ‘la noche Buena,’ what April-fool-day is to us. Therefore, traveller, beware! It is the occasion of much frolic and amusement. (1)

Las Posadas in Mexico City

Las Posadas (“the inns”) is a traditional Mexican celebration that commemorates the journey of Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem and their search for a place to stay. It is held on the nine nights preceding Christmas, from December 16 to December 24. Each night of the posadas is hosted by a different household. Frances Calderón de la Barca, the Scottish wife of the Spanish minister to Mexico, witnessed the posadas in Mexico City on Christmas Eve in 1840.

On this night all the relations and intimate friends of each family assemble in the house of the head of the clan, a real gathering, and in the present case to the number of fifty or sixty persons.

This is the last night of what is called the Posadas, a curious mixture of religion and amusement, but extremely pretty. The meaning is this: At the time that the decree went forth from Caesar Augustus, that ‘all the world shall be taxed,’ the Virgin and Joseph having come out of Bethlehem so full of people, who had arrived from all parts of the world, that they wandered about for nine days, without finding admittance in any house or tavern, and on the ninth day took shelter in a manger, where the Saviour was born. For eight days this wandering of the Holy Family to the different Posadas is represented, and seems more intended for an amusement to the children than anything serious. We went to the Marquesa’s at eight o’clock, and about nine the ceremony commenced. A lighted taper was put into the hand of each lady, and a procession was formed, two by two, which marched all through the house, the corridors and walls of which were all decorated with evergreens and lamps, the whole party singing the Litanies. K— walked with the dowager Marquesa; and a group of little children, dressed as angels, joined the procession. They wore little robes of silver or gold lama, plumes of white feathers, and a profusion of fine diamonds and pearls, in bandeaux, brooches, and necklaces, white gauze wings, and white satin shoes, embroidered in gold.

At last the procession drew up before a door, and a shower of fireworks was sent flying over our heads. I suppose to represent the descent of the angels; for a group of ladies appeared, dressed to represent the shepherds who watched their flocks by night upon the plains of Bethlehem. Then voices, supposed to be those of Mary and Joseph, struck up a hymn, in which they begged for admittance, saying that the night was cold and dark, that the wind blew hard, and that they prayed for a night’s shelter. A chorus of voices from within refused admittance. Again those without entreated shelter, and at length declared that she at the door, who thus wandered in the night, and had not where to lay her head, was the Queen of Heaven! At this name the doors were thrown wide open, and the Holy Family entered singing. The scene within was very pretty; a nacimiento [birth]. Platforms, going all around the room, were covered with moss, on which were disposed groups of wax figures, generally representing passages from different parts of the New Testament, though sometimes they begin with Adam and Eve in paradise. There was the Annunciation – the Salutation of Mary to Elizabeth – the Wise Men of the East – the Shepherds – the Flight into Egypt. There were green trees and fruit trees, and little fountains that cast up fairy columns of water, and flocks of sheep, and a little cradle in which to lay the Infant Christ. One of the angels held a waxen baby in her arms. The whole was lighted very brilliantly, and ornamented with flowers and garlands. A padre took the baby from the angel, and placed it in the cradle, and the posada was completed.

We then returned to the drawing-room – angels, shepherds, and all, and danced till supper time. The supper was a show for sweetmeats and cakes.

Today, with the exception of there being service in all the churches, Christmas is not kept in any remarkable way. We are spending this evening alone, and very quietly. (2)

Christmas Day in Mexico City

Albert Gilliam, an attorney from Virginia who also practiced dentistry, was appointed US consul to San Francisco in 1843. California was then part of Mexico, and people in President John Tyler’s administration apparently did not know much about the place, because San Francisco was not a port of entry for foreign vessels and therefore had no need for a consul. When the US consul appointed to Monterey informed Secretary of State John C. Calhoun of this fact, Gilliam’s appointment was rescinded. Although Gilliam never reached California, he traveled widely across Mexico and spent Christmas in Mexico City in 1843.

[D]uring all the day of the twenty-fourth my ears were constantly saluted by the querieud a dar, or the wishing to ring of the bells, to inform the good people that the great mass was that night to be celebrated at the Cathedral. On the evening of that day I took a walk to the plaza to witness the gathering of the people at that place. Great crowds had assembled, from distances in the country, of men, women, and children, who had spread upon the pavements their fruits and goods of all kinds, intending to reside up on the spot during all the Christmas holidays. Under the corridors of the private buildings around the plaza were crowds of citizens examining their trinkets and other commodities, brought by the hucksters to markets. I observed that many were the dollars expended in worthless things, to be used as Christmas compliments. These holiday merchants had not opened their goods for a temporary residence of a few hours, but had located themselves for a day and night, as each individual had prepared him or herself with a petate, mat, upon which to slumber when wearied.

The scene was truly most confused and lively; more so than any I had ever beheld; and I, for the first time, began to think that there was some enterprise amongst the Mexicans; for it was the only sight I had discovered like business since I had been in the country….

At night, it being Christmas eve, I again visited in the plaza, in company with two of my American acquaintances. The scene was much heightened, in its interesting confusion, from that beheld during the day. The multitude of holiday merchants, who thronged the sidewalks, were now scattered all over the plaza, seated on their mats in Indian fashion, and only discoverable through the dark volumes of smoke that circled upwards from the pine torches; and as the crowd of citizen spectators passed to and fro, and the guards of soldiers, with their bright weapons gleaming through the smoke of the torch-light, marched along, the whole formed a scene more picturesque than any encampment of the kind I ever beheld.

But as the hour grew late, the interest I had before taken was diminished, by discovering that many of both sexes were intoxicated by drinking pulque, the essence of maguey, a cheap liquid, used mostly by the lazarones. …

Christmas day was also marked by many other festivities. There was during the whole day, the firing of rockets from the churches, and of cannon from before the national palace, at the plaza. In the evening, General Canalizo, the dictator, pro tem., in his coach of state, accompanied by his guards of lancers, commanded by a general officer, rode through the streets …

Having seen the big show of the Dictator, I followed the crowd to the Plaza de los Torros…. Having convinced myself that decent and respectable portions of society, embracing both sexes, visited the shows of bull-fighting; I attended the exhibition, remaining there as long as I could do so with any degree of ease or comfort. (3)

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas.

You might also enjoy:

Celebrating a 19th-Century Christmas

A 19th-Century Spanish Christmas

A 19th-Century Austrian Christmas

Christmas Eve in Early 19th-Century Pennsylvania

Bonypart Pie and Questions for Christmas

W.H. Hardy, Travels in the Interior of Mexico in 1825, 1826, 1827, & 1828 (London, 1829), pp. 52-53.
Frances Calderón de la Barca, Life in Mexico During a Residence of Two Years in That Country, Vol. II (Boston, 1843), pp. 39-41.
Albert M. Gilliam, Travels over the Table Lands and Cordilleras of Mexico, During the Years 1843 and 44 (Philadelphia, 1846), pp. 130-132, 138-139.

Although people in the early 1800s could not shop at supermarkets or department stores, they had plenty of other shopping opportunities, especially if they lived in cities. Markets, peddlers and hawkers, specialty stores, general stores and cheap shops all catered to early 19th-century shoppers. Here’s a look at what it was like to go shopping 200 years ago.

The Greengrocer, by James Pollard, circa 1819. Source: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

Shopping at markets

Cities, towns, and many villages in North America and Europe had a marketplace in which people could buy fresh food and other goods. Some markets operated daily, others weekly, or on certain specified days. Some were indoors, some outdoors. For people who didn’t live on farms, a trip to the market for groceries was usually part of the daily routine. Visiting Cincinnati in 1828, Frances Trollope observed:

There are no butchers, or indeed any shops for eatables, except bakeries, as they are called, in the town; everything must be purchased at market; and to accomplish this, the busy housewife must be stirring betimes, or, spite of the abundant supply, she will find her hopes of breakfast, dinner, and supper for the day defeated, the market being pretty well over by eight o’clock. (1)

That same year, British naval officer Basil Hall toured the markets of New Orleans.

Under one long arched building, surrounded by pillars, the meat was exposed to sale, and under another the vegetables. On the river, abreast of these markets, which were built at the bottom of the slope of the Levée, were ranged numberless boats that had arrived during the night from various plantations, both above and below the city. …

In the vegetable market I saw cabbages, peas, beet-roots, artichokes, French beans, radishes, and a great variety of spotted seeds, and caravansas [chick peas]; potatoes both of the sweet and Irish kind; tomatoes, rice, Indian corn, ginger, blackberries, roses and violets, oranges, bananas, apples; fowls tied in threes by the leg, quails, gingerbread, beer in bottles, and salt fish. … Close to every second or third pillar sat one or more black women, chattering in French, selling coffee and chocolate. Besides these good things, they distributed smoking dishes of rice, white as snow, which I observed the country people eating with great relish, along with a very nice mess of stuff, which I took to be curry, and envied them accordingly. But I found it was called gumbo, a sort of gelatinous vegetable soup, of which, under other instruction, I learnt afterwards to understand the value. (2)

In Napoleon in America, Napoleon fictionally sets foot in the United States right beside the New Orleans markets.

Fly Market from the corner of Front Street and Maiden Lane, New York, 1816. Source: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library

Peddlers and hawkers

Another shopping option was provided by itinerant vendors known as peddlers (spelled pedlars in the UK) and hawkers. These terms, which tended to be used interchangeably in the early 1800s, included street vendors who advertised their goods by calling out loudly, vendors who went door-to-door offering their wares, and vendors who travelled from village to village selling goods at each house. They were basically travelling salesmen. Here’s an early 19th-century American tin peddler describing how he made a sale.

A few days since, in my travels, I called at a house where I suspected the family had money, and I determined before leaving it to obtain some of it in exchange for my wares. Upon inquiring of the good lady if she wanted anything in my line, I met with an indignant frown, and an emphatic no! But I knew better. I replied, my ware is very superior, I will bring in some of it, and you shall judge for yourself. Nothing daunted by her exclamations that she would not buy any, and that I might spare myself any further trouble, I deliberately proceeded to my cart and filled my arms with an assortment of articles which was forthwith deposited on the floor of the house. Then taking them one by one, I explained their uses, their beauty, their cheapness, and the lady’s absolute want of them. In the course of an half hour she was fully convinced she could not do without certain articles, and actually paid me thirteen dollars cash – besides all the paper, rags, old pewter, &c. she had on hand. (3)

A Spoon Peddler

While peddlers and hawkers provided a necessary service for shut-ins and people who lived in remote areas, they were often regarded as nuisances, particularly in cities. A mathematically-inclined letter-writer complained about them to a London newspaper in 1826.

I live in the vicinity of the City-road, where, like my neighbours, my family are exceedingly annoyed by hawkers knocking at the door. The practice is grown now to such a pitch, Mary our servant declares, that no less than 100 a day pay us a visit; which, according to her account, is as bad as the tread-mill itself; and had she 10 pair of legs, as she says, they would be all too few for her. ‘Why, Sir,’ says she, ‘if they go on in this manner, we must not only have a new knocker, but also a new door soon.’ Admitting Mary to have exceeded the number of visitors, and supposing we fix them at 30, which, perhaps, would be nearer the mark, and that to answer the door, she has to go from the attics, sometimes from the cellar, and sometimes from the garden – without saying a word about the inconvenience of leaving the ironing-board, or the wash-tub – supposing, we say, what with going and coming, she walks 20 yards each time, which multiplied by 30, would be 600 yards per day. Allowing Mary, who is rather heavy gaited, to be two minutes in performing the operation, besides half a minute more in exchanging a few mutual, acrimonial compliments (which she is by no means deficient in), two and a half times 30 would be 75 minutes. Here is, then, an hour and a quarter of the servant’s time taken up with those unwelcome visitants. Add to this the nuisance of disturbing infants in their cots, besides annoying the whole house.

Yesterday, a woman selling hair brooms knocked at our door; and as I was on the eve of going out, I opened it myself and told her she should cry her goods, and not knock at people’s doors. ‘Poh,’ said she, ‘I have authority to do so, and shall, when I please, and as often as I please,’ and actually knocked a second time. I confess I was somewhat mortified at such daring conduct, but did not know how to prevent it. (4)

It was not unusual for hawkers to peddle stolen goods.

The ladies at the west end of [London] are not aware that when they are making bargains with persons who hawk about silks, they are encouraging the system of robbery…. There is scarcely a shawl purchased as a ‘bargain’ in this way, that has not been in the possession of some desperate house-breaker, who has risked his neck to get hold of what afterwards adorns the shoulders of many a beautiful woman. In fact, many a lady of rank and fortune may say with truth, when she looks at her new purchase, ‘This passed through the hands of a man who was or will certainly be hanged.’ (5)

Specialty stores

Most shops in the early 1800s were specialty stores. These were independently owned and often operated on the same premises on which the goods were made. Depending on where you lived and what you were looking for, a shopping trip might involve stopping at any of the following: bakery; bookstore; butcher; cabinet-maker and upholsterer (furniture); confectioner (sweets, preserves, candy); chemist and druggist or apothecary (medicine); carver and gilder (mirrors and picture frames); chandler (candles and soap); clothes shop; cookshop (cooked food); cooper (casks, tubs, pails); cutler (cutlery, scissors, penknives, razors, swords); draper or mercer (fabric); fishmonger; haberdasher (small items used in sewing); ironmonger (hardware); goldsmith; grocer; gunsmith; jeweler; lacemaker; milliner or hatter; printseller; musical instruments shop; optician (telescope, microscope, glasses); saddler; shoe store; silversmith; tailor; tanner (leather goods); tobacconist; watch and clock maker.

Shopping at the Linen Draper

Basil Hall amused himself in New York one morning by noting down a few of the signs over the shop doors: “Flour and Feed Store, Cheap Store, Clothing Store, Cake Store and Bakery, Wine and Tea Store, all explain themselves. Leather and Finding Store puzzled me at first. I learned, upon inquiry, that finding means the tape and other finishings of shoes and boots.” (6)

General stores

In small communities – particularly in North America – that could not support a range of specialty stores, there was often a general store where shoppers could obtain a wide variety of merchandise. Stephen Austin’s father, Moses Austin, operated a general store in Missouri “where he sold clothing materials, household and kitchen furniture, hardware, and other manufactured good for lead, peltry, and miscellaneous country produce. He exported these barter commodities to correspondents in New Orleans, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, and received his trade stock from them in exchange.” (7) General Charles Lefebvre-Desnouettes for a time ran a general store at the Vine and Olive colony in Alabama. Under the operation of an untrustworthy junior officer, the store lost its entire inventory, with money still owed to creditors.

Cheap shops

Cheap shops, or cheap stores, such as the one Basil Hall noticed in New York, were the discount stores of the early 19th century. They offered goods at lower prices than the specialty shops. As such, they were hated by regular merchandisers and attracted negative publicity.

There is no doubt but that a set of unprincipled adventurers have opened in various parts of London warehouses for the reception of perhaps smuggled…perhaps stolen, perhaps swindled, and frequently damaged goods, which they sell, and can afford to sell, at prices which set at naught all honest rivalship. What can be done with such men? Why, if the public will be cheated by them for the sake of twopenny savings, there is nothing to be done with the swindlers but to let them ruin themselves. …[They also have] a monopoly of the market…not alone the effect of roguery, and of their unfairly moderate prices, but…the consequence of their possessing large capitals, and of their being able to lay out money at seasons when other people are without it, and therefore of their being able to sell cheaper in consequence of having bought cheaper. Now, for a monopoly so obtained, we really know not what sort of legislative remedy can be invented. It is obvious that these large ready-money purchasers cannot be of the class of ‘desperate adventurers.’ (8)

The cheap shops did not all have “Cheap Shop” on their signs. In Britain, they assumed “the names of royalty, heroes, and battles, as attractive designations of their places of business.” As for what type of goods they sold:

You find in most of them the business carried on of the following curious admixture: the linen-draper, woolen-draper, silk-mercer, ladies’ shoemaker, jeweler, man’s mercer, haberdasher, hosier, glover, laceman, umbrella-maker, fancy china-man, carpet-dealer, furrier, plumassier, clock maker, upholsterer, perfumer, milliner, dress maker, &c. &c., each of which formerly was considered a distinct business or trade…. It may be asserted…that these monopolizers are the staunch advocates of free trade, and, by means of their extensive command of capital, are the greatest encouragers and importers of French and other foreign goods. (9)

In American cities, the cheap stores had tasteful displays in the windows, cheap articles exhibited at the doors, and pressing invitations to passersby to walk in. A critic described their business model as follows.

Wholesale merchants eager to extend their business, caught with the chaff of ‘cash customers,’ never hesitate to furnish goods to these gentlemen [the cheap store owners], whose honesty and ability are unimpeachable because unknown, and thus provide facilities of business which an upright and candid man is unable to procure because he lacks effrontery to make as fair (or rather unfair) representations. The stock thus obtained being gaily exhibited and offered for sale at cost-price enables the trader to make quick returns, while he avails himself of the solicitation of the merchant to buy heavier. Ready payments induce easy credit. The stock increases and the sales improve proportionably. Out of the proceeds our adventurer lives in style and luxury. ‘He is doing a smashing business.’ In time the notes become due, and the merchant advances money to assist in their payment. Other notes mature, and are protested, and the game is over. Out of the refuse of the business, the gentleman manages to glean some fifty percent, twenty-five of which he proposes to his creditors in compromise of his affairs (which is never rejected) and he retains the balance as capital wherewith to buy new credit for a second game. … Honest men, taking note of what is apparently a flourishing business, are at a loss to know the secret of these profitable speculations, and with a blind faith (would faith be faith with the eyes open)…sell their goods at cost, but unlike their exemplars, they pay for their goods, and hence the only thing they make is loss. (10)

Who did the shopping?

If you had servants, they did the shopping for you, especially for food and household items. If you did not have servants, or if you wanted more personal or expensive items, or if you wanted the social experience of going to the stores, you shopped for yourself. Both men and women frequented stores and markets. A visiting Englishman noted, “[i]t is much more the fashion at New York for gentlemen to go to market than ladies, and they very frequently carry home their purchase, especially if it be poultry, in their own hands.” (11) Women would typically shop for clothing for themselves and their families, although not all women enjoyed the experience. Irish writer Melesina Trench wrote in 1816, “I hate shopping, dislike conferences with milliners and dressmakers, fidget while anything is trying on, and give no credit to the pert Miss who always assures me the most expensive of her caps is exactly the one which becomes me the best.” (12)

At Market, by William T. Annis, 1803. Source: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

The shopping experience

Stores were not generally set up for customers to browse in, the way they are today. Products were typically kept behind the merchant’s counter, and the shopkeeper, or a shop assistant, would bring forward whatever the customer wanted. The item would then be measured if necessary (for example, in the case of food or fabric), and then wrapped. Although prices could be negotiated with peddlers and market sellers, it was considered bad manners to try to bargain down the price in reputable stores. A British guide for young married women advised:

You yourself must endeavor to decide upon the real value of the articles laid before you, and to satisfy yourself that you are not called upon to pay more for them than what is reasonable. If the price exceed your expectation, then it becomes more just to bring down your wishes to the purchase of articles of lower value, rather than to attempt, as many do, to beat down to your own terms the price of those of higher value. This I cannot but consider as a wrong principle to act upon, and I should be inclined to withdraw my custom from any tradesman whom I found to be in the habit of asking one price for his goods and accepting another. (13)

Servants would be sent to the shops and markets with money to buy things, or would put things on their master’s account. A manual for servants noted:

The best and most economical way possible for marketing is to pay ready money for all that you can, especially for miscellaneous articles, and to deal for the rest with the most respectable tradesmen, whose bills should be settled weekly, or, at any rate, frequently, to prevent mistakes; without these precautions, even those of much experience may chance to be cheated by unprincipled strangers, with old poultry, stale fish, tough mutton, or cow beef. (14)

Liverpool merchant Adam Hodgson noted that “cash store” was painted over the shops in most towns he visited in the United States, “to tell the customers that the shopkeepers sell only for cash, while they may almost be induced to sell even a thimble on credit.” (15) Some merchants, especially on the frontiers of America, would accept payment in the form of other goods or services (payment-in-kind) rather than cash.

Frances Trollope noted that women in the United States often had difficulty paying cash.

[F]ew ladies have any command of ready money entrusted to them. I have been a hundred times present when bills for a few dollars, perhaps for one, have been brought for payment to ladies living in perfectly easy circumstances, who have declared themselves without money, and referred the claimant to their husbands for payment. On every occasion where immediate disbursement is required, it is the same; even in shopping for ready cash they say, ‘send a bill home with the things, and my husband will give you a draft.’ (16)

It was considered impolite to look at a variety of items and not buy anything. The guide for young married women complained:

This ranging from shop to shop has also given origin to a fashionable method of killing time, which is well known by the term shopping, and is literally a mean and unwarrantable amusement at the expense of the tradesmen and shopkeepers who are subjected to it, and an insulting trial of the tempers of these poor people. I have seen ladies get down half the goods in a haberdasher’s shop upon his counter, and, after talking for an hour or two on their qualities and prices, leave the shop without making a purchase. I do not judge too harshly in saying that they entered without any intention of purchasing, and merely for amusement. (17)

An American retailer also bemoaned the practice of “shopping.”

Chattering gaily in pairs and triplicates, [women] flaunt along from shop to shop, making known their wants with dignity and self-possession, conscious of their vast superiority of intelligence and position over the poor creatures whom they condescend to honor with a knowledge of their need. Seating themselves complacently, they intimate their inclination to inspect the various patterns and new styles the shop may be so fortunate as to possess, and insinuate, with most graciously bland looks, seasoned with polished patience, their desire to see the entire quantity of which the assortment is made up.

Should the rash animal behind the counter venture to enhance a pattern by a word of praise, and tremblingly invite them to denote their admiration or denial of his taste; nay, more, should he (foolhardy though it were) be bold enough to ask whether the goods pleased them, the modest reply would be, (if they replied at all,) ‘Oh, tol loll!’ or some such definite and satisfactory proposition clearly confirmed by their leaving the store. Or if, perchance, there might be something fanciful enough to fix their attention and awaken their desire to possess it, prompt with this desire comes their wonted keenness and cupidity.

The retailer names a price; the ladies dissent on the ground that it is too high; – they have seen the article elsewhere for much less, (Heaven only knows why they did not buy it there!) and they do not want to pay more than they think it worth; the retailer makes a small reduction; they will not give so much; again he reduces; the ladies make an offer of a sum less than the prime cost; the shopkeeper again comes down in hope to divide the difference; the ladies make a small advance, to which the shopkeeper at length accedes, and commences measuring the quantity wished for; the ladies consult again, and decide to look a little farther; again he strives to enforce the sale; again they relent, and he cuts off the dress; he turns to procure a paper to envelope his sale and beholds his customers at the door, who kindly intimate to him that they will call again; he entreats them to stay one moment and hear him – he will bestow the trimmings if they will take the dress. With this proposition the ladies agree; the articles are procured and nicely packed together, and the direction of the parcel registered; the bill is presented and the money tendered and change about to be returned, when lo! one of the banknotes is a counterfeit; the ladies deny it – they have none but good money; the bill is shown them – it is not possible it came from them – the shopkeeper must have received it from some other person; this he as strenuously contradicts, for the bill has not been out of his hand; this latter being proof positive, they no longer demur, but exchange the bill and depart in great glee, having made a capital bargain. (18)

For more about situations you might have encountered if you went shopping in the early 1800s, see my post on “Shopping in the Early 19th Century.”

You might also enjoy:

Currency, Exchange Rates & Costs in the 19th Century

Was Napoleon good or bad?

Frances Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans (London, 1832), p. 67.
Basil Hall, Travels in North America in the Years 1827 and 1828, III (Edinburgh, 1830), pp. 330-332.
“Secrets in Trade,” National Intelligencer (Washington, D.C.), May 20, 1829.
“Hawkers Knocking at Doors,” The Times (London, UK), May 23, 1826.
George Smeeton, Doings in London, Tenth Edition (London, 1849), p. 252.
Basil Hall, Travels in North America in the Years 1827 and 1828, I (Edinburgh, 1830), p. 18.
Eugene C. Barker, The Life of Stephen F. Austin (Nashville & Dallas, 1925), p. 17.
The Times (London, UK), January 8, 1829.
Ibid.
John Slater, A Peep into Catharine Street, Or the Mysteries of Shopping (New York, 1846), pp. 4-5.
James Stuart, Three Years in North America, Vol. I (New York, 1833), pp. 329-330.
Richard Chenevix Trench, ed., The Remains of the Late Mrs. Richard Trench (London, 1862), p. 344.
Samuel and Sarah Adams, The Complete Servant (London, 1825), p. 55.
Adam Hodgson, Letters from North America, Vol. I (London, 1824), pp. 360-361.
Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans, p. 245.
Frances Parkes, Domestic Duties; or, Instructions to Young Married Ladies (London, 1825), p. 175.
Ibid., p. 176.
Slater, A Peep into Catharine Street, pp. 9-10.

Napoleon Bonaparte was religious in that he believed in God. However, he was not devoted to any particular religious doctrines or practices. Napoleon respected the power of religious belief and used religion to further his political goals.

Allegory of the Concordat of 1801, by Pierre Joseph Célestin François

Napoleon’s belief in God

Napoleon was born into a Catholic family in Corsica in 1769. He was baptized, raised, and educated as a Catholic. As an adult, Napoleon was not a devout Catholic, but he was certainly not an atheist or even an agnostic. Napoleon’s private secretary, Claude-François Méneval, wrote that Napoleon was “penetrated with a profound and mysterious sentiment of the divine omnipotence. His habit of involuntarily signing himself with the cross, on hearing of some great danger; or on the discovery of some important fact, where the interests of France or the success of his plans were concerned, at the news of some great and unexpected good fortune, or of some great disaster, was not only a reminiscence of his early religious education, but also another manifestation of the feeling which led him to attribute these favours or these warnings to the Author of all things.” (1)

Louis Étienne Saint-Denis, who served as a valet to Napoleon, reported that when Napoleon came out of his room in the morning he would often say to the valet on duty, “Open the doors and windows, and let in the air which God has made.” (2) This is something I have Napoleon say when he is fictionally in New Orleans in Napoleon in America. Saint-Denis also wrote:

Was the Emperor religious in the sense which devotees give to the word? I never saw any proof of it. But he was religious in the meaning which philosophers give to it. Although the Emperor went to mass, was present at religious ceremonies, and had heard some sermons during his life, that was no reason why he should attach importance to religious observances or set much store by them. His mind rose higher, and consequently his belief was different from the common run of men who go to church. But it will be said that he went to mass. Yes, but how did he understand it? He stood up when he had to stand up, he sat down when everybody did, knelt with them and kissed the Bible when it was handed to him. During divine service his bearing was serious, his hat was under his left arm when he did not put it on the chair in front of him, and his right hand was generally in his trousers pocket (and rattling some small change in it, at the Island of Elba). But he never made any other outward demonstration after the fashion of devotees. (3)

Another one of Napoleon’s secretaries, Louis-Antoine Bourrienne, observed:

On the subject of religion, Bonaparte’s ideas were very vague. ‘My reason, said he, ‘makes me incredulous as to many things; but the impressions of my childhood and early youth throw me into uncertainty.’ He was very fond of talking of religion. In Italy, in Egypt, and on board the Orient and the Muiron, I have known him to take a part in very animated conversations on this topic. He readily yielded up all that was proved against religion as the work of men and time; but he would not hear of materialism. I recollect that, one fine night, when he was on deck with some persons who were arguing in favour of materialism, Bonaparte raised his hand to heaven, and pointing to the stars, said, ‘You may talk as long as you please, gentlemen, but who made all that?’ (4)

Henri-Gatien Bertrand, Grand Marshal of the Palace, who was with Napoleon from 1813 until the latter’s death in 1821, wrote:

In his will the Emperor declared that he had died in the Catholic faith, in which he had been born. … In actual fact the Emperor died a Theist, believing in a rewarding God, the principle of all things. Yet he stated that he had died in the Catholic religion, because he believed that to be compatible with public ethics. (5)

Religion as statecraft

Napoleon took a practical view of religion. He thought that religion played a crucial role in preserving order and promoting useful values within a society.

I do not see in [religion] the mystery of the incarnation, but the mystery of social order, the association of religion with paradise, an idea of equality which keeps the rich from being massacred by the poor…. Society could not exist without an inequality of fortunes, and an inequality of fortunes without religion. A man dying of starvation alongside of one who is surfeited would not yield to this difference unless he had some authority which assured him that God so orders it, that there must be both poor and rich in the world, but that in the future, and throughout eternity, the portion of each will be changed. (6)

Religious leaders had moral authority. Napoleon sought to use this to his advantage. He did not believe in the separation of church and state.

I have been in vain endeavouring to establish the proper limits between the civil and religious authority. In truth, these limits are quite chimerical. I have looked into the subject to no purpose. I can see nothing but clouds, obscurity, and difficulty. The civil government condemns a criminal to death; the priest steps in, gives him absolution, and ensures him a place in paradise! (7)

When Napoleon was attempting to conquer Egypt and Syria in 1798-99, he proclaimed his admiration for Islam and took part in the religious ceremonies of the Muslim rulers, in an attempt to win their support. He used quotations from the Koran and other Islamic arguments to justify his rule. He also put forward decrees on behalf of the Jews and the Coptic Christians, but these went down less well with the local population. Bourrienne noted:

A wise conqueror supports his triumphs by protecting, and even elevating the religion of the conquered people. Bonaparte’s principle was, as he himself has often told me, to look upon religions as the work of men, but to respect them everywhere as a powerful engine of government. … If Bonaparte spoke as a Musselman, it was merely in his character as a military and political chief in a Mussulman country. To do so was essential to his success, to the safety of the army, and, consequently, to his glory. In every country he would have drawn up proclamations, and delivered addresses, on the same principle. In India, he would have been for Ali; at Tibet, for the Dalai-Lama; and in China, for Confucius. (8)

Concordat with the Pope

After coming to power in France in the Coup of 18 Brumaire (November 9, 1799), Napoleon took steps to reconcile the Roman Catholic Church with the French state. His aim was to bolster the authority of his new regime. During the French Revolution, the church had been suppressed in France. Napoleon negotiated an agreement with Pope Pius VII, known as the Concordat of 1801, which returned France to Catholicism. Sunday worship was again permitted, and exiled clergy were allowed to return to France. The church was not restored to its former authority, however. Catholicism was not recognized as the French national religion, but rather as the religion of the majority of the French. Confiscated church property was not returned. Bishops who might be sympathetic to the old Bourbon regime were removed so that they could be replaced by candidates nominated by Napoleon. The state would pay clerical salaries. The clergy swore an oath of allegiance to the state. French historian Hippolyte Taine later described the situation as follows:

Each prelate posted in his diocese is maintained there in isolation; a watch is kept on his correspondence; he can communicate with the Pope only through the Minister of Worship; he has no right to act in concert with his colleagues; all the general assemblies of the clergy, all metropolitan councils, all annual synods, are suppressed. The church of France has ceased to exist as one corps, while its members, carefully detached from each other and from their Roman head, are no longer united, but…confined to a circumscription like the prefect; the bishop himself is simply an ecclesiastical prefect. (9)

The number of monastic orders was greatly reduced, as was the number of feast days and processions. August 15, the Feast of the Assumption, which happened to be Napoleon’s birthday, also became the feast of “Saint Napoleon,” a re-named and probably mythical Roman martyr.

Although the Pope was present at Napoleon’s coronation in 1804, Napoleon crowned himself. This gesture symbolized that the Pope (a foreign prince) was not above the new Emperor. In 1806, Napoleon published the Imperial Catechism, which all Catholic children had to learn by heart. It included such passages as:

We especially owe to our Emperor, Napoleon the First, love, respect, obedience, fidelity, military service, and tributes ordained for the preservation of the empire and his throne…. For God has raised him up for us in times of peril that he might restore public worship and the holy religion of our fathers and be its protector. (10)

Priests had to preach on behalf of conscription, and that it was a sin to try to escape from it. Pastoral letters had to pass through censors; bishops were furnished with ready-made drafts. Relations between Napoleon and the Pope deteriorated. In 1808, French troops occupied Rome. In 1809, Napoleon annexed the Papal States to his empire. The Pope responded by excommunicating Napoleon. When one of Napoleon’s officers took the initiative of kidnapping the Pope, Napoleon did not release the pontiff. Instead Pius VII was moved to Savona, and later to Fontainebleau, where Napoleon could pressure him directly. Eventually, in 1813, the Pope signed a new concordat, which he soon revoked. The Pope remained in French captivity until January of 1814. Napoleon abdicated in April of that year.

Tolerance of other faiths

Both as a result of his personal beliefs and as a matter of statecraft, Napoleon was tolerant of other faiths besides Catholicism. Lutheranism, Calvinism and Judaism were given equal status with Catholicism. Bourrienne wrote:

Policy induced Bonaparte to re-establish religious worship in France, which he thought would be a powerful aid to the consolidation of his power; but he would never consent to the persecution of other religions. He wished to influence mankind in positive and temporal things, but not in points of belief. (11)

This did not mean that religious communities were free to do whatever they wanted. Napoleon dominated the clergy of all faiths within his Empire. In the words of Taine:

So long as belief remains silent and solitary, confined within the limits of individual conscience, it is free and the state has nothing to do with it. But let it act outside these limits, address the public, bring together in crowds for a common purpose, manifest itself visibly, it is subject to control; forms of worship, ceremonies, preaching, instruction, and propagandism, the donations it provokes, the assemblies it convenes, the organization and maintenance of the bodies it engenders, all the positive applications of the inward rosary, are temporal works. In this sense, they form a province of the public domain and come within the competency of the government of the administration and of the courts. The state has a right to interdict, to tolerate, or to authorize them, and to direct their activity at all times. (12)

Napoleon’s religious faith at his death

During his final years, which were spent in exile on St. Helena, Napoleon took a greater personal interest in religious faith. He read the Bible and speculated to his companions that he might come to believe again, as he did when he was a child. He told Bertrand that he doubted there was anything after death, but he expressed his wish that Abbé Vignali, one of the priests in his household, should administer communion, extreme unction, and whatever else was usual in the circumstances. There was nothing religious in his last words. Saint-Denis wrote:

No one ever knew or knows whether the Emperor, during the last days of his life, had recourse to the consolations and help of religion. No one ever saw anything – what can be called seeing. Abbé Vignali is the only person who knew whether or not the Emperor indulged in the practices of religion. (13)

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Claude-François de Méneval, Memoirs to Serve for the History of Napoleon I From 1802 to 1815, translated by Robert H. Sherard, Vol. I (London, 1895), pp. 381-382.
Louis Étienne Saint-Denis, Napoleon from the Tuileries to St. Helena; Personal Recollections of the Emperor’s Second Mamluke and Valet, Louis Etienne St. Denis (known as Ali), translated by Frank Hunter Potter, New York and London: Harper & Brothers, 1922, p. 222.
Ibid., p. 220.
Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne, Private Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Vol. I (Philadelphia, 1831), p. 278.
Paul Fleuriot de Langle, ed., Napoleon at St. Helena: The Journals of General Bertrand from January to May of 1821, translated by Frances Hume (Garden City, NY, 1952), pp. 163-164.
H.A. Taine, “Napoleon’s Views of Religion,” The North American Review, Vol. 152, No. 414 (May 1891), p. 568.
Basil Hall, Napoleon in Council, or The Opinions Delivered by Bonaparte in the Council of State, translated from the French of Baron Pelet (de la Lozère) (Edinburgh and London, 1837), p. 241.
Bourriene, Private Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, pp. 163-164.
Taine, “Napoleon’s Views of Religion,” p. 575.
Ibid., pp. 577-578.
Bourriene, Private Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, p. 278.
Taine, “Napoleon’s Views of Religion,” p. 574.
Saint-Denis, Napoleon from the Tuileries to St. Helena, pp. 221-222.

In 1818, future first lady Louisa Adams wrote to her father-in-law, John Adams: “How much practice…is required to receive company well, and how much the greatest talents are obscured by that want of ease and small talk which, though in itself trifling, always produces the happy effect of socializing a company and by insensible degrees warming it into brilliancy and solidity. This is one of those arts that everybody feels, but few understand, and is altogether inexplicable.” (1)

People making small talk, 1842. Source: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Picture Collection, The New York Public Library

Louisa believed the ability to make small talk was so important that, four years later, in a letter to her husband, John Quincy Adams, she listed it as the first ingredient in her recipe for a successful presidential candidate.

Take a good deal of small talk; a very little light literature; just sufficient attention to dress to avoid the appellation of a dandy: a considerable affectation of social affability; with as much suavity as will induce the fawners who surround him to fancy they rule him; a fine house, a showy carriage, and a tavern kind of keeping establishment; and you have the man whose popularity will carry everything before him. (2)

As Louisa knew, small talk does not always come naturally. Here’s a guide to how it was done in the early 19th century.

What is small talk?

The Earl of Chesterfield referred to small talk as “a sort of chit-chat…which is the general run of conversation at courts, and in most mixed companies. It is a sort of middling conversation, neither silly nor edifying; but, however, very necessary for you to be a master of.” (3) A later, unnamed writer described it as “a rattling, gay, meaningless kind of conversation, …ability in which is necessary to everyone who converses with the fair sex.” (4) He was not the only person to assume that women liked small talk more than men did. A 19th-century American etiquette manual advised young men to be “always furnished with that sort of small talk which usually contributes most to [ladies’] amusement.” (5) On the other hand, a guidebook for women advised those interested in “retaining the esteem of a husband” to broaden their conversational horizons.

It is true that there is an abundance of those subjects which form the topic of what is, aptly enough, called ‘small talk,’ upon which it is impossible to go wrong. Where sheer nonsense is the subject of discourse, there is little room, and as little necessity, for dignified language, deep observation, or shrewd remark. But…it is seldom indeed that small talk is either opportune or allowable; and therefore, in laying down rules for conversing well, we leave such mere trifling entirely out of the question. (6)

A gentleman making small talk, by Frédéric Bouchot, 1830s

Topics and examples

Writing in 1823, an Englishman helpfully offered some examples of small talk.

The materials out of which it is formed are few in number, and easily accessible. … The weather, the health of your friends, the funds, any accidents which have happened to any of your acquaintances, such as deaths or marriages, the King, Bonaparte, Lord Byron, the cheapness of meat, any watering-place, the corn-bill, the author of Waverly, and the theatre.…

Thus, in a morning call, if two strangers happen to be left together, how agreeably they may pass the time in enlarging upon the above topics. ‘A very hot day, Sir!’ ‘Yes, indeed, Sir; my thermometer stood 80 in the shade. Pray, Sir, are you related to the Rev. Jeremiah Jollison? I hope he is well.’ ‘I am his brother, Sir: he died two years ago.’ ‘God bless me! but it’s more than two years since I saw him. Pray, Sir, what do you think of Spanish bonds?’ &c. Such is the conversation you generally hear after dinner (before dinner there is none) in stage-coaches, at hotels, and at watering-places. It is most suitable for adults.

The grand difficulty in this kind of small-talk is to discover any subject; for as…the mind cannot…call up any subject it pleases, the dialogue must necessarily depend on the power of association in the brain of the individuals who maintain it. It requires great presence of mind to call up a sufficient number of topics to meet a sudden emergency. Thus, when you meet a friend in the street, who, in spite of your attempts to pass him with a nod, will stop and speak to you, how awkward it is to have nothing to say! This happens to me continually. When you have shaken hands, and the one has said, ‘A fine day,’ and the other, ‘Yes, very,’ you stand for a few moments gazing with a vacant sort of look upon one another, shake hands again, and part. The same accident sometimes happens in morning calls. After having exhausted all the common-places of civility, it is in vain you attempt to think of some subject of discourse; the longer you search, the further you are from it; except the conviction that you can find nothing to talk about, your mind is a tabula rasa. Your guest at last rises, and puts you out of your agony.

There are some people, however, who have a genius for small-talk. Their stock seems boundless. It is no matter where, or with whom, or upon what, they are talking; still it flows on and on…. It is a great infliction to be the only person in company with these inveterate small-talkers. Their discourse makes one’s head ache. It is like the perpetual dropping of water upon the crown of one’s pericranium. To me, however, such people, if their conversation is not addressed to me, are a great relief. They save me the trouble of attempting to talk, and the mortification of a failure. (7)

In praise of small talk

Small Talk in the Drawing Room St. James’s

Drawing Room St. James’s, by Thomas Rowlandson, 1809, Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959

Although the above writer paid small talkers a barbed compliment, others offered more fulsome praise.

There seems to be a great deal of wisdom in speaking contemptuously of common-place talk; but it is all seeming. … If a man of great learning be an agreeable man, it is not his learning that makes him so, but his dexterity in managing it. If he be above small talk, he may, for nine-tenths of the world, keep his learning to himself. It is an admirable conceit for profound critics in the ancient languages of Greece and Rome to spend years upon settling the reading of an old song, and write volumes upon a cadence, and bury themselves in dust till their souls are as dry as a stuffed alligator, and then give themselves airs upon the insipidity and nothingness of small talk.

The mistake is common…to imagine that it is the easiest matter in the world to talk about nothing, or everyday occurrences: it requires an active mind, an observant mind, and no small share of that invaluable, unpurchaseable, and almost unlearnable quality, good humour, to say something on everything to anybody. …

If a man must never open his lips, but for the enunciation of an aphorism, or never say anything which has not been, or may not be, in print; if he must be everlastingly talking volumes, or discussing knotty points of casuistry, politics, or metaphysics, he will find the gift of speech rather burthensome, and but few of his audience willing to hear him out.

But I am not wishing to vindicate nonsense, or extol trifling. I am only putting in a claim for the due honours of that species of talk, which must, more or less, be at times the occupation of us all. We have heard of conversasiones where common-place is studiously avoided, where politics and weather are never discussed, but where criticism, or metaphysics, or antiquities, and matters of taste, form the sole subjects of discourse. This sounds mightily edifying to be sure; but the most egregious common-place is not unfrequently heard in these parties. Let but the topics of the day be known, the last novel, or picture, or public singer, and all the conversation may be anticipated. In order to shine, the mind puts itself into the most strained and unnatural attitudes, and displays its possessions instead of exerting its power; and many a poor soul dares hardly open its lips for want of having read certain books, or seen certain pictures, or statues, or opera dancers.

Small talk obviates these evils; the mind is at ease; there is no intention of saying anything profound; there is no fear of disappointing expectation; and in this delightful recreation we often ‘snatch a grace beyond the reach of art.’

It is very pleasant to pass time agreeably, to keep the mind active without wearing it, to have all our hours engaged in some form or other; we cannot do this without some share of small talk. (8)

What if you hate small talk?

For those who detested small talk, all was not lost. Frances, Lady Shelley, wrote admiringly of the Duke of Wellington, whom she found “the most agreeable man I have ever met”:

He possesses a fund of anecdote, a very retentive memory, and a candour in expressing his thoughts which heightens the charm of his society. He tells one exactly what one wants to know, and never indulges in what is commonly called ‘small talk.’ (9)

And Harriet, Lady Granville, described one of her female acquaintances as being “one of those, and they are generally the most attractive and attracting, who cannot be amused by the mere mechanical apparatus of society, light, dress, crowd, small talk. She is either interested or bored to death, but with such excellence, such freedom from all wrong, her conduct never can err beyond a certain point….” (10)

Even the etiquette manual that advised young men to equip themselves with small talk for the ladies observed that “a fashionable fool may attain to the small talk of which much of the conversation in society is composed, and his glib confidence may so far impose upon the superficial as to make this pass for wit; but it will not be received as such by that portion of society whose esteem is desirable. Good sense, sound and varied information, are as necessary as confidence to enable a man to converse well.” (11)

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“To John Adams from Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 17 December 1818,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-03-02-3585. Accessed November 9, 2021.
“From Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams to John Quincy Adams, 17 August 1822,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-03-02-4132. Accessed November 9, 2021.
George Gregory, ed., The Elements of a Polite Education; Carefully Selected from the Letters of the Late Earl of Chesterfield to His Son (London, 1800), p. 337.
The Collegiate Miscellany, Volume I (New York, 1828), p. 71.
Ladies and Gentlemen’s Pocket Companion of Etiquette and Manners…by an American (New York, 18xx), p. 63.
The Female’s Encylopaedia of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge (London, 1830), p. 332.
“A Few Thoughts on Small Talk,” The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal, Vol. VII (London, Henry Colburn, 1823), pp. 217-218.
“The Sketch-Book No. XXXIV: Small Talk,” The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. IX (London, 1827), pp. 267-268.
Richard Edgcumbe, ed., The Diary of Frances Lady Shelley, 1818-1873 (London, 1813), p. 138.
Leveson Gower, ed., Letters of Harriet Countess Granville, 1810-1845, Vol. I (London, 1894), p. 247.
Ladies and Gentlemen’s Pocket Companion of Etiquette and Manners…by an American, p. 49.

Although the Duke of Wellington did not face as many assassination attempts as Napoleon did, there were at least two serious plots to assassinate him. In the first attempt, the bullet fired by the would-be assassin failed to hit the Duke. The second attempt, in which Wellington was one of many intended victims, was foiled before it could be carried out.

Studies for the Duke of Wellington, by George Hayter, circa 1820. Source: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

Attempt to assassinate Wellington in Paris, 1818

After Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo and abdication from the French throne in 1815, Louis XVIII was again restored as the King of France. Concerned about the allegiance of the French army and the stability of peace in Europe, the victorious allies established a multinational army to occupy France for a minimum of three years. This would protect Louis XVIII against any revolutionary uprising and give him time to build a loyal military force and firm up his support within France. The Duke of Wellington was placed in charge of this army of occupation.

Some supporters of the French Revolution (Jacobins), as well as some supporters of Napoleon (Bonapartists), favoured using violence to bring about the downfall of the restored monarchy. They hated the army of occupation because it propped up Louis XVIII’s rule.

Wellington knew that they posed a danger. On June 25, 1816, he gave a ball at his residence in the Rue des Champs-Elysées. The rooms were crowded with guests when an alarm was given that the house was on fire.

It appeared, upon inquiry, that, in a cellar, of which the window opened to the street, a barrel of oil had been placed; shavings also had been scattered on the floor, in which some bottles filled with gunpowder were mixed, and the shavings were on fire when the discovery was made. A few minutes later, and the whole house must have been in a blaze. (1)

In July 1817 Wellington wrote to General William Beresford, who had just suppressed a conspiracy in Lisbon:

[T]he French Revolution has left in the world heaps of dangerous and unquiet characters…who are become a focus of mischief, of conspiracy, and rebellion, in nearly every country of Europe. … [At Paris] I never go into any blackguard mob or place in which a fellow might insult me with impunity. In other respects, I ride or walk alone, and unattended, and go to the theatres and everywhere as other people do. (2)

On January 15, 1818, Wellington’s aide-de-camp, Colonel Ulysses Burgh, received a letter from Paris signed “F.G.” warning of a plot to assassinate the Duke. Wellington, who was then at Cambrai, disregarded this communication. Then, on January 30, Lord Charles Kinnaird, a Scottish liberal who had been exiled from Paris because of his lack of respect for the royal family (he called the Bourbons “old women”), wrote to Wellington’s Chief of Staff, General George Murray, saying that he had been visited by a French exile in Brussels who told him of an assassination plot.

I asked him how he came to be aware of the intended crime? He answered that an officer (a demi-solde, I think) to whom he occasionally supplied the means of existence had communicated to him an offer which some months ago was made to him to undertake it; that he had refused, and that another had accepted it; that this latter has been four months in the pay of his employers, and after having been during that time constantly in the neighborhood of the Duke wherever he went, was now established in Paris, awaiting his arrival. (3)

The informant offered to go to Paris and point out the culprit if he could be guaranteed safe conduct and return. He also hoped that three of his exiled friends would be allowed to return to France.

Murray immediately took the letter to the Duke, who “treat[ed] the matter very lightly, as…he has always done everything of the kind; and if there were a chance of getting him in any way to intercede with the French government [in favour of the exiles], certainly the least likely means of doing so would be anything in the shape of intimidation to himself.” (4) Wellington said, “I could not do that to procure my own safety from assassination which I did not think it proper to do on other grounds.” (5)

Kinnaird’s information proved to be accurate. On the night of February 10, 1818, someone tried to shoot the Duke of Wellington in Paris just as he was returning to his residence from a party. Wellington described the assassination attempt to Earl Bathurst, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, in a letter dated February 12.

[A] pistol was fired at my carriage, close to my own door, at about half-past twelve on the night before last, by a well-dressed person, who immediately ran away and made his escape. The sentries at the door were, at the time, within the porte cochère [carriage entranceway], as they usually are in the night; and it appears that the man had accompanied the carriage, at an accelerated pace about sixty or seventy yards along the street (Rue des Champs Elysées); he then took post behind the sentry-box while the carriage was turning to enter the porte cochère, and fired at the moment it was entering. I believe the horses had entered; and, in short, he was so close to the house and carriage, that I, who saw the flash and heard the report, conceived that one of the sentries had probably laid down his arms, and that, in taking them up awkwardly upon the approach of the carriage, his musket had gone off. Nobody was hurt, and the carriage was not even touched. …

[T]hough I did not see the assassin, I am quite certain he was a military person, and one of considerable intelligence. No common person would have ventured to commit the crime within two yards of my sentries, and none but a military man who had well observed the porte cochère and the mode in which the duty was done by the sentries, could have seen that while the horses and carriage were entering the sentries could not get out, and that the delay would give him time, after the shot was fired, to escape beyond the distance to which the sentries could pursue him.

He was very fortunate in his escape…. Two of my English servants were coming home from a public house, and heard the shot and saw the flash; and one of them observed to the other that the shot had been fired at my carriage. The assassin afterwards passed them in the street, and they deliberated whether they should stop him; but they determined they would not, as there was no cry or alarm from the house. (6)

Regarding his safety, the Duke added:

I have always been much more careful than people imagine. I know that no person in these degenerate days will risk his own life to take mine, or even that of a more obnoxious person; and therefore I conceive I run no risk by day, or those public places which are under the immediate guardianship of the police. I never go to any suspicious place, and have no particular place of resort at which an assassin might lie in wait for me; and it is very extraordinary that in discussing the subject with my friends after the receipt of the letter from Kinnaird, I stated my opinion that the only place in which I could be found alone and unguarded at night was in the neighbourhood of my own house. I have taken measures which I hope will ensure me here in future. I don’t propose to go any more in my own carriage at night, and I have a carriage so arranged as that the doors cannot be forced open, and I shall have arms in it, and a person armed upon the box; and whenever I go to any place where it is probable that the public would expect to see me, I shall be attended by gendarmes. (7)

Caricature of the assassination attempt on the Duke of Wellington in Paris, by Charlet, 1818. Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France

When the police examined the carriage and the surrounding area, they found no trace of a bullet. Lord Kinnaird travelled to Paris to see Wellington, bringing with him his informant, Louis-Joseph-Stanislas Marinet, known as Nicolle. They were both arrested and interrogated, which greatly angered Kinnaird.

Kinnaird was soon released, but Marinet remained a suspect. The latter was a Bonapartist lawyer in exile in Belgium. He had been condemned to death by the French government for having aided Napoleon’s return to France in 1815. In Brussels, Marinet made the acquaintance of several other French refugees thought to be in on the plot, including a Colonel Brice, who had served in Napoleon’s Imperial Guard chasseurs à cheval on the latter’s return from Elba and also been condemned to death in absentia. It turned out that Marinet had hired a former sergeant of the imperial guard, Marie-André-Nicolas Cantillon, to carry out the assassination. Cantillon, who was around 37 years old, had been conscripted into the French army under Napoleon. He rose to become a sub-lieutenant in the hussars and served in many actions, being wounded in several places. In 1814, he retired on a soldier’s half-pay of 150 francs. During the Hundred Days, he served in a regiment of chasseurs commanded by Colonel Brice. After firing the shot that missed Wellington, Cantillon fled from Paris, tried unsuccessfully to enter Belgium, and then returned to Paris, where he was arrested on March 16. However there was insufficient evidence to bring him and Marinet to trial.

In July, Wellington expressed his frustration with the situation.

In these virtuous days the greatest crime a man can be guilty of is to dénoncer the crime of another, even though that crime should be a plot to assassinate a third person. Although…the government have plenty of proof of the plot, of those who formed it, and of those who carried it into execution, and…they have Marinet, who was one of the conspirators, and Cantillon, who was one of the assassins (for there were two employed), in Paris, all those who have given them the information having stipulated that they should not be brought forward as dénonciateurs, they have not positive proof to produce in a court of justice. The other conspirator was certainly Brice, and I believe Cauchois Lemaire and Guyet were concerned; and there was a second assassin employed. There is no doubt that in August [of 1817] Cantillon and his comrade were posted in the great alley of the park at Bruxelles to assassinate me. I had been observed returning to the Bellevue…after the table d’hôte hour of dinner. They dined at a café in the neighbourhood and went to their post; but I did not pass, and went away next morning. I believe that was the day I walked in another part of the park with Lady Charlotte Greville and Kinnaird, and I recollect having a breeze with Kinnaird about the protection and encouragement he gave to Jacobins. (8)

In November 1818, the allied occupation of France ended and the Duke of Wellington returned to Britain. In May 1819, Marinet and Cantillon were finally brought before a jury. They were acquitted, ostensibly due to a lack of proof but also because Cantillon’s lawyer argued that a guilty verdict would dishonour France. Cantillon was demoted to the rank of sergeant. After Louis Philippe became King of France in 1830, he appointed Cantillon as a gamekeeper at the Palace of Fontainbleau. Cantillon later became a grocer in Brussels.

Marie André Cantillon tried to assassinate the Duke of Wellington in 1818

Marie André Cantillon, 1818

Napoleon’s bequest to Cantillon

Cantillon was ultimately rewarded by none other than Napoleon, who died on May 5, 1821. In a codicil to his will, Napoleon bequeathed 10,000 francs to Wellington’s would-be assassin, noting:

Cantillon had as much right to murder that oligarch as the latter had to send me to perish on the rock of Saint Helena. Wellington, who had suggested murder, justified it as being in Great Britain’s interest. Had Cantillon actually murdered the lord, he would have been covered and justified by the same motives, France’s interests, in getting rid of a general who had violated the capitulation of Paris, and because of that was responsible for the blood of the martyrs Ney, La Bédoyère, etc., etc., and for the crime of robbing the museums, against the terms of the treaty. (9)

Wellington expressed regret that Napoleon had lowered himself to this point. The British public was outraged, particularly since Wellington had forbidden his troops to kill Napoleon at Waterloo.

Cantillon was paid part of the sum between 1823 and 1826. He received the remainder after Napoleon’s nephew came to power as Napoleon III. Cantillon died in July 1869.

Cato Street Conspiracy, 1820

In December 1818, the Duke of Wellington was appointed Master-General of the Ordnance, which made him a member of the British Cabinet under Prime Minister Lord Liverpool. He thus became a target of a plot to assassinate the entire Cabinet.

The conspirators were headed by radical activist Arthur Thistlewood. At first the plan was to pick off the various Cabinet members separately. The Duke of Wellington was to be taken care of by James Ings, a coffeeshop keeper and former butcher. Wellington later recounted:

Mr. Ings, it seems, had watched me often, but never caught me alone, till one afternoon in the beginning of February [1820] he saw me leave the Ordnance Office. He crossed the street and walked after me, intending, when I got into the Green Park, to stab me from behind. But before reaching St. James’s Palace, a gentleman with only one arm met me, and turning round, walked with me through the Park to Apsley House. Mr. Ings was afraid, in the circumstances, to go on with his job, and I escaped. And all this I quite believe, for I recollect meeting Lord Fitzroy Somerset that day; and just as we resumed our walk, I saw a suspicious-looking person pass us and go up St. James’s Street. (10)

Somerset had lost his right arm at the Battle of Waterloo.

The conspirators subsequently decided it would be easier to murder the Cabinet all in one go at a dinner at the Grosvenor Square mansion of Lord Harrowby, Lord President of the Council, on February 23, 1820. They would then seize some public buildings, including the Tower of London and the Bank of England, and proclaim a revolutionary government.

A spy named George Edwards warned the government of the plot. Wellington proposed meeting the conspirators head-on.

My proposal was to get a body of police quietly into the house, to send our dispatch-boxes there, each containing a brace of pistols, and to let them come. I thought it the readiest way of catching them in a trap, without creating alarm elsewhere. My colleagues, however, were of a different opinion, and perhaps they were right. (11)

Instead, the Cabinet dinner was used as a decoy (without the Cabinet actually attending), while soldiers and police attacked the conspirators at their hideout, a stable block on Cato Street in London. There was a fight in the loft, in which nine men were arrested. Thistlewood killed Constable Richard Smithers with a sword, before escaping with three other men. They were arrested a few days later.

Surprise of the Cato Street Conspirators

On February 27, in a letter to Marianne Patterson, Wellington explained why Cabinet had let the plot go forward.

In the course of the Tuesday & Wednesday [22 and 23 February] we received information not only from spies but from persons implicated more or less in the plot who were horrified by its turpitude, & gave information to put us on our guard but which they desired might be kept secret. We were still therefore under the necessity of letting the conspiracy work its way, as we should have made but a poor figure in a Court of Justice with the support of the testimony of spies only…we were saved certainly by Divine Providence. (12)

The accused men argued that Edwards had instigated and organized the plot. This defence was unsuccessful. Most of them were convicted of treason. On May 1, the five ringleaders – Thistlewood, Ings, Richard Tidd, William Davidson and John Brunt – were hanged in front of a crowd at Newgate Prison. Half an hour later, their bodies were decapitated. Each head was held up to the crowd and proclaimed to be that of a traitor before being placed into a coffin with the rest of the body.

A May Day Garland for 1820, caricature of the execution of the Cato Street conspirators

Plots in the 1830s

In 1828, the Duke of Wellington became Prime Minister of Great Britain. He faced considerable agitation for parliamentary reform, which was encouraged in 1830 by the July Revolution in France. In September of that year, Wellington received a letter denouncing the name and address of an individual in Manchester who purportedly intended to assassinate him. He said, “I never neglect and never believe these things.” (13) A police enquiry found nothing.

In November 1830, Wellington began to receive threatening letters from “Captain Swing,” a pseudonym for a leader (or leaders) of rioting agricultural labourers. When a mob jostled Wellington in a park, a letter warned: “Pride not yourself upon your late escape….Remember Percival [sic] of old.” (14) British Prime Minister Spencer Perceval was assassinated in 1812.

There were warnings that a large riot was going to take place on November 9, Lord Mayor’s Day, in which King William IV was going to be imprisoned and Wellington murdered. The King cancelled his planned visit to the City of London, but Wellington scoffed at the idea of danger to himself: “They can try, but they will not do it. It is not so easy to kill a man.” (15) He nonetheless kept pistols in his carriage and carefully secured his London home, Apsley House: “all shutters on ground floors and in Waterloo Gallery to be closed; gates into yard and stable to be locked; armed men to be stationed at various windows, especially the Duke’s little ground-floor bedroom which looked on the Park; if a crowd collected they should be told that the house would be defended and they ‘had better go somewhere else’; no one to fire unless the gates or railing were broken down.” (16)

As things turned out, there was no insurrection on the 9th, just some clashes with the police. Wellington’s wife, Kitty, wrote to her sister: “In my heart I think that in the Duke’s warlike life, he never did anything so valiant, and that no Government ever did wiser than preventing the Lord Mayor’s dinner… London might have been flowing with blood that night and all England drowned in tears now!” (17)

On November 15, Wellington’s government lost a vote of confidence in Parliament. He ceased to be Prime Minister.

On the evening of April 27, 1831, households in London were called upon to light up their windows to demonstrate their support for the Reform Bill, which Wellington opposed. Kitty had died three days earlier and Wellington was out of town, so Apsley House remained dark. The house was attacked by rioters throwing stones. They broke thirty windows, at which point one of Wellington’s servants climbed onto the roof and fired two guns into the air, which dispersed the mob.

“Taking an Airing in Hyde Park; a portrait, Framed but not yet Glazed,” by John Doyle. Wellington looks through his broken windows at Apsley House in 1831.

In August 1831, a spy told the Duke of a plot to attack him on the Dover road between London and Walmer Castle. Volunteers escorted him along the route without incident.

On October 12, 1831, another reform mob stoned Apsley House. This time Wellington was at home.

In broad daylight the stones came hurtling through the plate-glass windows for fifty minutes before the police arrived on the scene. One narrowly missed the Duke’s head as he sat at his writing-table and broke a glass-fronted bookcase behind him; another cut through the canvas of Lady Lyndhurst’s portrait by Wilkie, hanging on the wall. The garden was full of stones, though the stone-throwers themselves were kept outside the railings by the sight of armed men posted round the house. Having withdrawn to the Park, the mob circled menacing around the Achilles statue but found it too heavy to overturn. ‘It is now five o’clock, and beginning to rain a little,’ the Duke wrote to Mrs. Arbuthnot from his beleaguered citadel, giving her a blow-by-blow account of the affair; ‘and I conclude that the gentlemen will now go to their dinners.’ (18)

Wellington left the windows unrepaired until 1833, as a sign of contempt for efforts to intimidate him, although he did have iron shutters installed.

On June 18, 1832, two weeks after the Reform Bill received royal assent, the Duke of Wellington faced another alarming crowd. People attempted to drag him off his horse and threw stones and mud at him.

I rode to Pistrucci, in the Mint. He had made a bust of me, but wished for another sitting. So I went without giving him notice…at 9 o’clock, and mounted my horse at half-past 10 to leave him; when I found a crowd at the gate, and several groaned and hooted. Some cried, ‘Bonaparte forever!’ I rode on at a gentle pace, but they followed me. Soon a magistrate (Ballantine) came and offered his services. I thanked him, but said I thought I should get on very well. The noise increased, and two old soldiers, Chelsea Pensioners, came up to me. One of them said he had served under me for many a day, and I said to him, ‘Then keep close to me now;’ and I told them to walk on each side; and whenever we stopped, to place themselves, each with his back against the flank of my horse. Not long afterwards, I saw a policeman making off, and I knew it must be to the next station for assistance. I sent one of my pensioners after him; and presently we got another policeman. We then did pretty well, till I reached Lincoln’s Inn, where I had to call at an Attorney’s Chambers. Sugden and many others came out of the Chancery Court to accompany me, and a large reinforcement of police came from Bow Street. (19)

With their assistance, Wellington made it safely back to Apsley House.

After the passage of the Reform Bill, the physical threats to Wellington diminished. The hero of Waterloo resumed his place in the hearts of the British people and died of a stroke on September 14, 1852.

Thanks to Robert Anderson for suggesting a post about assassination attempts on the Duke of Wellington.

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What did the Duke of Wellington think of Louis XVIII?

Betting on Napoleon’s Life

R. Gleig, The Life of Arthur Duke of Wellington (London, 1869), p. 280.
Arthur Richard Wellesley, ed., Supplementary Despatches, Correspondence and Memoranda of Field Marshal Arthur Duke of Wellington, Volume XI (London, 1864), p. 745.
Arthur Richard Wellesley, ed., Supplementary Despatches, Correspondence and Memoranda of Field Marshal Arthur Duke of Wellington, Volume XII (London, 1865), p. 274.
Ibid., p. 260.
Ibid., p. 271.
Ibid., pp. 271-272.
Ibid., pp. 272-273.
Ibid., p. 601.
Louis-Joseph Marchand, In Napoleon’s Shadow (San Francisco, 1998), pp. 733-734.
Gleig, The Life of Arthur Duke of Wellington, pp. 292-293.
Ibid., p. 293.
Elizabeth Longford, Wellington: Pillar of State (New York, 1972), p. 65.
Francis Egerton, Personal Reminiscences of the Duke of Wellington (London, 1904), p. 62.
Longford, Wellington: Pillar of State, p. 231.
F. Leveson Gower, ed., Letters of Harriet Countess Granville, Vol. II (London, 1894), p. 66.
Longford, Wellington: Pillar of State, p. 234.
Ibid., p. 235.
Ibid., p. 271.
Samuel Rogers, Recollections (Boston, 1859), pp. 247-249.

François d’Orléans, Prince of Joinville, 1843

François d’Orléans, Prince of Joinville, is perhaps best known to Napoleon fans as the commander of La Belle Poule, the ship that returned Napoleon’s remains to France in 1840. The Prince of Joinville – the son of a French king – had a storied naval career, was a notable painter of watercolours, and wrote some delightful memoirs. You might remember him from my post about vintage photos of French royalty, in which he stood out as one of the princes who served in the American Civil War. Here’s a closer look at his life and his art.

A royal birth

François d’Orléans, Prince of Joinville, was born at the Château de Neuilly on August 14, 1818. He was the seventh of his parents’ ten children, eight of whom lived to adulthood. His father, Louis Philippe, Duke of Orléans, was a member of the junior branch of the reigning House of Bourbon of France (the junior branch was in line to succeed to the French throne if the senior branch died out). His mother, Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily, was a niece of Marie Antoinette (the queen who was executed in the French Revolution) and a first cousin of Austrian Emperor Francis I. Thus Joinville was a second cousin of Napoleon’s second wife, Marie Louise.

Family dinner at the Tuilieries

La viande du roi, by François d’Orléans, Prince of Joinville. The Prince included himself in this illustration of a visit to Louis XVIII’s banquet at the Tuileries in 1824. He’s the little boy in the red shirt on the lower right of the stairs. The other boy is his oldest brother, Ferdinand Philippe, Duke of Chartres. The girl is his sister Clémentine.

Although Louis-Philippe’s family was related to King Louis XVIII and his family, there was rivalry between them. The relationship was not helped when Louis-Philippe’s father (Philippe Égalité) voted in favour of putting Louis XVI – Louis XVIII’s elder brother – to death during the French Revolution. The families reconciled while they were in exile from 1791-1814, but there remained some friction, and Louis Philippe was thought to be sympathetic to France’s liberal opposition.

To the young Prince of Joinville, none of this mattered. He regarded his reigning cousins fondly, as indicated in the following passage from his memoirs.

[T]he first event that really is exceedingly clear in my recollection is a family dinner given by Louis XVIII at the Tuileries on Twelfth Night, 1824…. I can see every detail of that party, as if it had been yesterday. Our arrival in the courtyard of the Tuileries, under the salute of the Swiss Guard at the Pavillon Marsan and the King’s Guard at the Pavillon de Flore. Our getting out of the carriage under the porch of the stone staircase to the deafening rattle of the drums of the Cent Suisses. Then my huge astonishment when we had to stand aside halfway up the stairs, to let ‘La viande du Roi,’ in other words, his Majesty’s dinner, pass by, as it was being carried up from the kitchen to the first floor, escorted by his bodyguard.

At the head of the stairs we were received by a red-coated Steward of the Household…and, crossing the Salle des Gardes, we were ushered into the drawing-room, where the whole family soon assembled: to wit, Monsieur, who afterwards became Charles X, the Duc and Duchesse d’Angoulême, the Duchesse de Berri, my father and mother, my aunt Adélaïde, my two elder brothers, Chartres and Nemours, my three sisters, Louise, Marie and Clémentine, and last and youngest of all, myself. … Presently the door of the King’s study opened, and Louis XVIII appeared, in his wheeled chair, with that handsome white head and in the blue uniform with epaulettes which the pictures of him have rendered so familiar. He kissed each of us in our turn, without speaking to any of us except my brother Nemours, whom he questioned about his Latin lessons. Nemours began to stammer, and was only saved from disgrace by the opportune entrance of the Prince de Carignan.

At dinner the Twelfth Night customs were duly observed, and when I broke my cake I found the bean within it. I must confess the fact had not been altogether unforeseen, and my mother had consequently primed me as to my behavior. This did not prevent me from feeling heartily shy when I saw every eye fixed on me. I got up from the table, and carried the bean on a salver to the Duchesse d’Angoulême. I loved her dearly even then, that good kind Duchess! for she had always been so good to us, ever since we were babies, and never failed to give us the most beautiful New Year’s gifts. My respectful affection deepened as I grew old enough to realize her sorrows and the nobility of her nature, and I was always glad, after we were separated by the events of 1830, to take every opportunity of letting her know how unalterable my feelings for her were. She broke the ice by being the first to raise her glass to her lips, when I had made her my queen, and Louis XVIII was the first to exclaim, ‘The Queen drinks.’ A few months later the king was dead and I watched his funeral procession from the windows of the Fire Brigade Station in the Rue de la Paix, as it passed on its way to Saint-Denis.” (1)

Louis XVIII was succeeded by his brother, Charles X.

Tedious schooldays

Au lycée Henri IV, by François d’Orléans, Prince of Joinville

François d’Orléans, Prince of Joinville, enjoyed his early years with his large, boisterous family, spending summers at Neuilly, and winters at the Palais-Royal in Paris. He was tutored at home with his siblings until the age of 10, when he entered the Collège Henri IV.

Ay di me! as the Spanish lament has it. When I pass by…the great walls of that learned prison in which I spent three years, the memories that come back to me are not pleasant – far from it. My life there was mortally tedious, and I did no good whatsoever. My whole education has been gained by reading…, by observation, and by listening to those people who know how to hold my attention. … But Greek and Latin, and hours spent over an exercise or a translation with a fat dictionary to keep me company! Oh, mercy on me! From the scholastic point of view I was simply a dunce…. [M]y greatest joy was to go out by [the porter’s] door, after evening school, and go down the Rue de la Montagne or the Rue des Sept-Voies, playing a thousand pranks as I went, and…my grief used to be keen indeed when I had to go back the next morning. Yet some good comrades I had whom I dearly loved, and amongst whom I improved in playing various games, and learned the art of both giving and receiving kicks and cuffs. (2)

The Revolution of 1830

The revolution of 1830, July 31st, by François d’Orléans, Prince of Joinville

Charles X was deposed in the Revolution of 1830. On August 9, 1830, Joinville’s father, Louis Philippe, became the new constitutional monarch of France. The Prince of Joinville was with his mother and siblings at Neuilly when the revolution happened.

[Our father’s] movements were rigorously concealed from us, and I never learnt what they really were even in later days… We were soon aware of the bare fact that he was in Paris, exercising public functions which were somewhat ill-defined as yet; and on the evening of [July] 31st my mother informed us that we were going to join him at the Palais-Royal.

We started about eight o’clock at night, my mother, my aunt Adélaïde, and we children, in an omnibus, so as not to attract notice. We began to come to barricades at the Barrière de l’Étoile, but openings had been made in them already, large enough for carriages to pass through, all which openings were watched by guards of armed people – I beg their pardons, I was mistaken – armed citizens, playing at soldiers and police, who stopped and cross-questioned everybody in the most childish fashion. The omnibus could not get beyond the Place Louis XV, so many obstacles did we find in the way. We got out, and my mother divided us into twos, and told us to scatter and meet again at the Palais-Royal. …

In the centre of a great crowd on the Place du Palais-Royal there was one of the Laffitte et Caillard diligences, which had been used as a barricade, and set up again. It was full of people inside, and they clustered on the roof like bees, all of them singing in chorus. Between the choruses, sharp volleys of musketry rang out, and the vehicle, drawn by three or four hundred people holding on to ropes, tore round the square, amid a concert of varied yells. Though it was very late when we reached the palace, it was all lighted up, and every door stood open. Anybody who chose could go in, and when we went up the stairs we found many people already settled on the steps, prepared to spend the night there. We saw my father in his study, and then we were sent to bed, or rather to camp out in the rooms we usually slept in. The next day the firing slackened, but the general idleness continued; everybody was walking about. Soon the question of food began to press, for all supplies and trade were stopped by universal barricades. Everybody asked everybody else what was going on, a subject upon which every one except the leaders was profoundly ignorant. The multitude was just like an immense flock of sheep, whose shepherds had been driven away, and who seemed to wonder why the new dogs who were to herd them did not make their appearance. There was no bad feeling; now and then there would be a panic, everybody taking to their heels, nobody knew why, and then stopping again and bursting out laughing. Sometimes a noise arose and swelled as it drew nearer. It was some popular leader going to the Hôtel de Ville or the Palais-Royal, with two or three claqueurs before him, to stir up an enthusiasm in which everybody shared, without having a notion of the name of the hero they were acclaiming, yet glad to be able thus to show off their civic rights. Then there would be a fit of general tenderness. Everybody kissed everybody else vehemently. In some cases transport of patriotism thus calmed itself; in others perhaps it was the effect of the extreme heat, and the consequent thirst, which had not gone unquenched, and in others, again, it was merely the relaxation of morals an era of universal brotherhood brought with it. The hero of this general and infectious kissing match was Lafayette. Everybody wanted to kiss him….

One evening…we heard a great noise coming from the staircase. … A crowd of armed men, with lighted torches were coming up, shouting loudly and waving flags. At their head came five or six pupils of the École Polytechnique, with their three-cornered hats cocked and swords drawn. Behind them a woman in man’s attire, red belt and close-fitting pantaloons, was being borne in triumph. She was a heroine of the barricades, whom the yelling crowd desired to introduce to my father, and he had to receive her. This scene filled me with disgust. (3)

Sailor and artist

In 1831, the Prince of Joinville left school and embarked as a pilot’s apprentice on a frigate, as preparation for a naval career. On his first voyage, he stopped in Corsica.

At Ajaccio I came upon more public functions, and was the hero of a Bonapartist demonstration. I was borne as though in triumph to the house where Napoleon was born, where I was received by a very old Signor Ramolino, brother to Madame Letitia. In common with my sisters, who drew pictures of Napoleon all over the place, I professed the greatest admiration for the great warrior. So I asked his uncle for some souvenir of him, and he presented me with a red armchair, out of the room in which he was born. (4)

Visits to Florence, Pisa and Pistoia sparked a deep interest in art in the thirteen-year-old Joinville. After his return to Paris, while studying the technical information necessary to become a naval officer, he began to learn how to draw and paint. His primary instructor was the Dutch-French romantic painter Ary Scheffer.

Joinville passed his naval exams at Brest, became a lieutenant in the French navy, and continued to develop his artistic talent and interests. These did not necessarily correspond with those of his father, the king.

The winter season of 1836 found me back in Paris where I began my classes again and gave myself up in particular to my passion for the fine arts. This taste of mine was the cause of a terrible blowing up I got from my father. The jury of the Salon of 1836 refused a picture of Marilhat’s…. Some of the artists who had seen the young painter’s work thought this decision unjust. They grumbled and their grumbling got as far as the newspapers. I was curious enough to go and see the picture…. It was a view of Rome by twilight, seen between great umbrella pines. I thought it a splendid picture, and spurred somewhat, I confess, by a spirit of contradiction, I was seized with an eager desire to acquire it. But I had not a halfpenny of my own, there was my difficulty! To overcome it, I laid siege to my aunt Adélaïde, who doted on her brother’s children as if they had been her own, and who never (and well the rogues knew it!) could resist their wheedling. I succeeded, as I had hoped, and Marilhat’s picture became my property. But certain of the jury went and complained to the King, and I was greeted with, ‘Oho! So you are going to set yourself up in opposition! I’ve trouble enough already with those artists! It’s the Civil List (that means it’s me) that takes them in at the Louvre. I can’t be the only judge as to what is accepted and what isn’t. I have to have a jury, the Institute is good enough to undertake the job – all its members are dying of fright, and I shield them under my own responsibility, just as I do my ministers, although it’s contrary to the letter of the law – and it’s you, one of my own sons, who comes and sets an example of insubordination! Much obliged to you, sir!’ (5)

Voyage to the Levant

In the Levant, 1836, by François d’Orléans, Prince of Joinville

In 1836, the Prince of Joinville sailed for the Levant. Among other places, he visited Jerusalem, where he received permission from the governor to visit the Mosque of Omar.

We entered the mosque, which is really very beautiful and went all over it. The Imaums and Softas, the priests and students, had cast horrified glances upon us from the moment of our entry. Suddenly one of them began to intone in a falsetto voice a sort of Litany, to which the crowd replied in chorus. Soon the Litany turned into angry shouts, and the crowd, led by an old Negro Imaum, in a yellow robe, who seemed to have worked himself into a perfect paroxysm of fury, rushed at us with threatening gestures. … Seizing me by the arm, [the governor] put me behind him, with Bruat and the other gentlemen grouped round me. Then he ordered a dozen Kavasses he had brought with him to charge, which they did, laying out heavily with their sticks. Not content with that, he had the most turbulent of the Softas seized, thrown down at his feet, and beaten without mercy. The blows hailed down on the poor wretch as if they had been beating a carpet. This determined attitude cowed the crowd, which fell back to the far end of the mosque, grumbling. (6)

Voyage to the Americas

In 1837-38, the Prince of Joinville made his first voyage to the Americas, as a lieutenant on the Hercule. In Brazil he met the royal family, to whom he was related. Emperor Pedro I’s wife, Maria Leopoldina, was the daughter of Francis I of Austria, and thus Joinville’s second cousin. Joinville had a good time.

To finish up our stay at Rio, we gave the emperor and his family, and the whole of society both foreign and Brazilian, a ball on board our ship. Towards the end of the evening, I turned a young lion I had been given in Senegal loose in the ball-room, and his appearance somewhat disturbed the figures of the cotillion. (7)

In Jamaica, he acquired a barrel of rum, at the request of his father.

It was brought back to France and duly placed in the cellars at Neuilly, and had been forgotten for ever so long, when one fine day the King, recollecting it, ordered some of the contents to be handed round at the end of dinner. All the guests smacked their lips beforehand; but disappointment awaited them, and the first taste was followed by a general grimace of horror. It was simply beastly. Enquiries were set on foot and here is their result! A distinguished mental specialist, who had been ordered to take a sea voyage for the benefit of his health, which had broken down, had got leave from the Minister for Naval Affairs to sail on board the Hercule. Deeply interested as he was in his own special subject, he had occupied himself during all our stays in port in collecting brains, both human and animal, which he immediately labelled and shut up in a barrel of alcohol, which was exactly like my barrel of rum. The two barrels had gotten mixed and my father and his guests had been drinking rum flavoured with brains! (8)

While in the United States, he met Senators John C. Calhoun, Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. He liked the Americans, but did not think much of Washington, DC.

[B]its of town, scattered about in an ocean of dust, which later on I knew as an ocean of mud; hotels crowded with canvassers, all devouring so hurriedly at table d’hôte time that the first arrivals were rising from the table when the last ones were sitting down, and all this amidst a noise of jaws that reminded me of dogs being fed in a kennel; the whole population, whether politicians or canvassers, chewing and spitting everywhere; little society or none at all, save that formed by the foreign diplomats, most of them clever men, but bored by their isolation, and consequently disposed to see everything around them with unfavouring eyes. (9)

Philadelphia delighted him, as did Niagara Falls, although he found New York City “utterly commonplace.” (10)

War in Mexico

Combat of Veracruz, 1838, by François d’Orléans, Prince of Joinville

Within six weeks of returning to France in 1838, the Prince of Joinville was at sea again, as commander of the corvette Créole. His ship was part of a squadron that sailed to Mexico to settle a dispute over the rights of French residents, among other things (this was known as the Pastry War). When diplomacy failed, the French bombarded the fort of San Juan de Ulúa, off the coast of Veracruz. This was followed by a raid on Veracruz itself. Joinville’s company formed the advance guard of a column that had orders to land on the mole, blow up the sea gate, and march on the headquarters of General Antonio López de Santa Anna and try to seize his person.

We started then, with our oars muffled to deaden the noise. We could hardly find our way in the twilight and had to strain our eyes to see the mole through the mist. The great gate of the city was closed, no sentry outside it. Everything was asleep. We landed in dead silence, and the column formed up. The sappers ran on ahead, laid the powder bag, and masked it, then a sergeant of sappers lighted the match and shrank back behind a projecting bit of wall. Bang! The mask of the petard just grazed our heads, and one side of the gate lay on the ground…. Led by a guide we passed at a swinging pace down a street which brought us to the Mexico gate. … A few shots and bayonet thrusts got rid of the guard at the gate. ….

We then received a heavy discharge of musketry from about a hundred and fifty soldiers who forthwith disappeared down a side street. They were the headquarters guard. Off we tore after them, and were just in time to see the last of them go into a big house which my guide informed me was the headquarters of the military governor…. A sharp fire poured from the first floor the instant we appeared in the courtyard. Hesitation would be fatal. We must get upstairs and bring those folk to their senses. A narrow stairway was the only road. Well, every man must own to some weakness! When I saw that staircase, up which I should have to go first, and receive the first volley alone when I got to the top, I wavered for a moment, and waving my sword, I shouted, ‘Volunteers to the front!’ My quartermaster, a Parisian, rushed to the staircase, and the sight brought me back to a sense of duty. I rushed after him. We raced against each other, and I had the satisfaction of getting to the top a good first, followed indeed by my whole company. There was nothing so very terrible about it after all.

At first we found ourselves in a sort of vestibule; an ill-directed fire, which wounded two of our officers only, pouring on us through the doors and windows. Then each of us set to work on his own account. A second boatswain…and I threw ourselves against a door and broke it in with our shoulders. When it gave, I was shot forward by my men pushing on behind me, and hurled into a room full of smoke and Mexican soldiers. One of them, in a white uniform and red epaulettes…was aiming at me with the barrel of his musket close to my face. I had just time to say to myself, ‘I’m done for.’ But no, there was no shot, the gun fell on my feet, and I saw my gentleman roll under a sofa carrying the sword with which Penaud, my lieutenant, had run him through as quick as lightning, stuck between his ribs.

I believe I rid myself of another great big fellow next, and then, the first start having been given, there was a general rout, and I found myself in another room at the end of which I saw several officers, one a general, standing together very calmly with their swords sheathed. I rushed forward with the boatswain Jadot, to protect them from my men, who were somewhat excited, and the fight was over. The name of the general, a tall fair handsome fellow, was [Mariano] Arista. In later days he became President of the Mexican Republic. He surrendered his sword to me…. As for Santa Anna, we could not find him, though his bed was still warm. (11)

Santa Anna was severely wounded during the battle. His left leg had to be amputated as a result.

After returning to France in 1839, Joinville was made a knight of the Legion of Honour. He was also promoted to captain and given command of the frigate Belle Poule.

Return of Napoleon’s remains

Return of Napoleon’s remains, St. Helena, 1840, by François d’Orléans, Prince of Joinville

In 1840, Joinville was told by his father to go to St. Helena and bring Napoleon’s coffin back to France.

[A]t the first blush I felt nowise flattered when I compared the warlike campaign my brothers were on with the undertaker’s job I was being sent to perform in the other hemisphere. But I served my country and I had no right to discuss my orders. And there were two sides to the question, besides. Above Napoleon, the enemy of my house, the murderer of the Duc d’Enghien, who at his fall had left that dangerous game of chance wherein the ignorant herd is so often the dupe of the political croupier – universal suffrage – as his legacy to ruined and dismembered France, there was the matchless warrior whose genius, even in defeat, had shed immortal glory on our arms. To fetch his ashes from a foreign land was in a manner to wave the flag of vanquished France aloft once more – that at least was what we hoped for – and this view of the case reconciled me to my mission….

The only request I made [of the British governor of St. Helena] and obtained was, that the coffin should be opened before it was handed over to us, so as to be sure that we were taking neither a hotbed of infection nor an imaginary corpse on board….

When all was ready the exhumation took place, and very imposing it was. Everybody felt impressed when the coffin was seen coming slowly down the mountain side, to the firing of cannon, escorted by British infantry with arms reversed, the band playing, to the dull rolling accompaniment of the drums, that splendid funeral march which English people call The Dead March in Saul, but which is really no other than the ancient Catholic chant of Adeste Fideles. [Governor] General Middlemore, dropping with fatigue, formally handed over the body to me; and the coffin was lowered into the long-boat of the Belle Poule, which then started for the ship. … A magnificent sunset had been succeeded by a twilight of the deepest calm. The British authorities and the troops stood motionless on the beach, while our ship’s guns fired a royal salute. I stood in the stern of my long-boat, over which floated a magnificent Tricolour flag worked by the ladies of St. Helena. Beside me were the generals and superior officers…. The pick of my topmen, all in white, with crape on their arms, and bareheaded like ourselves, rowed the boat in silence, and with the most admirable precision. We advanced with majestic slowness, escorted by the boats bearing the staff. It was very touching, and a deep national sentiment seemed to hover over the whole scene. (12)

America, Africa and marriage

In 1841, Joinville was back in the Americas, visiting Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and the United States.

In the very first train I got into I found myself opposite a big man wearing a moustache and imperial, with a huge walking stick between his legs, and was told he was the King, or rather Prince, Murat. Next we passed a fine country property belonging to King Joseph Buonaparte, and involuntarily I thought of a certain passage in the works of Voltaire, where Candide meets all the dethroned kings at Venice. (13)

He travelled into the interior as far west as Wisconsin and as far south as St. Louis. At Washington, he visited President John Tyler at the White House.

A melomaniac king, Gabon, by François d’Orléans, Prince of Joinville

In 1843, Joinville sailed along the west coast of Africa. In Gabon, near Libreville, he was visited by King Denis of the Mpongwe people.

He came to call on me in great state, dressed in the handsome uniform of a general of the French Republic, the cast-off garments of some performer at the Cirque Olympique. He had a tri-colour plume in his hat, a gold laced coat with lapels turned back on the chest, white breeches, and top boots. He wore the decoration of the Legion of Honour, which he had been given for some service or other he had done our fleet in those waters; and a large gold medal of Queen Victoria, given him by the English, hung down on a thick chain between his knees. … We gave the royal family the best welcome at our command. My bandmaster, M. Paulus, entertained them with the noisiest tunes; but whenever the band stopped the king cried, ‘Encore! Encore!’ When the bandsmen got tired out I shut his majesty up in a little cabin with the three ship’s drummers, and told them to keep rolling till he had enough of it. But the drummers gave out in their turn, and I had to send the insatiable melomaniac and his family on shore at last, whether he would or no. (14)

On May 1, 1843, in Rio de Janeiro, François d’Orléans, Prince of Joinville, married Princess Francisca of Brazil, the daughter of Emperor Pedro I and Empress Maria Leopoldina. The two had become acquainted on his first voyage to Brazil, when she was 16 years old. Joinville received as dowry an area of 580 square kilometres in the south of Brazil. The couple returned to France after the wedding. They had two children: Princess Françoise (August 14, 1844 – October 28, 1925); and Pierre, Duke of Penthièvre (November 4, 1845 – July 17, 1919). A third child was stillborn on October 30, 1849.

A deaf prince

On August 22-23, 1843, François d’Orléans, Prince of Joinville, paid a brief visit to Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle (he had already met Prince Albert several times in Paris). He wrote of the queen:

Bright and witty, with an arch and pleasant smile not always quite devoid of mischief, the young sovereign was in all the freshness and brilliance of her youth and the radiance of her happiness. (15)

The queen wrote of her guest:

Joinville is not so handsome as I expected, but very pleasing & amiable & good, and I can easily imagine that he is a gt. favourite with his family & indeed with all who know him, but he is grown thin, & looks rather fagged & shd. not overfatigue himself; he is very deaf but understands me very well. (16)

Joinville’s deafness began to show itself when he was in his early 20s. A painful surgery aimed at curing his hearing loss was unsuccessful, so he had to reconcile himself to the condition. In 1847, Victor Hugo wrote:

The Prince de Joinville’s deafness increases. Sometimes it saddens him, sometimes he makes light of it. One day he said to me: ‘Speak louder, I am as deaf as a post.’ On another occasion he bent towards me and said with a laugh: ‘J’abaisse le pavillon de l’oreille.’ [I lower the standard of the ear.] ‘It is the only one your highness will ever lower,’ I replied. …

Since he cannot talk as he wants to, he keeps his thoughts to himself, and this sours him. He has spoken more than once, however, and bravely. He was not listened to and he was not heeded. ‘They needn’t talk about me,’ he said to me one day, ‘it is they who are deaf!’ (17)

War in Morocco

Shipwreck: Loss of the Groenland in Morocco, 1844, by François d’Orléans, Prince of Joinville

In August 1844, the Prince of Joinville (by now a rear-admiral) commanded a French fleet that conducted a naval bombardment of several places in Morocco, including Tangiers, Essaouira and Mogador, as part of the First Franco-Moroccan War. On the return from Mogador, the frigate Groenland was wrecked on the Moroccan coast.

By some miscalculation or other she ran aground, going nine knots an hour, at high water, on a spring tide, at the foot of a cliff as high as those of the English Channel. When the fog cleared, some Arabs, very few fortunately, on the top of the rocks, saw her, and poured their fire into her with perfect impunity. …

I was passing by, out at sea, on board the Pluton, on my way to Cadiz when the sound of the guns, which was very unexpected thereabouts, attracted my attention and steering towards the noise I soon caught sight of the unlucky Groenland lying close ashore, while the rifle-shots flashed from the top of the cliff. It was just getting dark when I reached the spot. I boarded the ship at once, no easy matter, for a heavy surf was breaking on her stern, the only part of her which was at all accessible. But they threw me a rope and hoisted me on board.

The unlucky officer in command, Captain Besson, had done everything in his power after the vessel had gone ashore. He had laid out anchors, lightened the ship, and cut down her masts and spars. Then, in the pluckiest way, he had tried to go about, under the full fire of the Arabs. Fourteen of his men had been killed or wounded at the capstan bars. But the cables gave way, and the only result of lightening the ship was that the swell carried her closer in shore. I went down to the engine-room, which was full of water. It was clear to my mind that her side was stove in. It was out of the question to make any attempt to float such a large vessel – a difficult enough job on a friendly coast – under the rifle fire of the thousands of Arabs who were sure to gather on the cliff at daybreak.

If the sea rose, the ship would not only go to pieces, but it would be impossible to rescue her passengers and crew. I therefore settled to proceed at once to the removal of the wounded, in the first place, and then of the rest of the soldiers and sailors on board. This was carried out without any accident. Captain Besson was the last man to leave his ship, having first, at my request, set her on fire, so as to leave nothing in the way of a trophy in the enemy’s hands. (18)

For his service, Joinville was promoted to vice-admiral. Joinville later did another tour in Africa. Between postings, he seemed at loose ends. Hugo wrote:

At the Tuileries the Prince de Joinville passes his time doing all sorts of wild things. One day he turned on all the taps and flooded the apartments. Another day he cut all the bell ropes. A sign that he is bored and does not know what to do with himself. …

[H]e has no princely coquettishness, which is such a victorious grace, and has no desire to appear agreeable. He rarely seeks to please individuals. He loves the nation, the country, his profession, the sea. His manner is frank, he has a taste for noisy pleasures, a fine appearance, a handsome face, with a kind heart, and a few feats of arms to his credit that have been exaggerated; he is popular. (19)

Exile of the Prince of Joinville

In February 1848, King Louis Philippe was removed from his throne by a revolution. The Prince of Joinville was in Algiers at the time. Like the rest of his family, he lost his properties and lands in France. He also lost his position in the French navy. Joinville and his wife and children went into exile with his parents in England. They stayed at Claremont, in Surrey. Joinville still had his lands in Brazil, which he decided to partially sell off to German-speaking immigrants.

In 1851, Joinville announced that he would be a candidate for the French presidential election to be held in 1852. He hoped this would leave to the eventual restoration of the monarchy. However in December 1851, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, the son of Napoleon’s brother Louis, staged a coup d’état, so the election never took place. Instead, Louis-Napoleon became Emperor Napoleon III.

American Civil War

In the Army of the Potomac, the Tent of the Duke of Chartres in America, by François d’Orléans, Prince of Joinville

When the American Civil War broke out in 1861, the Prince of Joinville went to Washington, DC, with his son and two of his nephews to place their service at the disposal of President Abraham Lincoln. In October, Lincoln appointed Joinville and his nephews to the staff of General George B. McClellan. McClellan wrote to his wife: “[Joinville] bears adversity so well & so uncomplainingly. I admire him more than almost any one I have ever met with – he is true as steel – like all deaf men very reflective – says but little & that always to the point.” (20)

Joinville accompanied McClellan in the Peninsular Campaign in southeastern Virginia in early 1862.

His excessive deafness sometimes exposed him unconsciously to fire, and when his horse comprehended the state of affairs the Prince would quietly jog along out of the fire with a quiet, pleasant smile, which showed that he moved more out of regard for the horse than himself. But whenever there was any occasion for remaining exposed, the horse was obliged to sacrifice his own preferences for those of the prince.

He possesses remarkable power with the pencil and brush, — is a true artist, — and constantly employed this power during the campaign, so that his sketch-book made a complete and interesting history of the serious and ludicrous events of the war. (21)

Many of these sketches were later published in A Civil War Album of Paintings by the Prince de Joinville (New York, 1964).

In June 1862, disagreements between France and the United States over Mexico led Joinville and his nephews to withdraw from the Union forces and return to Europe. Joinville’s son, Pierre, who entered the US Naval Academy, received an honorary appointment as an ensign in the US Navy on May 18, 1863; he remained until 1864.

During his exile Joinville wrote several essays and pamphlets on naval affairs and other matters. These were not published under his own name until after the fall of Napoleon III.

Return to France

Photograph of François d’Orléans, Prince of Joinville in the United States, Mathew Brady’s studio, circa 1862. Source: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; Fredrick Hill Meserve Collection

When Napoleon III was overthrown in 1870, Joinville returned to France. He was promptly expelled, so he returned incognito and joined the French army under the assumed name of “Colonel Lutherod.”

In 1871, the prince was elected to sit in the French National Assembly as a deputy for the Haute-Marne. His naval grade was reinstated. Joinville retired from public life in 1875. In 1886, he lost his rank of admiral as a result of a new law that prohibited pretenders to the throne from being part of the French armed forces. In 1898, his wife died.

François d’Orléans, Prince of Joinville, died at his home in Paris on June 16, 1900, at the age of 81. Upon learning of his death, Queen Victoria wrote in her journal: “Joinville, whom we first knew in 43, was quite charming & then very handsome. Till the last few years, he never failed to write to me for New Year, such whitty [sic], amusing letters & always sent me some pretty water colour painting by some good artist. He was an excellent artist himself.” (22)

The Prince of Joinville’s tomb is in the Royal Chapel of Dreux in France. One of his descendants, Jean, Count of Paris, is the Orléanist claimant to the French throne.

You can see more of the Prince of Joinville’s paintings on Wikimedia Commons.

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François d’Orléans, Memoirs (Vieux Souvenirs) of the Prince de Joinville, translated by Mary Lloyd (London, 1895), pp. 2-3.
Ibid., pp. 26-27.
Ibid., pp. 34-38.
Ibid., p. 46.
Ibid., p. 69.
Ibid., pp. 76-77.
Ibid., pp. 92-93.
Ibid., p. 98.
Ibid., pp. 104-105.
Ibid., p. 107.
Ibid., pp. 122-124.
Ibid., pp. 156, 163-164.
Ibid., pp. 188-189.
Ibid., pp. 266-267.
Ibid., p. 280.
“François, Prince de Joinville (1818-190?),” Royal Collection Trust, https://www.rct.uk/collection/422193/francois-prince-de-joinville-1818-190, accessed October 14, 2021.
Victor Hugo, The Memoirs of Victor Hugo, translated by John W. Harding (New York, 1899), p. 152.
Memoirs (Vieux Souvenirs) of the Prince de Joinville, pp. 299-300.
The Memoirs of Victor Hugo, pp. 150, 153.
Harry G. Lang, “A Deaf Prince in Art and War,” Military Images, Vol. 35, No.3 (Summer 2017), p. 74.
“The Princes of the House of Orleans,” The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, Vol. XXVIII, (New York, 1883-1884), p. 621.
“François, Prince de Joinville (1818-190?),” Royal Collection Trust.

Emmanuel de Grouchy, later Marshal Grouchy, 1792

Emmanuel de Grouchy, later Marshal Grouchy, as
Colonel of 2nd Dragoons in 1792, by Georges Rouget, 1835

Marshal Emmanuel de Grouchy was a skilled cavalry officer who had a long career of service in the French army. This record has been overshadowed by accusations – originating with Napoleon and his followers on Saint Helena – that Marshal Grouchy was in large part responsible for Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. After Waterloo, Grouchy went into exile in the United States, where he began the frustrating process of defending himself against allegations of incompetence, cowardice and treachery.

A noble birth and education

Emmanuel de Grouchy was born on October 23, 1766 at his family’s palatial Château de Villette in Condécourt, 40 km northwest of Paris. His parents – François-Jacques de Grouchy, 1st Marquis de Grouchy, and Marie-Gilberte Fréteau de Pény – were members of the French nobility. François-Jacques had served as a page to King Louis XV. Marie-Gilbert was known for her learning and intelligence. The family spent winters in Paris, where they hosted the intellectual elite of the day.

Emmanuel’s older sister, Sophie, noted for her wit and beauty, married the mathematician and philosopher Nicolas de Condorcet. As Madame de Condorcet, she became a writer, a translator, and an advocate of women’s rights. She also hosted an influential republican salon. When Napoleon told her that he did not approve of women interfering in politics, she reportedly replied: “Neither do I, general, but in a country where they may have their head cut off it is only natural that they should wish to know the reason why.” (1) Grouchy’s younger sister, Charlotte, married the physician and philosopher Pierre Jean Georges Cabanis, who endorsed the French Revolution but opposed Napoleon’s policies.

In this supportive family atmosphere, which exposed him to ideas of the Enlightenment, young Emmanuel de Grouchy received excellent instruction from his tutors. At the age of 14, he entered the artillery school in Strasbourg, finishing with a commission in the royal artillery corps in 1781. In 1784, he transferred to the cavalry as a captain. In 1785, Grouchy was presented to King Louis XVI. He made such a good impression that the following year, at age 20, he became a Lieutenant Colonel in the Scottish Company of the Royal Bodyguard. Like his sisters, Grouchy had revolutionary sympathies, so he only stayed for a year before leaving the army completely. In the meantime, he married Cécile le Doulcet de Pontécoulant and started a family: Ernestine (1787-1866); Alphonse (1789-1864); Aimée-Clémentine (1791-1826); and Victor (1796-1864).

A fine cavalry commander

Unlike most of the nobility, Grouchy remained in France during the French Revolution. He joined the revolutionary army as a private soldier. His talent and training enabled him to become a cavalry colonel, and he served with distinction against royalist rebels in the Vendée. Despite this, Grouchy’s aristocratic background made him suspect. He was removed from command in September 1793, during the Reign of Terror. A warrant for his arrest was issued by the Committee of Public Safety and he was suspended from the army. When the Terror ended in June 1794, Grouchy was returned to service and promoted to general of division. He was the deputy commander of French forces under General Hoche in the failed invasion of Ireland in 1796.

When posted to Italy in 1797, Grouchy met General Napoleon Bonaparte for the first time. At the Battle of Novi (August 15, 1799), Grouchy performed well, but he was seriously wounded and subsequently captured. As a prisoner of war, he wrote a letter protesting Napoleon’s coup d’état of 18 Brumaire and the subsequent establishment of the Consulate.

Grouchy was released in 1800. Generals Masséna and Moreau convinced him to support the new regime. At the head of one of Moreau’s divisions, Grouchy played an important role in France’s victory at the Battle of Hohenlinden on December 3, 1800. However, Grouchy’s friendship with Moreau – a rival to Napoleon – limited his own prospects in the new French empire. In 1801, Grouchy was named inspector general of cavalry.

In 1805, Grouchy accepted command of a division in the Austrian campaign, but when he failed to get a promotion he contemplated resigning. Napoleon enticed him back by offering Grouchy’s son Alphonse a position in the Imperial Cadet School. Grouchy capably led a division of dragoons in the 1806 Prussian campaign, and performed heroically in the campaign in Poland in 1807, distinguishing himself in the battles of Eylau and Friedland.

When Napoleon invaded Spain in 1808, Grouchy was appointed governor of Madrid, where he successfully put down an insurrection. In recognition of his service, Napoleon made Grouchy a Count of the Empire in 1809. Grouchy’s next assignment was command of the cavalry of the Army of Italy under Napoleon’s stepson, Eugène de Beauharnais. They drove the Austrians out of Italy and joined Napoleon’s main army at the Battle of Wagram, where Grouchy again contributed to a French victory. Napoleon rewarded him with the cross of the Iron Crown and made him Colonel-General of the Chasseurs, a rank just below that of marshal.

Tired of campaigning and pained by his wounds, Grouchy went home to rest. He returned to the field in 1812, as commander of the Third Cavalry Corps in Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. He performed admirably, was wounded by grapeshot to the chest at the Battle of Borodino, and became commander of the Sacred Squadron – an ad hoc cavalry unit that served as Napoleon’s bodyguard during the retreat from Moscow.

Upon his return to France, Grouchy asked to be retired from active service for health reasons. Napoleon granted this request, effective April 1, 1813. In 1814, when Napoleon’s enemies were pressing the French army back to France’s borders, Grouchy was recalled to service. He commanded the cavalry, performed brilliantly at the Battle of Vauchamps, and was badly wounded in the leg at the Battle of Craonne. He later limped as a result.

After Napoleon’s abdication and exile to Elba, Grouchy applied to be reinstated at full rank in the French army under King Louis XVIII. Instead he was given a modest pension.

Emmanuel de Grouchy, by Jean Sébastien Rouillard, 1835

Marshal Grouchy at Waterloo

When Napoleon escaped from Elba and returned to France in 1815, Grouchy rallied to the Emperor. Napoleon gave Grouchy command of the army that was fighting royalist forces under the Duke of Angoulême. Angoulême soon surrendered. On April 15, 1815, Napoleon promoted Grouchy to the rank of marshal. He also made him a peer of France.

Napoleon had to confront two allied forces on the Belgian border: an army of British, Dutch and German troops under Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington; and a Prussian-Saxon army under Field Marshal Gebhardt von Blücher. Napoleon moved to the frontier with his army divided into three parts: a left wing commanded by Marshal Ney; a right wing commanded by Marshal Grouchy; and a reserve commanded by himself. On June 16, Napoleon (supported by Grouchy) defeated part of Blücher’s forces at the Battle of Ligny. On June 17, Napoleon ordered Grouchy to take the right wing – nearly one-third of Napoleon’s total force – to find and give battle to the retreating Prussians so that they could not join up with the British. Meanwhile, Napoleon headed for Waterloo to fight Wellington.

Grouchy pursued the Prussians as instructed. Shortly before noon on June 18, he and his corps commanders heard the sound of cannons, possibly coming from the Battle of Waterloo. Grouchy refused to march toward the sound, citing his orders from Napoleon and conscious of Napoleon’s criticism of Marshal Ney for not following orders at the Battle of Quatre Bras on June 16. Later that day, Grouchy received further orders that appeared to confirm his decision to proceed to Wavre and engage the Prussians.

The Prussians left a strong rearguard at Wavre. Grouchy successfully defeated them on June 18-19; however, this rearguard concealed the bulk of the Prussian force, which marched under Blücher to join the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo, ensuring an allied victory over Napoleon on June 18. Grouchy did not learn of Napoleon’s defeat until the following morning.

Grouchy gathered up the demoralized remnants of the Army of the North and led them skillfully back to Paris, acting as a rearguard against the allied forces. They reached Paris on June 29. Meanwhile, Napoleon had abdicated on June 22. The French provisional government under Napoleon’s Minister of Police, Joseph Fouché, ordered Grouchy to assist in the negotiations with the allies for a ceasefire. When Grouchy did so, the Minister of War, Marshal Davout, removed him from his command.

Grouchy became a scapegoat for the provisional government, just as he would become a scapegoat for Napoleon and anyone else who could be blamed for Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. Grouchy would have to spend the rest of his life defending himself.

According to historian Paul Dawson, Grouchy has been unfairly treated.

[F]or many, primarily due to the Dino de Laurentis film Waterloo, Grouchy is the bumbling buffoon strawberry eater who failed to march to Waterloo. This vision of an incompetent man, promoted beyond his abilities, has stuck to Grouchy…..

Despite what many historians suggest, Grouchy acquitted himself marvelously during the campaign. He was an excellent administrator, and the truth of the matter is, he was an excellent choice to command the right wing of Napoleon’s army. His retreat to Paris is a text book fighting retreat, yet few remember him for this. (2)

Exile in the United States

Grouchy knew that he would be a marked man under the restored Bourbon monarchy. By the time he was proscribed and charged with treason, he had already escaped France. Leaving his family behind, he headed for the United States. He arrived in Baltimore in January 1816. A newspaper noted: “We are rejoiced to announce the arrival of Marshal Grouchy in this city, having made his escape from the vindictive tyranny which now persecutes and massacres the distinguished patriots of France.” (3)

Grouchy bought a house in Philadelphia, where a number of French exiles settled. In May 1816, the French citizens of that city gave a fête for Grouchy, General Lefebvre-Desnouettes and General Clauzel.

In August, Grouchy was described in an American newspaper as “one of the most distinguished generals of France.”

In private life, he is a most intelligent and agreeable companion. Perhaps no human being is more free from every taint of pride or vanity. He possesses a natural simplicity of character, blended with the easy and unostentatious manners of a polite, well bred, accomplished gentleman. The marshal has left an amiable consort and children in France, to whom he is endeared by every tie of conjugal and filial affection. (4)

At a banquet in New York in October, Grouchy was hailed as a “Marshal of France.” This annoyed the French Ambassador to the United States, Jean-Guillaume Hyde de Neuville, since the restored monarchy did not credit Grouchy with that title.

In November, Grouchy visited Niagara Falls. He spent Christmas of 1816 with the most prominent French exile in America: Napoleon’s brother Joseph Bonaparte, who had an estate in Bordentown, New Jersey. Despite the controversy over Grouchy’s conduct at Waterloo, Joseph bore him no ill will. Grouchy purchased some land in upstate New York, near where Joseph owned property.

In 1817, Grouchy asked his sons Alphonse (a Napoleonic colonel) and Victor (a lieutenant) to join him in the United States. They arrived in May. All three of them became shareholders in the Vine and Olive Colony in Alabama. Victor, who soon became bored in Philadelphia, sailed for Mobile in August 1817 to visit the colony, but did not stay long. The Grouchys did not sell or work their grants of land and their claims eventually lapsed.

In October 1817, Grouchy set out to visit Thomas Jefferson at Monticello, preceded by a letter of introduction from the Marquis de Lafayette. Grouchy made it as far as Wilmington, Delaware, where he stayed with his friend Éleuthère du Pont de Nemours. When Alphonse became ill, Grouchy wrote to Jefferson expressing regret that he could not travel further and promised to make the journey the following spring.

How much I congratulate myself on dwelling in your interesting country; how proud I am, and how thankful for the honorable hospitality which has been bestowed upon me here, and…if anything can lessen the bitterness with which a distant exile overwhelms me, and the state of servitude and degradation of my native land, it is to see yours, happy, powerful, free, and respected, and all through institutions founded upon the very same principles for the establishment of which I have so often needlessly shed my blood. (5)

On November 2, Jefferson wrote to Grouchy in reply:

Your name has been too well known in the history of the times, and your merit too much acknowledged by all, not to promise me great pleasure in making your personal acquaintance. If, too, the trouble of such a journey could be compensated by anything which the country between us could offer to your curiosity, it would save me the regret which I could not fail to feel were I to suppose myself the whole object of the journey. In this last case I would certainly think myself sufficiently honored by the written expressions of respect just now received, and should postpone the pleasure of receiving them personally to the unreasonable trouble which such an object would impose on you. As you flatter me with taking the journey in the spring, I am in hope the face of our country at that season will still better reward the labor of the undertaking. (6)

Grouchy and Alphonse were staying with du Pont when the latter’s gunpowder factory on Brandywine Creek exploded on March 19, 1818, killing 34 people.

Upon the first alarm they rushed out with others to the scene to afford whatever assistance circumstances might require and had just crossed the creek when the magazine blew up, spreading destruction in all quarters. A workman at the elbow of Colonel Grouchy was killed by a stone which passed through his breast, and the head of another fell at the marshal’s feet; they, however, both escaped unhurt. It was supposed that all the building in this quarter had been destroyed by the first explosion, as they appeared to be all in flames, but it was presently pointed out to them by one of the surviving workmen that the drying house (in which they perceived through a window, there was a considerable quantity of powder) had not yet caught fire.

There was time enough to escape from all danger from this building, had they sought safety by flight, but with that decision and promptness in action which distinguishes truly brave men, they instantly seized axes and commenced cutting and tearing away a kind of bridge or platform, which communicated with all the buildings and was then in flames, and which in a few minutes more must have set fire to the drying house. Their example and encouragement drew others to the spot, and after great exertions, with the aid of the water buckets the fire was here stopped. Had this building blown up, the refinery and other buildings on the right of the creek, which had escaped from the explosion of the magazine, together with the cloth manufactory on the left, with what remained of the dwellings of the Mr. Dupont’s, would in all probability have been entirely destroyed; and with these buildings, the houses, occupied by the wives and children of the workmen. In short, it is known to the writer of this article that the family of Mr. Dupont attribute the salvation of what remained of their property at their works to the example and exertions of these gentlemen, who have thus entwined a civic wreath with the Laurels of Borodino, and erected on the breasts of the widow and the orphans a monument that will be as lasting, and not less honourable to them, as their military fame. (7)

Grouchy missed his wife and daughters. He thought of going to the Low Countries, but was discouraged by reports that French exiles there were being persecuted. In 1817, Grouchy told Hyde de Neuville that he wished to return to France and serve the restored government. He began to disassociate himself from the more vehement exiled Bonapartists, including the Lallemand brothers, and even hesitated to attend the wedding of General Henri Lallemand and Henriette (Harriet) Girard. Grouchy did not take part in Charles Lallemand’s invasion of Texas.

In 1818, Grouchy sent Alphonse back to France to advocate on his behalf for a royal pardon. Grouchy was compelled to sell the Château de Villette to Fouché to raise money to further these efforts. Meanwhile, reports began to appear in American newspapers – based on accounts written by General Gourgaud, one of Napoleon’s companions on Saint Helena, and others – that Grouchy was to blame for the French defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. Grouchy vigorously refuted these allegations.

It is the part…of blind and even criminal partiality, (for it is criminal to endeavor to obscure historical truth, and to traduce the intimate opinion which arises necessarily from the evidence of circumstances, experience in war and military means) to advance, as is done by the judicious author of Considerations on the Art of War, that Marshal Grouchy’s corps remained the 18th in a stupid immobility, and that when the cannon was heard on his left, he should have forgotten the instructions that had been given to him, abandoned the track of Marshal Blucher, and gone to join Napoleon. (8)

Grouchy wrote a book defending his actions. His Observations sur la relation de la campagne de 1815, publiée par le général de Gourgaud: et refutation de quelques-unes des assertions d’autres écrits relatifs à la bataille de Waterloo was published in 1818. According to Grouchy, the accounts coming out of Saint Helena were intended to conceal Napoleon’s own mistakes during the campaign.

In November 1819, the Duke of Angoulême advised Alphonse that Grouchy had been given an amnesty and would be allowed to return to France. On May 26, 1820, Emmanuel de Grouchy sailed from New York for Le Havre. On June 29, he had an audience with the Duke of Angoulême in Paris. Marshal Grouchy does not appear as a character in Napoleon in America because he had already left the United States by the time Napoleon fictionally arrives there in 1821.

Back in France

Grouchy was reinstated as a general, but not as a marshal or a peer of France. He was shunned by many members of the nobility for his support of the Revolution, and by many veterans of the Grande Armée, who believed the accusations that Grouchy had betrayed Napoleon at Waterloo. The controversy was not suppressed by the Bourbons, who were happy to have the Bonapartists divided on the issue. Marshal Grouchy continued to write books defending himself against the attacks on his reputation.

On February 1, 1827, Grouchy’s wife, Cécile, died. In June of that year, Grouchy married Joséphine-Fanny Hua, who was 36 years his junior. They had one daughter, Noémie (1830-1843).

After the July Revolution in 1830 overthrew the Bourbons, the new king, Louis Philippe, granted Grouchy his title of marshal and restored him to the Chamber of Peers. Grouchy was one of the few marshals who attended Napoleon’s funeral in Paris in 1840. Marshal Emmanuel de Grouchy died on May 29, 1847, in Saint-Étienne on his way home from a trip to Italy. He was buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

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Charlotte Julia Blennerhassett, Madame de Staël: Her Friends and Her Influence in Politics and Literature, Vol. II (London, 1889), p. 350.
Paul L. Dawson, Battle for Paris 1815: The Untold Story of the Fighting After Waterloo (Barnsley, S. Yorkshire, 2019), p. 2.
National Intelligencer (Washington, DC), February 1, 1816.
“Marshal Grouchy,” National Intelligencer, August 31, 1816.
Jesse S. Reeves, The Napoleonic Exiles in America (Baltimore, 1905), pp. 24-25.
Ibid., p. 25.
“Marshal and Col. Grouchy,” National Advocate (New York), March 31, 1818.
“A corner of the curtain raised which covers the causes of the loss of the Battle of Waterloo: showing that it was impossible for the body of the army which was under the orders of Marshal Grouchy to take part in that engagement,” National Intelligencer, September 1, 1818.

What is it with Napoleon and eagles? Napoleon’s troops carried an eagle standard into battle; his son was nicknamed the eaglet; Napoleon’s return to France in 1815 was called the flight of the eagle. Here’s a look at how the eagle became a symbol of Napoleonic France, and what those Napoleon eagle standards were all about.

Distribution of Napoleonic eagle standards

The army takes an oath to the Emperor after the distribution of eagle standards on 5 December 1804, by Jacques-Louis David, 1810

Adopting a classical symbol

When Napoleon became Emperor of the French in May of 1804, he wanted a symbol of empire that would signal his legitimacy and distinguish his reign from the Bourbon monarchy of the ancien régime. A number of options were proposed at a meeting of the Council of State on June 12: eagle, lion, elephant, bee, oak. A committee appointed to consider the question recommended the rooster, which had been associated with France since the Middle Ages and had been revived during the French Revolution. Napoleon reportedly dismissed this idea, saying “the cock belongs to the farmyard! It is far too feeble a creature!” (1) He preferred the lion. However, when it came time to sign the decision, Napoleon crossed out the word “lion” and replaced it with “eagle.”

The ancient Greeks and Romans associated the eagle with speed, strength and martial valour, as well as with their god of the sky (Zeus in Greek mythology, Jupiter in Roman mythology). The eagle was also a symbol of the Franks and Charlemagne, and had Christian connotations. It had long been associated with royal, imperial and divine rulers. Prussia, Russia and Austria already used the eagle as a symbol, as did the new republic of the United States. Napoleon believed the eagle would give his new Empire the appearance of grandeur, power and longevity. He also admired the ancient Romans. The eagle was just one aspect of the classical Roman style that came to influence the Empire’s art, architecture and décor (see The Caesar of Paris by Susan Jacques).

The Napoleon eagle standard

A French imperial eagle, probably from the 32nd regiment of infantry, on display at the Louvre des Antiquaires in Paris © BrokenSphere/Wikimedia Commons

In ancient Rome, the eagle was most prominent as a military symbol. Every Roman legion (large military unit) carried a standard, which was a banner or flag attached to a pole. The standard identified the legion and served as its rallying point. Beginning in the first century A.D., each standard was topped with a silver or bronze sculpture of an eagle.

Napoleon decided to imitate this tradition by putting the eagle on the standards of the French army. He wrote to his chief of staff, Marshal Berthier:

The eagle with wings outspread, as on the Imperial Seal, will be at the head of the standard-staves, as was the practice in the Roman army. The flag will be attached at the same distance beneath the eagle, as was the labarum. (2)

The new French standard incorporated a gilded copper eagle looking to its left, its wings half open, and its talons grasping a thunderbolt. Below this, a brass stand bore the number of the regiment in raised figures. The eagle was placed on top of a heavy, 8-foot oak pole, painted blue, to which the regimental tricolour flag was attached. The eagle became the important thing; the flag was secondary.

Distribution of the eagles

On December 5, 1804, three days after his coronation, Napoleon presented his troops with their new eagle standards on the Champ de Mars in Paris. During the cold and rainy ceremony, Napoleon called on regimental commanders to take an oath. “Soldiers, behold your standards! These eagles to you shall ever be your rallying-point. Wherever your Emperor shall deem it needful for the defence of his throne and his people, there shall they be seen! You swear to sacrifice your lives in their defence: to maintain them by your courage ever in the path of victory! You swear it?” In reply, the men shouted, “We swear it!” (3)

Initially one eagle was issued to each battalion. After a considerable loss of eagles, Napoleon decided that there were too many on offer to the enemy, and that too many men were busy guarding eagles when their service was needed elsewhere in the field. In 1808, battalion eagles were withdrawn and replaced by regimental eagles at the rate of one eagle per regiment, borne by the first battalion. For special protection of the eagle in battle, a commissioned officer and two picked veterans were appointed as the “Eagle Guard.” The first eagle-bearer was to be a senior lieutenant with at least 10 years’ army service and service on the battlefield in four campaigns. The others were to be brave men of 10 years’ service in the ranks, who (in Napoleon’s words) “could neither read nor write, so that their only hope of promotion should be through acts of special courage and devotion.” (4) The eagle-bearers, who were given special rank, were appointed and dismissed by Napoleon himself. Two more soldiers were later added to each Eagle Guard. Regiments of hussars, chasseurs à cheval, dragoons and light infantry, although issued eagles, were not allowed to carry them into battle.

The second and third battalion eagles were supposed to be returned to the War Minister for storage at the Invalides, but a number of battalions stationed in far-away posts disregarded the eagle recall order, such that it had to be repeated in 1809 and 1811.

Early in 1813 Napoleon ordered most of the regiments in Spain to send their eagles back to France, allowing only one eagle per brigade in that failing campaign.

Napoleon the Little in a Rage with his Great French Eagle, Caricature by Thomas Rowlandson, 1808. Credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959. Napoleon: “Confusion and destruction, what is this I see? Did not I command you not to return till you had spread your wing of victory over the whole Spanish nation? Eagle: “Aye it’s fine talking Nap, but if you had been there you would not much have liked it. The Spanish cormorants pursued me in such a manner that they not only disabled one of my legs but did me a moulting in such a terrible way that I wonder I had not lost every feather. Besides it got so hot that I could not bear it any longer.”

Replacement of an Imperial eagle

The eagle standards were highly prized and soldiers went to extremes to protect them. The regiment’s honour was at stake. Any harm to, or loss of, an eagle had to be directly reported to Napoleon. No replacement eagle would be granted until the regiment in question had made amends by achieving distinction in the field, or by presenting the Emperor with an enemy’s standard. Even this was at Napoleon’s discretion.

During the Battle of Austerlitz (December 2, 1805), the eagle-bearer of the First Battalion of the 4th Regiment of the Line was killed during a charge by Russian cuirassiers. None of the French survivors had seen him fall. Meanwhile, the battalion had captured two Austrian standards, which they later presented to Napoleon, asking for a new eagle in exchange.

He replied coldly and contemptuously: ‘These two foreign flags do not return me my Eagle!’ Then, after a pause, he launched out into words of the severest censure and rebuke, telling the men that he had seen them with his own eyes in flight at Austerlitz. He poured bitter scorn on their conduct, ‘in phrases stinging, burning, corrosive, which those present remembered long afterwards – to the end of their lives.’

Again the unhappy colonel pleaded his hardest for his men. He entreated the Emperor’s clemency, once more beseeching Napoleon to allow that they had wiped out the slur on their good name, and to grant the battalion a new Eagle.

Napoleon said nothing for a moment. Then he again addressed them in an abrupt tone:
‘Officers, sub-officers, and soldiers, swear to me here that not one of you saw your Eagle fall. Assure me that if you had done so you would have flung yourselves into the midst of the enemy to recover it, or have died in the attempt. The soldier who loses his Eagle on the field of battle loses his honour and his all.’

‘We swear it!’ came the reply at once.

At that there seemed to come a change in the Emperor’s mood…. ‘I will grant that you have not been cowards; but you have been imprudent! Again I tell you that these Austrian standards – even, indeed, were they six – would not compensate me for my Eagle.’

He stopped short. He seemed to be musing for a moment, looking straight into the eyes of the men. After that, with a curt, ‘Well, I will restore you yet another Eagle!’ Napoleon turned his horse and rode on down the line of troops. (5)

The precarious life of an eagle-bearer

To France’s enemies, the eagle standard was an important prize in battle. This meant that carrying a Napoleonic eagle into battle was a particularly dangerous job. There are numerous tales of heroic attempts to save eagles from the enemy.

At the Battle of Eylau (February 7-8, 1807), at least one was saved accidentally.

Four Eagle-bearers of the 9th [Light Infantry] fell, one after the other. Four times the Eagle was taken by the Russians and recaptured at the point of the bayonet. A fifth time the Eagle-bearer went down, and on his fall this time the Eagle disappeared, while the 9th were driven back, broken and in disorder. They were quickly rallied again, however, and led once more to the charge, ‘going forward to the combat with the fury of despair.’ This time their impetuous onset forced the Russians to give ground. Advancing with shouts of victory, they stormed the village of Psarrefelden, immediately in front of them, and there seized part of a Russian ammunition train. While searching for fresh cartridges in one of the enemy’s ammunition wagons to replenish their empty cartouche-boxes an officer, to his surprise, came upon the lost Eagle. It had been broken from its staff in the last fight round it, and its Russian captor, probably having enough to do to look after himself without carrying it about, had apparently thrust it hastily into the ammunition wagon on top of the cartridges. At any rate there the Eagle of the 9th Light Infantry was found, and so it was regained. The broken staff and flag were missing and were never seen again, but the all-important Eagle had been recovered. It was hurriedly mounted on a hop-pole, found leaning against a peasant’s hut nearby, which was improvised for a staff, and on that the Eagle was carried to the close of the fighting that day. … Napoleon specially decorated the lieutenant who recovered the Eagle, and who also had led more than one of the charges to rescue it in the earlier fighting. He gave him the cross of the Legion of Honour with a money grant. He further recorded the recovery of the Eagle – though without mentioning how it was got back in the 55th Bulletin of the Grand Army, dated Warsaw, January 29, 1807:

‘The Eagle of the 9th Light Infantry was taken by the enemy, but, realizing the deep disgrace with which their brave regiment would be covered for ever, and from which neither victory nor the glory acquired in a hundred combats could have removed the stigma, the soldiers, animated with an inconceivable ardour, precipitated themselves on the enemy and routed them and recovered their Eagle.’

So Napoleon wrote history. (6)

In the same battle, the eagle of the 30th Regiment of the Line was saved only because a fourrier (quartermaster-sergeant) by the name of Morin buried it under the snow. “He fainted from loss of blood as he did it. Morin was found next morning just alive, outstretched over where the precious Eagle lay concealed. He was able to make signs and indicate that it was lying underneath the snow, and then he died.” (7)

At the Battle of Borodino (September 7, 1812), the eagle-bearer of the 9th Regiment of the Line was cut off by himself and surrounded.

Amidst the confusion, wounded by two bayonet thrusts, I fell, but I was able to make an effort to prevent the Eagle falling into the hands of the enemy. Some of them rushed at me and closed round, but, getting to my feet, I managed to fling the Eagle, staff and all, over their heads towards some of our men, whom I had caught sight of, fortunately nearby, trying to charge through and rescue the Eagle. This was all I could do before I fell again and was made prisoner. (8)

In the same battle, one dying eagle-bearer saved his eagle by stuffing it into a gaping wound on his horse’s carcass.

In the Battle of the Katzbach (August 26, 1813), a soldier of the 134th Regiment of the Line saved the eagle of another regiment, the 147th.

The two regiments, as the Prussians charged down on them after their cartridges gave out, in desperation rushed to meet their assailants with the bayonet. They were overpowered and hurled back in confusion to the bank of the river, all intermingled in the mêlée. The Eagle-bearer of the 147th fell dead, shot down, and a Prussian officer made for the Eagle. A soldier of the 134th bayoneted the officer as he got to it, picked up the Eagle, and seeing only more Prussians round him, flung himself, still holding on to the Eagle, into the river. The man could not swim, and was fired at as he floundered in the water, but he was not hit. Unable to reach the other side, he somehow got on to a shallow patch, and, still holding fast to the Eagle, kept his footing there, until, to get away from the hail of bullets all round him, he again risked drowning by trying to drift downstream. He managed to keep his head above water, and got over to a bed of rushes, fringing the farther bank. Creeping in there, still holding on closely to the Eagle, the brave fellow hid for six hours until dark, embedded in mud to his armpits most of the time. After nightfall he worked his way through and crawled ashore. Finally, after wandering across country for eight days, feeding on berries and what he could pick up, in constant peril of discovery among the hostile peasants and parties of Prussian dragoons scouring the district, the heroic soldier at length found his way to Dresden. There he was brought before Marshal Berthier to whom he delivered the Eagle. (9)

Fate of the eagles when Napoleon fell

On the night of March 30, 1814, Paris surrendered to the Allies. The eagles that had been returned to the Ministry of War as result of the various recall decrees perished in a large bonfire of trophy flags at the Invalides, burned by veterans who did not want them falling into enemy hands. On April 6, Napoleon abdicated the French throne. On April 20, at Fontainebleau Palace, he bid farewell to the veterans of his Old Guard and kissed the eagle standard in their presence, expressing the wish that his kiss would pass to their hearts. He then went into exile on Elba.

The restored monarchy of King Louis XVIII ordered that the white Bourbon flag was again to be the standard of the army, with a brass fleur-de-lis at the head of the pole instead of the eagle. Every regiment was required to send its eagle to the Ministry of War in Paris for destruction at the artillery depot of Vincennes. No exceptions were made, even though a number of officers petitioned to be allowed to retain theirs as mementoes of regimental feats on the battlefield. Some refused to comply and successfully hid their eagles.

In late February 1815, Napoleon escaped from Elba, arriving in France on March 1. He was accompanied by the regimental eagle of the 600 members of the Old Guard who had been with him on Elba. After landing, he proclaimed, “the Eagle with the national colours shall fly from steeple to steeple to the towers of Notre Dame!” (10)

The eagles were officially restored as the standards of the army by an Imperial decree issued on March 13 from Lyons. Napoleon entered Paris on the night of March 20. On June 1, he distributed the new eagles – which, unlike their predecessors, had closed beaks and closed legs – to the troops in the Champ de Mars.

Two eagles were captured by British troops at the Battle of Waterloo (June 18, 1815). Sergeant Charles Ewart of the Scots Greys (2nd Dragoons) described in a letter to his father how he took the eagle of the 45th Regiment of the Line as it was being hurried to the rear for safety by a band of devoted men who were fighting with their bayonets to keep the British off. Ewart rode straight for the eagle-bearer.

He and I had a hard contest for it. He thrust for my groin; I parried it off and cut him through the head, after which I was attacked by one of their lancers, who threw his lance at me, but missed the mark by my throwing it off with my sword, at my right side. Then I cut him from the chin upwards, which went through his teeth. Next I was attacked by a foot-soldier, who, after firing at me, charged me with his bayonet; but he very soon lost the combat, for I parried it and cut him down through the head. That finished the contest for the Eagle. (11)

The Fight for the Standard, by Richard Ansdell, 1847. Depicts Sergeant Charles Ewart defending the seized standard of the French 45th Regiment of the Line from a French lancer during the Battle of Waterloo on June 18, 1815. Image credit: Eric Gaba, Wikimedia Commons user Sting

The other eagle sent to England from Waterloo was that of the 105th Regiment of the Line, captured by the Royal Dragoons.

Following his defeat, Napoleon abdicated for a second time and was sent into exile on Saint Helena.

On August 3, 1815, Louis XVIII again abolished the eagle standard. As before, some eagles escaped destruction in the furnaces of Vincennes. They re-emerged after the Revolution of July 1830. Over 100 Napoleonic eagles remain in existence in museums and private collections.

Thanks to Bernard Wilkin for suggesting a post about Napoleon’s eagles.

You might also enjoy:

Symbols of Napoleon: The Violet

What did Napoleon say about the Battle of Waterloo?

Battle of Borodino: Bloodiest Day of the Napoleonic Wars

How did people shop in the early 1800s?

Edward Fraser, The War Drama of the Eagles (London, 1912), p. 4.
Ibid., p. 10.
Ibid., p. 46.
Ibid., p. 184.
Ibid., pp. 117-118.
Ibid., pp. 151-153.
Ibid., pp. 168-169.
Ibid., p. 270.
Ibid., pp. 295-296.
Ibid., p. 353.
Ibid., p. 397.

What currency was used in France, the United States, and Britain in the early 19th century? What were the historical exchange rates? How much did things cost? Since Napoleon in America occasionally mentions financial transactions, these were questions I had to look into when writing the novel. Here’s what I found out.

Satirical print of British currency in the 19th century

The New Coinage, or John Bull’s visit to Mat of the Mint! Satirical print by Charles William, 1817. © The Trustees of the British Museum

Currency in 19th-century France

There were two types of money circulating in France in the early 19th century: remnants of pre-Revolutionary currency based on the livre as the unit of account; and new currency based on the decimal franc, which was introduced in 1795 by the French Revolutionary Convention. After Napoleon came to power, he dropped the revolutionary symbols on the coins and replaced them with his own image. The new currency was retained when the Bourbons returned to power in 1814 and 1815, with the image of Louis XVIII, and later of Charles X, used instead of Napoleon’s. A guide published in 1826 noted that “the monies of the empire and of the kingdom pass indiscriminately.” (1)

The basic units of pre-Revolutionary French currency were as follows:
1 Louis d’Or (“Or” means gold in French, so this was a gold coin, or a “golden Louis”) = 24 livres
1 écu = 6 livres
1 livre = 20 sous. The livre was not actually minted as a coin after 1720, but continued to be used as a unit of account. Assignats, a type of paper money issued during the French Revolution, were denominated in livres.
1 sou (or sol) = 12 deniers
1 liard = 3 deniers. There was no 1 denier coin.

The units of Post-Revolutionary currency were:
1 Napoléon d’Or = 20 francs
1 franc = 100 centimes.

A 20-franc Napoléon d’Or from 1803, when Napoleon was First Consul. Source: National Numismatic Collection, National Museum of American History

The franc was generally equivalent in value to the livre. The words were often used interchangeably. Thus converting between the two systems was straightforward.
1 franc = 1 livre
100 centimes = 20 sous
5 centimes = 1 sou

As for how this worked in practice during the Bourbon Restoration, a traveller’s guide to France in 1822 observed:

The current coins of France are
1. (gold) double louis, 47 francs 4 sous; the louis 23 francs 11 sous; the double and single napoleon, or new louis, pieces of 40 and 20 francs, most in use.
2. (silver) the six, five, three, two and one franc piece.
3. (copper) the large or double sou, the sou, and the half and quarter sou, or pieces of two and one liard. There are also ancient pieces, made of mixed or bell-metal, denominated pieces of six liards, value one sou and a half. …

The coins in circulation…are…in silver, pieces of five francs; pieces of two francs; pieces of one franc; pieces of thirty sous, being half of the ecu; pieces of 15 sous, a quarter of the ecus; and half francs and quarter francs, or five sous pieces; in copper, pieces of five centimes…equal to the old sou; and of ten centimes…or one decime, equal to the double sou. (2)

Historical exchange rates for French currency

The rates for converting French currency to British or American currency in the 1820s were as follows:

1 Louis d’Or = 18 shillings 9¾ pence (according to the 1822 traveller’s guide, the Louis could be converted at par, i.e., at 1 pound sterling)
1 Napoléon d’Or = 15 shillings 10 pence
1 franc = 10 pence
25 francs 50 cents = 1 pound sterling
5 francs = 1 US dollar. (3)

Costs in early 19th-century France

What could you buy with a sou, or a franc or a golden Louis in Restoration France? Here are some examples from 1819-20:

At Beauvais, a large bowl of coffee with as much milk, sugar and toasted bread as you wanted: 5 sous
A bottle of Burgundy wine at a Paris hotel: 2 francs
A tip for a meal at a Paris traiteur’s: 3 or 4 sous (the recipient appeared “highly satisfied”)
A seat in a coach from Paris to Bordeaux: 50 or 60 francs, depending on the quality of the roads and hotels; the latter were included in the price
At the market in Nice: beef, 5 sous per pound (“but the pound consists only of twelve ounces”); mutton, 6 sous; veal and lamb, 7 sous; a brace of woodcocks: 6 francs; fish, from 6 to 16 sous per pound
A license to hold a dance that lasted past ten o’clock at a private house in Nice (including a soldier placed at the door): 6 francs
At Montpellier, ordinary wine of the country (“vin de St. George”) sold from the cask: 5 or 6 sous for a full quart bottle (after bottling and refining, the merchant charged 20 sous for a small wine quart). (4)

These examples are from 1825:

A dinner in Boulogne “with a great variety of made dishes, a dessert of nuts and fruits, and a bottle of red wine”: 3 francs
Breakfast at a café or restaurant in Paris: 10-15 sous
Dinner at the above: 2 francs to 1 Napoléon
A temporary (10 year) grave at Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris: 50 francs
A perpetual grave at Père Lachaise cemetery: 250 francs per metre
A carpet from the Royal Manufactory of Carpets (La Savonnerie) near Paris: 60,000 francs (“None but regal feet are allowed to tread them.”)
Penalty for not attending one’s reserved place at a meeting of the Institut de France in Paris: 10 francs (“It is much the most numerous, grave, and venerable corps of the literati I had ever seen…. A majority of the members are at an advanced age, and some of them tottering under decrepitude.”)
Wage of a workman manufacturing silk in Lyons: 2 francs a day (“The merchant…buys the raw silk, and gives it out to private families, to be manufactured in small parcels: his profits are immense, and the poor workmen, who are obliged to accept of his own terms or starve, can barely gain a livelihood by incessant toil. It was not uncommon to see the kitchen, bedroom, and manufactory of the miserable tenant crowded into the same little apartment. In one instance we saw twenty bars for winding silk set in motion by one wheel, which was turned like a tread-mill, by an emaciated individual. His servitude is of the most abject and pitiable kind, continuing from 4 o’clock in the morning till 7 in the evening.”) (5)

Currency in the United States in the 19th century

The Coinage Act of 1792 established the United States dollar as the country’s standard unit of money, divided into 100 cents. Coins were minted as follows:
Gold: eagle ($10), half eagle ($5), quarter eagle ($2.50)
Silver: dollar, half dollar (50 cents), quarter (25 cents), dime (10 cents), half dime (5 cents)
Copper: cent and half cent.

According to a visitor in 1819, “[b]esides these, there are in circulation several Spanish coins. The gold coins have, like those of England, almost entirely disappeared. Dollars and half dollars are not very plentiful. All the banks circulate dollar notes.” (6)

Obverse of a US dollar coin, minted in 1796

Reverse of a US dollar coin, minted in 1796

Historical exchange rates for US currency

In the 1820s, one US dollar could be exchanged for 4 shillings 6 pence in British sterling, or 5 French francs.

Prior to the American Revolution, each state had used its own currency, or own valuation of currency, and this still lingered in some statements of account, as noted in an 1829 manual of exchange.

The fixed percentage value of each currency, with respect to sterling and the currency value of the dollar are as follows:
New England currency 133 1/3 per cent dollar, 6 shillings
Maryland currency 166 2/3 per cent dollar, 7 shillings 6 pence
New York currency 177 7/9 per cent dollar, 8 shillings
Georgia currency 103 19/21 per cent dollar, 4 shillings 8 pence

The currency of the New England states is the same as the currencies of Vermont, Virginia and Kentucky. That of Maryland as New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. Of New York, as North Carolina. Of Georgia, as South Carolina. The first currency is to sterling as 3 to 4, the second as 3 to 5, third as 9 to 16, fourth as 27 to 28. (7)

Costs in early 19th-century America

What could you buy with a dollar?

In 1818:

Room and board at an inn in Albany, New York: $1.50 per day
Rent for a house and shop in “a good situation” in Albany: $500-$700 per year
Taxes on the above: $20
Rent of a small wood house in Albany: $50 to $150 per year
Farmland within 20 miles of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: $80-$100 per acre, buildings included
Uncleared land in remote parts of Pennsylvania: 50 cents – $20 per acre
Horse in Pennsylvania: $50-$150
A saddle: $20 to $150
Farm wagon in Pennsylvania: $100-$120
Family wagon in Pennsylvania: $70-$90; with springs: $150
Annual expense of keeping a family wagon and horse: $50
Wheat was sold at $1.60 to $2.20 per bushel; Indian corn, 80 to 100 cents; oats, 40 to 55 cents
Pay of farmhands near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: $14 per month, including board. (“In many instances they expect to sit down with the master, to live as well, and to be upon terms of equality with every branch of the family; and if this should be departed from, the scythe and the sickle will be laid down in the midst of harvest.”)
Cost to build a brick house, two stories high, containing ten rooms in the countryside near Pittsburgh: $4,000 (“as the bricks can be made upon the land and the ‘help’ boarded in the house”)
Cost to build a similar house in the city: $6,000, excluding the land. (8)

In 1819:

Rent for a house in New York: $400-$2,500 per year
A cord (a heap 8 feet long, 4 feet broad and 4 feet deep) of oak wood for fuel: $5 in the summer, $7 or $8 in the winter
A cord of hickory: $8 in the summer; $10 or $11 in the winter (“It has been known as high as 30.”)
Coal (“which is not much used, except in manufactories where it is indispensably necessary”): $12 to $13 per chaldron
Fare for passage on a steamship from New York to Albany, including bed and board: $7 per person
Albany ale sold by the brewers: $8 per barrel
Albany ale sold by the tavern and hotel keepers: $16 per barrel
Schoolmaster’s salary near Auburn, New York: $20 per month (usually hired for six months in the winter)
Cost of clearing woodland near Auburn: $14 per acre
Price of farms in same area: $20 to $30 per acre
Flour near Buffalo, New York: $9 per barrel of 196 pounds. (9)

In 1820:

Salary of a teacher of Latin and French in Alabama: $700 per year
Cloth in Boston: blue cotton, $8 per yard; Waltham shirting, 26 cents per yard; sheetings, 37 per yard
Slaves in Norfolk, Virginia: $300-$400 each. (10)

In 1825-26:

Room and board at a tavern in Utica, New York: $1 per day
Fine for crossing a bridge across the Mohawk River near Trenton Falls, NY, by horseback or wagon at a pace faster than a walk: $1
A Bible from the American Bible Society in New York: $1.40
A deer in Fairfield, Virginia: $1.50
Pineapples from Cuba in Charleston, South Carolina: 12 and a half cents each, $1 for eight
Toll to cross a bridge over a brook near Macon, Georgia: 50 cents
Ticket to a ball at the French theatre in New Orleans: $3
Admission to a masked ball in New Orleans: $1
Oranges from Cuba in Mobile, Alabama: 6 cents each
Recompense (for masters) for each slave punished by order of their master by being incarcerated and employed in servile labours for the city of New Orleans: 25 cents. (11)

Currency in 19th-century Britain

The official currency of the United Kingdom is the pound, also known as pound sterling, or sterling. In the early 19th century, the denominations in use were as follows:
1 guinea = 21 shillings
1 pound sterling = 1 sovereign = 20 shillings
1 half-guinea = 10 shillings and sixpence (i.e. 6 pennies)
1 half-sovereign = 10 shillings
1 crown = 5 shillings
1 half-crown = 2 shillings and sixpence
1 shilling = 12 pence
1 half shilling = 6 pence
1 penny = 2 halfpence
1 halfpenny = 2 farthings

Dialogue between a sovereign and a pound note, by S. Vowles, 1825 © The Trustees of the British Museum

The common symbol for the pound is £. When you read books or letters written in the 19th century or earlier, you will often see the pound abbreviated as a lower-case L (l). Shillings were abbreviated as a lower-case S (s), and pennies (pence) as a lower case D (d). The d was derived from the Ancient Roman denarius, basically the Roman penny. The French denier came from the same word. Thus 2 pounds 3 shillings and sixpence would be written as 2l. 3s. 6d.

The British North American colonies (what is today Canada) used the same currency as Great Britain, but the colonial currency was worth less. 100 pounds sterling would buy slightly over 111 pounds in the colonies.

Historical exchange rates for British currency

The pound was the dominant currency of the period. Here is the basic early 19th-century exchange equation:
1 pound sterling = 25 francs 50 cents (just think of it as 25 francs) = US$4.56

Costs in early 19th-century Britain

Rather than create another list, I am going to refer you to an article by James Heldman, called “How Wealthy is Mr. Darcy – Really? Pounds and Dollars in the World of Pride and Prejudice” (Persuasions #12, 1990, pp. 38-49). Heldman takes an interesting look at British incomes and costs in the early 19th century.

Comparing historical currencies to modern currencies

Determining how much a given amount of currency in the early 1800s would be equal to today is complicated. One has to adjust for inflation, for changes in relative prices, and for substitutions. As Heldman points out, it’s really hard to know how far money used to go. He found that fabric and clothing appear to have been more expensive in Jane Austen’s time than today, while food appears to have been less expensive.

The UK National Archives has a currency converter on its website that enables you to roughly calculate the purchasing power of the pound in any year from 1270-2017. According to this, 1 pound sterling in 1820 was worth approximately 57.43 pounds sterling in 2017. With 10 pounds sterling in 1820, you would have been able to buy 2 cows, or 11 stones of wool, or 1 quarter of wheat. It would have taken a skilled tradesman 66 days to earn this amount.

MeasuringWorth.com provides a calculator for converting US dollar values from 1790 or later to a more recent year. As the site notes, there are seven different ways of doing this. Depending on the method used, the relative value of $1.00 in 1820 ranges from $22.50 to $30,200 in 2019.

Have fun playing with these. You might also enjoy:

The Restaurateur: Dining in Paris in the Early 19th Century

Advice to Texas Settlers in the 1830s

David Steel, The Ship-Master’s Assistant and Owner’s Manual, 17th edition (London, 1826), p. 137.
Galignani’s Traveller’s Guide Through France (Paris, 1822), p. xxxviii.
Unless otherwise noted, the exchange rates listed in this article come from Steel, op. cit., and William Tate, A Manual of Exchanges (London, 1829).
Examples taken from James Holman, The Narrative of a Journey Undertaken in the Years 1819, 1820, & 1821 (London, 1822).
Examples and quotes taken from N.H. Carter, Letters from Europe, Comprising the Journal of a Tour through Ireland, England, Scotland, France, Italy, and Switzerland, in the Years 1825, 26 and 27, Vol. I (New York, 1827).
William Dalton, Travels in the United States of America, and Part of Upper Canada (Appleby-in-Westmorland, UK, 1821), p. 11.
Tate, A Manual of Exchanges, p. 68.
Examples taken from Henry Bradshaw Fearon, Sketches of America (London, 1819).
Examples taken from Dalton, Travels in the United States of America, and Part of Upper Canada.
Examples taken from Adam Hodgson, Letters from North America, 2 volumes (London, 1824).
Examples taken from Carl Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach, Travels Through North America, During the Years 1825 and 1826, 2 volumes (Philadelphia, 1828).

Marie Louise of Austria, Empress of the French and Queen of Italy, by Pierre-Paul Prud’hon, 1810

At the age of 18, Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria was obliged to marry 40-year-old French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, who had spent years waging war against her country. Despite the circumstances, the marriage was relatively happy. Napoleon and Marie Louise spent four years together and then never saw each other again. While he was destined for an early death in faraway exile, she went on to govern the Duchy of Parma.

Marie Louise’s upbringing

Marie Louise of Habsburg-Lorraine was born at the Hofburg in Vienna on December 12, 1791. Her father, Archduke Francis of Austria, was the son of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II. Her mother, Maria Theresa of Naples and Sicily, was Francis’s second wife and double first cousin. Marie Louise was the eldest of her parents’ 12 children, seven of whom lived to adulthood. During Marie Louise’s first year of life, Leopold II died and her father became Holy Roman Emperor Francis II.

Marie Louise was a calm, industrious and obedient child. She had a secluded upbringing in the Austrian court and was carefully educated as a Habsburg princess. This meant – among other things – that her reading was censored. She learned many languages besides German, including French, Italian, Spanish, English, and even Latin, which was familiar to her father’s Hungarian subjects. She was fond of drawing and painting. She enjoyed music and was said to be a good pianist and a competent harpist, although an indifferent dancer. She embroidered portfolios for her father and knit woolen skirts for her mother. She liked animals and had several pets, including a dog, a rabbit and birds. She enjoyed spending time outdoors, hunting and fishing with her father. She was his favourite child.

For most of Marie Louise’s childhood, Austria was at war with France. The French Revolution – in which Marie Louise’s great aunt, Marie Antoinette, and the latter’s husband, King Louis XVI, were guillotined – greatly alarmed Emperor Francis II. Austria fought against France in the French Revolutionary Wars and continued to oppose France in the Napoleonic Wars. In 1805, Napoleon defeated the Austrian army and led his soldiers into Vienna. While Francis went to Olmütz and his family fled to Hungary, Napoleon stayed at their summer residence of Schönbrunn Palace. After Napoleon defeated a combined Austrian-Russian force at the Battle of Austerlitz, Francis II asked for peace. The terms led to the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1806, Marie Louise’s father was reduced to being Emperor Francis I of Austria.

The following year, Marie Louise’s mother died of complications from a premature childbirth. Francis soon remarried, choosing as his new bride another of his first cousins, Maria Ludovika of Austria-Este. The latter was only four years older than Marie Louise and became like an older sister to her. Maria Ludovika hated Napoleon, whose invasion of northern Italy in 1796 had required her family to flee their home.

In 1809, Austria attacked French-occupied Bavaria, hoping to regain some lost territory while Napoleon was preoccupied with the war in Spain. Things did not go well for the Austrians. In May, Napoleon recaptured Vienna. This time he occupied Schönbrunn for several months. While Francis I remained in the field, his family took refuge in Hungary. In letters to a friend, Marie Louise referred to Napoleon as the “Anti-Christ” and said that to see him “would be the most terrible of martyrdoms.” (1) In October, Francis was forced to sign a peace treaty with Napoleon, in which Austria lost her Adriatic ports and about 20% of her population. The Habsburgs returned to Vienna.

Marriage to Napoleon

Arrival of Marie Louise at Compiègne, by Pauline Auzou, 1810

In December 1809, Napoleon ended his 13-year marriage to Josephine because of her failure to provide him with an heir. He wanted a new, fertile wife from one of Europe’s royal families, thinking that this would add legitimacy to his regime. Hoping to cement the new Franco-Austrian alliance, he settled on Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria. At first Marie Louise couldn’t believe that Napoleon would want to marry his enemy’s daughter, or that her father would consent to the match. Her stepmother, Maria Ludovika, was strongly opposed. However, Francis I and his foreign minister, Clemens von Metternich, saw the proposal through the eyes of statecraft, as a means of securing some years of peace during which Austria could rebuild her forces. Although Marie Louise was not keen on marrying the man who had caused her family so much distress, she submitted without protest to her father’s wishes (see my post about Francis I).

On March 11, 1810, at the Augustinian church in Vienna, 18-year-old Marie Louise married 40-year-old Napoleon Bonaparte sight unseen. They literally did not see each other, since it was a marriage by proxy: Napoleon was in France and the bride’s uncle, Archduke Charles, stood in for the groom (see my post about the marriage of Napoleon and Marie Louise). Two days later, Marie Louise left for Paris. Napoleon wrote to her every day. Once she entered French territory, he sent flowers along with the letters. When she got close to Compiègne, where he was staying, he was so eager to see her that he rode out to meet her and flung himself into her carriage. According to Napoleon’s secretary, Claude Méneval, the Emperor was favourably impressed with his bride’s appearance and “natural dignity.”

Marie Louise was in all the splendor of youth…her complexion was animated by the movement of the journey and by her timidity; her fine, abundant and light chestnut-coloured hair framed a fresh and full face, to which her kindly eyes gave a charming expression; her lips, a little thick, were characteristic of the reigning family of Austria…. [H]er whole person exuded candor and innocence, and her plumpness, which she lost after childbirth, announced her good health. (2)

Napoleon later said that Marie Louise “was beautifully made,” with “charming hands and feet.”

When I went to meet her, it was the first thing that struck me. She was fresh as a rose and without any coquetry; she differed in that respect from Josephine, who had much. (3)

Napoleon and Marie Louise spent the night together and then continued on to Paris. They had two more weddings: a civil ceremony at the Château de Saint-Cloud on April 1, and a religious ceremony at the Louvre on April 2.

Napoleon had Josephine’s rooms in the imperial palaces completely refurbished in anticipation of their new occupant. He also bought Marie Louise an entire new wardrobe, much of it in white silk, and a large amount of jewelry, each piece of which he inspected himself. Marie Louise was pleased with her new husband and her status as Empress of the French. On April 24, 1810 she wrote to a friend who was about to be married, with the wish “may you soon be as happy as I am.” (4)

Birth of the King of Rome

Marie Louise with her son, the King of Rome, by Joseph Franque, 1811

For the first few months of their marriage, Napoleon spent considerable time with Marie Louise. They went on excursions together. They enjoyed hunts, plays, balls, concerts, operas, banquets and receptions. At the end of April, they embarked on a month-long honeymoon through northern France and Belgium. Napoleon often embraced and pinched Marie Louise, one of his methods of showing affection. Once they were back in Paris, Napoleon went to see Josephine at Malmaison. When Marie Louise showed signs of jealousy, he curtailed his visits to his ex-wife.

Napoleon’s valet Louis-Joseph Marchand noted:

It must be said that the Emperor was very much in love with Empress Marie Louise…. The Emperor attributed to her all the qualities that would make her loved: he said she was kind, gentle, affable, and even playful in her normal relations. (5)

Napoleon did not have to wait long for his anticipated reward. On March 20, 1811, after a difficult labour, Marie Louise gave birth to a son, Napoleon François Charles Joseph Bonaparte, who was given the title King of Rome. Marie Louise loved the baby, but rarely handled him. In contrast, Napoleon often played with his son. Marchand, whose mother was a nurse to the King of Rome, wrote that Marie Louise “would not have known how to initiate” playful interactions with the child, “either out of shyness or out of fear of hurting her son.”

One did not find the spontaneous signs of affection that mothers have for their children in her. She was even ill at ease carrying him, and that gave birth to the rumour that she did not like her son. My mother always told me the opposite: she had much affection for the King of Rome. It is true that she seldom took him in her arms, but if she did not show all her affection for him, it was because he was always accompanied by Madame de Montesquiou [the boy’s governess]. She had been made to feel uncomfortable around this lady. … The qualities of generosity and sensitivity do honor to the heart and soul of this princess, who could not be faulted for anything during her stay in France. My mother has always told me that her first reaction was always excellent, but bad influences spoiled everything. (6)

Empress of the French

Once Napoleon had his heir, he devoted less attention to Marie Louise. He was fond of her and treated her with consideration, but he needed to attend to the pressing demands of state and war. Marie Louise spent her time drawing, painting, playing the piano, doing needlework and reading books. She rarely allowed herself to be seen in public, which did not endear her to the French people. They remembered how charming Josephine had been. One of Marie Louise’s ladies-in-waiting wrote:

[B]orn in the purple, accustomed from her infancy to homage and respect, and of a naturally shy and reserved disposition, [Marie Louise] knew nothing whatever of the mind of the French nation, and had no one about her who was in a position to advise, guide, and make her understand how essential it was, not only for her own, but for her son’s sake, that she should win their regard. But, although the empress had the defect of being cold and impassive in public, the blame ought not to be laid to her account. She was constantly told that one ought to be natural, and to appear just as one is; an excellent principle in private life, no doubt, but it does not work in the case of sovereigns, or indeed in that of the great, who require to do many kindnesses, and to be very condescending, in order to make the lower classes like them. (7)

In May 1812, Napoleon and Marie Louise went to Dresden for a gathering of European leaders that Napoleon had organized to gain support for his planned invasion of Russia. The Emperor and Empress of Austria attended. Marie Louise was delighted to be reunited with her parents. She continued on to Prague to spend more time with her Austrian family before returning to France. Meanwhile, Napoleon travelled to Poland to take charge of his army. Marie Louise missed him. She wrote to her friend, “I will only be happy and peaceful when I see him again. May God ever preserve you from such a separation; it is too much for a loving heart, and, should it continue longer, I feel that I shall succumb.” (8)

Regent of France

Marie Louise of Austria, Empress of the French, by Jean Baptiste Isabey, 1810

Marie Louise did not see Napoleon again until December, when he returned after the destruction of a large part of his army in Russia. In March 1813, when Napoleon set out for battle in Germany, he appointed Marie Louise as his regent in France. She had no real power. Napoleon still took all the decisions and had his senior officials implement them. Although Marie Louise urged her father to support her husband, Austria ended the alliance with France and joined Britain, Russia, Prussia and others in the coalition against Napoleon.

The campaign did not go well for Napoleon. He returned to Paris in November, following his defeat at the Battle of Leipzig. In December, the allies crossed into France. On January 24, 1814, Napoleon again made Marie Louise regent. Early the next morning he left to command his army. It was the last time he saw Marie Louise and the King of Rome.

In March, when the allied forces were approaching Paris, Marie Louise wanted to remain in the city. As the daughter of Francis I, she thought she would be treated with respect and she worried that leaving would embolden the supporters of Louis XVIII. However, Napoleon sent a letter insisting that his wife and son depart: “I would prefer to know that they were both at the bottom of the Seine, rather than in the hands of the foreigners.” (9) On March 29, the French court left the Tuileries for Rambouillet, southwest of Paris. The allies entered Paris the next day.

Marie Louise and the King of Rome continued on to Blois, accompanied by the Council of Regency and a portion of the National Guard. Much news was kept from her, but eventually Marie Louise learned that Napoleon had abdicated and was being exiled to the island of Elba. She would retain her title of Empress and be given the Duchies of Parma, Placentia and Guastalla. Marie Louise met with her father, hoping to persuade him to support Napoleon. Instead, Francis I persuaded her to go to Vienna with the King of Rome to have a rest. They arrived in May and were warmly received.

Seduction by Neipperg

Marie Louise still had hopes of joining her husband. In July, she requested and received permission to take the waters at Aix-les-Bains, intending to proceed from there to Parma and afterwards to Elba, although she had to leave the King of Rome in Vienna. She even wrote to Napoleon that he should “reserve a small lodging, because you know I intend to come as soon as I can.” (10)

However, when Marie Louise arrived outside Aix she was met by a charming Austrian officer, Adam Albert von Neipperg, who was to serve as her escort. Neipperg was under instructions from Metternich to dissuade her from going to Elba. On August 15, Napoleon’s 45th birthday, Marie Louise wrote: “How can I be happy…when I am obliged to pass the feast day, so solemn to me, so far from the two people who are dearest to me?” (11) But Neipperg was working his magic on her. When Napoleon sent a letter saying a ship was waiting for her at Genoa, Marie Louise replied that she could not go to Elba without her father’s permission. On September 5, she and Neipperg left Aix to return to Vienna. He became her lover on that journey.

In Vienna, Francis told Marie Louise not to reply to Napoleon’s letters. When Marie Louise learned of Napoleon’s escape from Elba in March 1815, she wrote to the allies saying that she was in no way complicit with her husband. When he reached Grenoble, Napoleon wrote asking Marie Louise to return to Paris with the King of Rome, adding “I hope to embrace you before the end of March.” (12) When Marie Louise did not respond, he sent another letter, saying he expected to see her and his son in France in April. This was followed by a third letter. Finally, he wrote to Francis I to formally reclaim his wife and son.

Ménéval, who was with Marie Louise and trying to encourage her to join Napoleon, wrote:

The mind of the Empress…contemplates the possibility of her return to France with terror. Every possible means have been employed for eight months, or, shall I say, for three years, to separate her from the Emperor…. For six months I have not been allowed to speak to her without a witness…. Unknown to anyone, she has been induced to take steps to declare herself foreign to the Emperor’s projects, to place herself under the protection of her father and the Allies, and to ask for the crown of Parma….. Marie Louise is really good at heart, but very weak, and averse to serious reflection. (13)

When Ménéval said goodbye to Marie Louise before returning to France himself, she told him that she would always remember her adopted land. She asked him to assure Napoleon that she wished him well, and hoped he would understand her unhappy position.

She repeated to me that she would never agree to a divorce, that she hoped he would consent to an amicable separation, and that he would not retain any resentment about it; that this separation had become unavoidable, but that it should not alter the feelings of esteem and gratitude which she retained. (14)

After Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo and subsequent exile to St. Helena, Marie Louise breathed a sigh of relief. When he was on St. Helena, Napoleon spoke of Marie Louise with respect and tenderness. He kept a portrait of her on the wall. He reportedly told his companions, “You may be quite certain that, if the Empress has made no effort to alleviate my sufferings, it is because she is kept in the midst of spies, who prevent her from knowing anything of what I suffer, for Marie Louise is virtue itself.” (15)

Marie Louise as Duchess of Parma

Marie Louise of Austria, Duchess of Parma, by Giovanni Battista Callegari, circa 1835

In June 1815, the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna confirmed Marie Louise as Duchess of Parma, Piacenza and Guastalla, but prevented her from bringing her son to Italy. In April 1816, she moved to Parma, accompanied by Neipperg, who became her chief advisor and prime minister. Her son, who was given the title of Duke of Reichstadt, remained in Vienna and was raised in the Austrian court. He appears as Franz in Napoleon in America.

Neipperg and Marie Louise had three children together: Albertine Marie (born on May 1, 1817); Wilhelm Albrecht (August 8, 1819); and Mathilde (August 15, 1821; died in 1822). The births and baptisms were kept as secret as possible, in light of the fact that Marie Louise was still legally married to Napoleon. Marie Louise married Neipperg morganatically on September 7, 1821, not long after she learned of Napoleon’s death by reading about it in a newspaper.

The Duchy of Parma was a poor, rural part of the Austrian Empire, with a population of less than half a million people. Marie Louise’s and Neipperg’s job was to keep insurrection under control through a combination of repression and reform. They introduced a new code of laws and made some improvements to infrastructure. Marie Louise laid out gardens and planted orchards. She rode horses, gave balls, attended the theatre, and played billiards, chess and backgammon with the ladies of the court. She made annual visits to Austria to see her father and her son.

Neipperg died in 1829, a great loss to Marie Louise. The following years were troubled. In 1831, there was a rebellion in which Marie Louise had to flee Parma before being reinstated by Austrian troops. In 1832, the Duke of Reichstadt died of tuberculosis at the age of 21. Marie Louise returned to Vienna to be at his side during his final month of life.

In February 1834, Marie Louise married her chamberlain, Count Charles René de Bombelles. As with Neipperg, it was a morganatic marriage. Afterwards, he assumed the title of Minister of Defense. They were reportedly happy together.

Daguerreotype of Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma, in 1847, age 56

Marie Louise of Austria died of pleurisy on December 17, 1847, at the age of 56. She is buried in the Imperial Crypt of the Capuchin Church in Vienna, along with other Habsburg family members. Upon her death, the Duchy of Parma returned to the rule of the House of Bourbon-Parma, leaving the way open for Louise d’Artois, granddaughter of Charles X of France, to become Duchess of Parma.

Neipperg’s and Marie Louise’s daughter Albertine, the Countess of Montenuovo (Italian for Neipperg) married Luigi Sanvitale, an Italian nobleman in 1833. She died in 1867. Her brother Wilhelm, the Count (later Prince) of Montenuovo, joined the Austrian army. He participated in the counterinsurgency battles of 1848 in Italy and Hungary, earning – like his father – the rank of lieutenant field marshal. He married Countess Juliane Batthyány-Strattmann and died in 1895.

You might also enjoy:

The Perilous Birth of the King of Rome

Adam Albert von Neipperg, Lover of Napoleon’s Wife

The Death of Napoleon’s Son, the Duke of Reichstadt

Correspondance de Marie Louise, 1799-1847 (Vienna, 1887), pp. 96, 103.
Claude François de Méneval, Napoléon et Marie-Louise, Vol. 1 (Paris, 1844), p. 371.
Louis-Joseph Marchand (Proctor Jones, ed.), In Napoleon’s Shadow (San Francisco, 1998), p. 614.
Correspondance de Marie Louise, 1799-1847, p. 146.
In Napoleon’s Shadow, p. 233
Ibid., p. 608.
Sophie-Henriette Durand, Napoleon and Marie Louise, 1810-1814, A Memoir (London, 1886), pp. 68-69.
Correspondance de Marie Louise, 1799-1847, p. 159.
Napoleon and Marie Louise, 1810-1814, A Memoir, p. 129.
Philip Dwyer, Citizen Emperor: Napoleon in Power (New Haven, 2013), p. 508.
Ibid., p. 509.
Edith E. Cuthell, An Imperial Victim: Marie Louise, Vol. II (London, 1912), p. 59.
Ibid., p. 68.
Ibid., p. 79.
Gaspard Gourgaud, The St. Helena Journal of General Baron Gourgaud, 1815-1818 (London, 1932), p. 348.

Charles Mathews, by Rembrandt Peale, 1822

Charles Mathews, by Rembrandt Peale, circa 1822

What made people laugh 200 years ago? Among other things, old jokes and comedy performances in theatres. One of the leading comedians of the early 19th century was British actor Charles Mathews. Famous for his wit and his skill at mimicry, he kept audiences in stitches with his one-man shows, which were a hit on both sides of the Atlantic. How funny would we find his comedy routines today? Read on and decide for yourself.

Comic actor Charles Mathews

Charles Mathews was born in London on June 28, 1776. His father was a Methodist bookseller and minister who took a dim view of the theatre, but accepted his son’s decision to take up acting. After building a reputation in smaller cities around the UK, Charles Mathews appeared on the London stage in 1803, performing in plays and farces. His comedic talent was quickly recognized and he was much in demand as a performer. He was also known for his offstage humour and wit.

Mathews’s skill as an actor could deceive even people who knew him. For example, at Drury Lane Theatre, he would often go into the green room – where performers and their celebrity friends gathered – in the guise of a “Mr. Pennyman,” whom everyone assumed was a friend of someone else. He would then do odd things and make ridiculous remarks. Pennyman’s antics became increasingly absurd, to the point where a doctor was called upon to give his opinion regarding the stranger’s sanity, but acquaintances were still amazed when Mathews eventually revealed Pennyman’s true identity.

In 1808 in Hull, Mathews appeared for the first time in his own show, called The Mail Coach; Or, Rambles in Yorkshire. This set the pattern for a series of one-man shows that Mathews performed annually starting in 1818. These consisted of three consecutive hours of comic monologues, sketches, impersonations and songs. Mathews played all of the characters himself, convincingly moving from one to the other through rapid changes in expression, voice and clothing. The following review gives the flavour of the 1818 show, called Mr. Mathews at Home.

Everything was given with an airiness, a taste, and an epigrammatic conciseness, which prevented it from hanging heavy on the auditor even for a single moment. The novelty of the evening was ventriloquism; in the exhibition of which five distinct persons were heard to speak, as if they were actually before the audience, while all the voices came from one and the same person; and this was Mr. Mathews himself. In the character of a French valet, which he sustained with characteristic naïveté and humour, he alternately held a conversation with a little child, with a housekeeper, a butler, and his master. The child was represented by a doll, which he took out of a box; and one would have thought the doll actually spoke, so well did he by his ventriloquial power imitate the voice of a child, without any movement of the natural organs of speech. He sang a song on the London Newspapers, which abounded with humour and satire. He next delineated a Yorkshire clown in a most natural manner, and afterwards, in a strain of exquisite mimicry, personated an old Scotch lady, who told a long story about nothing. He concluded the whole with a perfect imitation of several eminent performers of the present day. The passage he selected for the purpose was a part of Hamlet’s instructions to the players. He began by mimicking the exact tones, accents, and gestures of Mr. Kemble in this part; and afterwards described the manner in which it would be spoken by Young, Talma, Pope, Cooke, Munden, Blanchard, Fawcett, &c.

We never witnessed any exhibition at which the audience seemed to feel so much unmixed and uninterrupted pleasure. It was altogether a delicious treat, because it made everybody merry and happy. (1)

Manager, performer, orchestra, and scene-shifter

Initially others wrote Mathews’s routines; later he wrote his own. After each 40-day run in London closed, Mathews would tour the show in other cities. His entertainments became hugely popular, although not everyone was a fan. William Hazlitt criticized Mathews’s 1820 show as follows:

Mr. Mathews shines particularly, neither as an actor, nor a mimic of actors, but…his forte is a certain general tact, and versatility of comic power. … He is best when he is his own prompter, manager, and performer, orchestra, and scene-shifter; and perhaps, to make the thing complete, the audience should be of his own providing too. … His talent, though limited, is of a lively and vigorous fibre; capable of a succession of shifts and disguises…but by the suddenness and abruptness of his turns, he surprises and shocks oftener than he satisfies. His wit does not move the muscles of the mind, but, like some practical joker, gives one a good rap on the knuckles, or a lively box on the ear.… He is afraid to trust for a moment to the language of nature and character, and wants to translate it into pantomime and grimace…. His best imitations are taken from something characteristic or absurd that has stuck his fancy, or occurred to his observation in real life – such as a chattering footman, a drunken coachman, a surly traveller, or a garrulous old Scotchwoman. … The fault of these exhibitions…is that they turn too much upon caricaturing the most common-place and worn-out topics of ridicule – the blunders of Frenchmen in speaking English, the mispronunciations of the cockney dialect, the ignorance of Country Cousins, and the impertinence and foppery of relations in town. (2)

Other prominent writers praised the shows. Lord Byron said:

Mathews…seems to have continuous chords in his mind, that vibrate to those in the minds of others, as he gives not only the look, tones, and manners of the persons he personifies, but the very train of thinking, and the expressions they indulge in; and, strange to say, this modern Proteus succeeds best when the imitated is a person of genius or great talent, as he seems to identify himself with him. His imitation of Curran can hardly be so called – it is a continuation, and is inimitable. I remember Sir Walter Scott’s observing, that Mathew’s imitations were of the mind, to those who had the key; but as the majority had it not, they were contented with admiring those of the person, and pronounced him a mimic who ought to be considered an accurate and philosophic observer of human nature, blessed with the rare talent of intuitively identifying himself with the minds of others. (3)

King George IV was a fan; he invited Mathews to perform at Carlton House. The Duke of Wellington also enjoyed Mathews’s entertainment.

The weather is very hot

This excerpt is from Mathews’s Travels in Earth, Air, and Water, performed at the Theatre Royal, English Opera House, in 1821.

Some one observes that ‘the weather is very hot;’ upon which the Major exclaims, ‘Hot! What d’ye call hot? Pho—nonsense! Why, I’ve been in countries where salamanders dropped down dead with the heat of the sun. I dined one day with a friend and his wife at Callimahammaquackadelore, near Cudderapoo. Well, after dinner, as we were taking our wine, a coup de soleil struck the lady and in a moment reduced her to a heap of ashes! I, of course, was much shocked; but my friend, who was quite accustomed to such accidents, coolly rang the bell, and said to the servant, ‘Kit, my gar, and consumar, hitheratoo jumma chaudra put;’ which means, in plain English, ‘Bring fresh glasses, and sweep away your mistress!’ (4)

Charles Mathews as various characters 1822

Charles Mathews as various characters from his show, 1822 © The Trustees of the British Museum

Frenchman at the Boston Post Office

In 1822-23, Mathews toured the United States with a show called The Youthful Days of Mr. Mathews, to great acclaim. Napoleon’s brother, Joseph Bonaparte, was among those who saw him. Mathews wrote to his wife from Philadelphia on March 22, 1823:

My entertainments keep up here. ‘The Youthful Days,’ last night, went off as well as ever it did in England. Joseph Bonaparte, the ex-king of Spain, has been three or four times. He is very like the portraits of Napoleon, and has a most pleasing expression of countenance. The other evening I was encored in the Playhouse song; and, as I left the stage, he applauded, and, stretching forward, nodded at me very good naturedly. I have frequently dreamt of Napoleon, and at this moment it appeared as though his countenance beamed on me and patronized me. (5)

In 1824, Mathews launched a new show, called The Trip to America, based on his impressions of the Americans. It included the following sketch, among many others.

Our next scene is at the Boston Post-Office, where a Monsieur Mallet, a French emigrant, makes repeated applications to know if a long-expected letter from his daughter had arrived; and he attends daily, with ‘Pray Sair have von letter for Mr. Mallay!’ The man, turning over the letters, always said, ‘No,’ and the poor Frenchman left the office, thinking his daughter had completely lost sight of her exiled father. Still, day after day, he repeated the visit, and was as repeatedly repulsed with the familiar monosyllable, ‘No.’ Week after week passed away, and the poor Frenchman never received the wished-for consolation. One day, however, he went to the office, and while the man was sorting the letters he named several persons, and among the rest, ‘Mr. Mallet; to be left till called for.’ The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders and exclaimed that it was very strange; when the Republican told him if he was not satisfied he might look over the list himself. Mr. Mallet does so; and only reflect, only conceive his astonishment, when he casts his eye on the identical letter he had been so long searching after. His joy at having received the letter for a moment subdues his rage, and while he kisses the treasure, and presses it to his bosom, he exclaims, ‘Sair, don’t you see this letter is for me!’ When the Office-keeper coolly exclaims, ‘Why had you said Màl-let, I should have given it to you before.’ This tends to aggravate the emigrant, who impresses upon him that his name is Mallet (which he prounces Mallay) and threatens to report him to Congress. The Republican tells him he don’t care what he does, he’s only an individual. The Frenchman, enraged, tells him he is the same, that he is an individual too; and while he is venting his passion, he incautiously tears his letter to atoms. The man laughs; but Monsieur Mallet very deliberately picks up the pieces; and leaves the office, kissing the letter, and vowing revenge. This is certainly the best picture in the whole performance, and was acted well by Mr. M. Indeed it was at once complete, masterly, and truly affecting, and deserved the thunders of applause with which it was received. (6)

Charles Mathews in The Trip to America, 1824

Charles Mathews as fourteen of the characters in “The Trip to America,” by George Cruikshank, 1824 © The Trustees of the British Museum

Gentleman suspicious of his housekeeper

The following description comes from a review of Mathews’s Comic Annual for 1832, performed at the Adelphi Theatre in London.

The first character is that of Bachelor Winks, a prim, demure, and priggish gentleman, who had occupied the same set of chambers in the Temple for seven and thirty years, and who has one set form of speech for every occasion, — ‘Really,’ ‘Bless me!’ ‘Never saw such a thing in all my life.’ Say to him, Mr. Winks, the wind’s easterly to-day. — ‘Pon my word, so it is, really, — never saw such a thing in all my life.’ Ask him whether there were any news; whether his answer was in the negative or affirmative, it was sure to be accompanied by the eternal, ‘Never saw such a thing in all my life.’ What would Solomon have given for such a man?’ He surely would never have declared ‘there was nothing new under the sun,’ if he had but had the pleasure of Mr. Winks’ acquaintance. We are under the necessity of omitting the very laughable story of the ‘cold-bath,’ and pass on to Mr. Anthony Sillylynx, the suspicious gentleman, a character which is drawn most admirably. He is one who fancies that the whole world is leagued in a conspiracy against him. He never keeps a servant two months, — nor even then without applying for a search warrant to ascertain whether he had not stolen or secreted any of his property. He at last gets an Irish housekeeper, Mrs. O’Haggerty, whose imperturbable good-humour is proof against all his suspicions. One morning she went out to market, and he, according to his usual custom, began to pry into her table drawers, work-box, &c. if haply he could discover anything which might justify the eternal suspicions by which he is tormented, when he lights upon a paper containing the following memorandum in her own hand-writing, ‘Cut off my poor boy’s head, September 14th, 1808.’ Upon reading this he is struck dumb with horror, and is about to fetch a constable for the purpose of apprehending her, when she enters to inquire, ‘What his honour would like for dinner?’ and a most admirably sustained colloquy takes place; she proposes ‘calves-head;’ but the very mention of a head makes him shake with terror. He endeavours to pump her about her family. She says, she buried her first son years ago. ‘Oh!’ says he, ‘you did bury him then?’ — ‘Yes,’ replied she, ‘I laid his head under the cold stone.’ The bachelor starts at this confirmation of his suspicions, and begins to wonder what she has done with the body. The good lady then proceeds to talk of her second son, whom she intended for a priest, him she sent to Maynooth College; ‘but,’ said she with a sigh, ‘it was of no use.’ — ‘Why so?’ said Mr. Sillylynx. ‘Why; because he had no head at all, my jewel!’ — ‘That’s the very one,’ says Sillylynx, ‘after all.’ He then shows her the memorandum, and asks her what she cut it off with’? She replies that she snipt it off with the scissors. ‘Bless me!’ said she, ‘your honour’s angry with me, I fear.’ — ‘Angry with you, woman! what can you say after you have acknowledged to the crime described in this memorandum.’ — ‘Crime is it? Crime your honour says, — Lord! if that memorandum puts you in such a flusteration, what would you have said if you had found this?’ (taking up another and reading it.) ‘September 20th, cut off my own head.’ Sillylynx looked aghast; his reckless tormentor, however, continued. — ‘But, pray, what has your honour done with the lock of hair that was in that paper?’ — ‘Hair!’ said Sillylynx opening his eyes, ‘it wasn’t your son’s head then that you cut off after all?’ — ‘Lord! no, your honour; nor my own either, — it was but a lock of his hair.’ This dialogue, which was admirably sustained, and of which we have given but a summary, drew down shouts of laughter. (7)

Charles Mathews in his comic annual, 1832

Charles Mathews as eight of the characters in his “Comic Annual,” 1832 © The Trustees of the British Museum

Charles Mathews’s final years

In 1834, Mathews made another tour of the United States, but he had to cut it short because of illness. He made his last appearance on the stage in New York in February 1835. Charles Mathews died of heart disease in Plymouth, England, on the morning of his 59th birthday, June 28, 1835.

In the latter part of his career, Mathews was co-manager of the Adelphi Theatre in London. He also, as a hobby, amassed a large collection of theatrical portraits. These became the basis of the Garrick Club’s art collection.

Charles Mathews’s wife, Anne Jackson, an actress, wrote a four-volume biography of him, based on an autobiography Mathews had started. Their son, Charles James Mathews (1803-1878), became a successful comic actor.

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Anne Jackson Mathews, Memoirs of Charles Mathews Comedian, Vol. II (London, 1838), pp. 448-449.
William Hazlitt, A View of the English Stage; or A Series of Dramatic Criticisms (London, 1818), pp. 180-183.
Marguerite Gardiner, Conversations of Lord Byron with the Countess of Blessington (London, 1834), pp. 239-240.
Anne Jackson Mathews, Memoirs of Charles Mathews Comedian, Vol. III (London, 1838), p. 184.
Ibid., p. 398.
Charles Mathews, The London Mathews; containing an Account of this Celebrated Comedian’s Trip to America (Philadelphia, 1824), pp. 15-16.
Anne Jackson Mathews, Memoirs of Charles Mathews Comedian, Vol. IV (London, 1839), pp. 106-108.

One thing that Napoleon I and Louis XVIII had in common was a fondness for the Tuileries Palace, a magnificent building in Paris that no longer exists. The Tuileries Palace stood on the right (north) bank of the River Seine, at the eastern end of the Tuileries Garden, next to the Louvre Palace, to which it was joined. It was home to the rulers of France for almost 300 years.

The Tuileries Palace, by Antoine Ignace Melling, between 1815 and 1830

History of the Tuileries Palace

In 1564, Catherine de’ Medici, the widow of King Henry II of France, commissioned the construction of a palace and garden outside the old city wall, not far from the existing Louvre Palace. The new building derived its name from the fact that tile-making factories (tuileries) had long occupied the site. Henri IV, who reigned from 1589 to 1610, connected the Tuileries Palace to the Louvre via a long riverside gallery. Over the years, the palace continued to be gradually enlarged, most notably during the reign of Louis XIV, although he resided there for only four years, preferring the Palace of Versailles.

A map showing the Tuileries Palace and garden in relation to the Louvre in 1615

During the French Revolution, King Louis XVI and his family were forced to leave Versailles and were taken to the Tuileries. On August 10, 1792, French citizens stormed the palace in a bloody insurrection. This led to the formal end of the French monarchy. In 1793, Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, were executed by guillotine. The Tuileries Palace became a meeting hall for the National Convention and subsequent governing bodies of the new French Republic.

The Tuileries Palace, by Israel Silvestre, between 1670 and 1680

Napoleon I and the Tuileries

In 1799, General Napoleon Bonaparte came to power via a coup d’état. He made the Tuileries Palace his official residence. Historian Frédéric Masson calculated that, between 1800 and 1814, Napoleon spent on average nearly three months a year at the Tuileries, more than he spent at any of his other residences, with the possible exception of the Château de Saint-Cloud. (1)

Napoleon at the Tuileries, by Horace Vernet

After Napoleon became Emperor of the French in 1804, he had the Tuileries renovated to suit his new status. The palace was redecorated in neoclassical Empire style by Charles Percier, Pierre-François-Léonard Fontaine, and other prominent architects and designers. The courtyard in front of the Tuileries was enlarged and the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel was built as a gateway to the palace. In 1808, construction began on a northern gallery running toward the Louvre.

As you can see from the illustrations, the Tuileries Palace sat perpendicular to the Seine. In the centre of the palace was the Pavillon de l’Horloge. The north end was anchored by the Pavillon de Marsan, the south end by the Pavillon de Flore, next to the river. Between the Pavillon de l’Horloge and the Pavillon de Flore lay three sets of apartments: those for ceremonial use; the apartments of Napoleon; and the apartments of the Empress – first Josephine, and then, from 1810, Marie Louise.

The ceremonial, or state, apartments contained the rooms used for assemblies, ceremonies, grand audiences and celebrations. After coming up the grand staircase and passing through the grand vestibule in the Pavillon de l’Horloge, guests would first enter a large concert hall known as the Salle des Maréchaux, or Room of the Marshals, which contained portraits of all of Napoleon’s marshals. After the Salle des Maréchaux came the Salon des Officiers, then the Salon de la Paix, followed by the throne room, the state cabinet of the Emperor, and finally the large Gallery of Diana.

Napoleon Receiving the Delegation from the Roman Senate, by Innocent-Louis Goubaud, 1809

Napoleon on his throne at the Tuileries, by Innocent-Louis Goubaud, 1809

The state apartments were on the east side of the south wing. Immediately adjacent to them on the west side were the Emperor’s apartments, formerly the apartments of the king. These could be entered privately by a staircase near the Pavillon de Flore. Here, running from south to north (from the Pavillon de Flore towards the Pavillon de l’Horloge), lay a guardroom with a painted ceiling depicting Mars in his war chariot; a salon de service; a second salon in which Napoleon gave private audiences; Napoleon’s study; a topographic office containing maps; a bedroom; a small bathroom; a dressing room; a wardrobe; and an antechamber. There was also a terrace overlooking the garden.

Fontaine and Percier…covered the walls [of the bedroom] with rich hangings of Lyon brocade, strained on panels enriched with gilt ornaments; carved pilasters framed the openings and filled up the angles. The ceiling, painted and gilt, showed in the covings figures of Jupiter, Mars, Minerva, and Apollo, painted en grisaille, with raised mouldings of gold on a ground of lapis-lazuli; the armorial bearings and the cipher of the Emperor, with military trophies and garlands supported by winged genii, formed the ornaments of the borders. The bed, raised on a platform covered with velvet, occupied the floor of the room opposite the windows.

There was scarcely any furniture; arm-chairs of gilt wood, covered with Gobelins tapestry, a sort of large English chest of drawers, with brass ornaments and nothing else.

His bathroom was formerly the oratory of Anne of Austria and afterwards, when the alterations of the apartment took place a little room fitted up near to the bedroom. (2)

Napoleon in his Study at the Tuileries, by Jacques-Louis David, 1812

The room which Napoleon made into his study was of moderate size. It was lighted by a single window made in a corner and looking into the garden. The principal piece of furniture, placed in the middle, was a magnificent bureau, loaded with gilt bronze and supported by two griffins. The lid of the table slided into a groove, so that it could be shut without disarranging the papers. Under the bureau, and screwed to the floor, was a sliding cupboard, into which every time the Emperor went out was placed a portfolio of which he alone had the key. The armchair belonging to the bureau was of antique shape; the back was covered with tapestry of green kerseymere, the folds of which were fastened by silk cords, and the arms finished off with griffins’ heads. The Emperor scarcely ever sat down in his chair except to give his signature. He kept habitually at the right of the fireplace on a small sofa covered with green taffeta, near to which was a stand which received the correspondence of the day. A screen of several leaves kept off the heat of the fire. At the further end of the room, at right angles in the corners, were placed four bookcases, and between the two which occupied the wall at the end was a great regulator clock….

The study led into the back study [or salon], which was furnished with a few chairs covered with green morocco, and a secretaire with cylindrical lid, adorned with ornaments of bronze gilt and veneered with marqueterie of rosewood representing instruments of music. The decoration of this room recalled its former use as a boudoir. All the subjects painted in it alluded to female occupations, over which, from the ceiling, presided the Queen Maria Theresa [wife of Louis XIV], under the guise of Minerva. All along the walls ran a dwarf bookcase. It was in this room that the Emperor generally received his ministers, and that he granted audiences before the lever, during the day and in the evening. It cannot be too often repeated that a stranger never entered the study. (3)

The apartments of the Empress were on the ground floor, directly beneath those of the Emperor. The two suites were connected privately by a narrow and dark staircase. It was in the apartment of Marie Louise that Napoleon’s son, the King of Rome, was born in 1811. The boy was given his own apartment, next to his mother’s, in rooms that had previously been occupied by the grand marshal of the palace.

The north wing of the palace contained the council of state, the theatre, and the apartments of the senior officers of the palace. The servants lived on a separate floor. Kitchens, of which Fontaine said “no one could decay on account of the coal smoke,” were located on every floor. (4)

Louis XVIII and the Tuileries

After Napoleon’s abdication and exile to Elba in 1814, the Bourbons, in the form of King Louis XVIII and his family (including Marie-Thérèse, Duchess of Angoulême, the daughter of Louis XVI) returned to the Tuileries Palace. The palace was briefly reoccupied by Napoleon after his escape from Elba in 1815, but then – after Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo – reverted to Louis XVIII under the Second Restoration. Louis XVIII preferred the Tuileries Palace to the palace of Saint-Cloud. He did some redecorating to remove references to Napoleon, but otherwise did not change much.

Louis XVIII in his Study at the Tuileries, by Michel Marigny after François Gérard, circa 1820

A British visitor to France in the winter of 1815-16 left the following description of a visit to the Tuileries Palace.

One Sunday morning I went with Madame R. and Mr. L. to the chapel royal. The entrance is by a very elegant stone stair-case, on which were arranged the Cent Suisses grenadiers, a fine body of men, the shortest of whom exceeds six feet in height, and who are only used for purposes of ceremony. They made a very elegant appearance as they rose one above another to the top, a soldier being placed at each end of each step, thus forming a lane. The floor of the hall was warmed by means of stoves, and (though the weather was intensely cold) remained at a mild summer heat. … At last we entered a very splendid saloon, on the right hand of which were windows looking into the court yard of the Tuileries, and on the left a set of doors to correspond, which opened into a gallery the whole length of the chapel, forming with it, as it were, one room. Looking into the chapel from one of these openings, on the right was a gallery filled with singers and musicians, and at the left hand extremity a similar gallery for the king, hung with crimson velvet richly ornamented with gold fringe. A small door in the centre gave admission to it, and (when in) the curtains being drawn round formed a complete semi-circle. The great saloon was presently filled with peers, deputies, generals, marshals, ladies and foreign officers all in the most splendid dresses, forming a very grand and imposing coup d’oeil. In half an hour one of the king’s state footmen opened the door of the salon, and thundered out Monsieur. … The Count [of Artois] immediately entered, preceded by many marshals and general officers, and walked straight on without seeming to see any one. Presently the drums in the church rolled a loud peal to announce the approach of the King. The crimson velvet curtain was drawn aside, the door opened, and a man advanced to the front and cried out Le Roi in a voice that shook the building. … The King placed himself in a great arm chair gilt all over. Monsieur was on his right hand and the Duchesse d’Angoulême on his left. On a signal given, the music commenced, and I received from it a higher gratification than I can possibly express. Mass was performed entirely in music; several boys with very fine voices; an Italian named Theodore (called the best singer of sacred music in the world), a number of tenor and bass singers; and several kinds of instruments, formed a more exquisite combination of sounds than I had ever heard before. … All this time the gentry in the great saloon kept walking backwards and forwards talking aloud with the most perfect indifference, as if they had been in the street. I felt quite indignant at the stupidity which could not enjoy the music, and at the ill manners which prevented us from enjoying it. …

As we had been furnished with ‘Billets d’entrée’ by one of the peers, and as the same ticket would not admit us twice, we determined to stay in the palace till vespers, and in the meantime amuse ourselves by inspecting the apartments. The first was the Salle de Maréchaux; it is a lofty, square room, with a sloping ceiling which goes half-way into the roof. A gallery reaches round the whole room, about midway from the floor to the ceiling. The name is given from its containing portraits of all the marshals. Only fourteen now remain, some of them having been removed in disgrace, as Murat, Soult, and Ney. …

While the King was gone to vespers, Madame R. and I went through the palace. The splendour of the rooms is beyond description, the good taste which is displayed is no less admirable. The first chamber is the salon bleu, fitted up with blue satin and gold fringe; the next the salon de Paix, in which is a very large statue of peace in solid silver (but a clumsy sort of thing) and the largest mirrors in the world. The next is the salon du trône, where state ceremonials take place, as magnificent as Buonaparte could make it, crimson velvet on the steps of the throne – canopy of the same, with deep fringe of gold, the room lined with velvet, embroidered with stars of gold. The fifth is called the chamber de conseil; and the sixth the gallery of Diana. At each end is an enormous vase of the most beautiful porcelain, probably fifteen or eighteen feet high, between marble pillars, and having at the back mirrors reaching from the floor to the ceiling, so that standing in the middle of the room, the view is prolonged indefinitely, and you seem to see each way half a mile. The ceiling is painted beautifully, but is so extensive, so complicated, divided into so many compartments, and finished so minutely, that it would require a week to examine, and thrice that time to describe it. We next went to the King’s bed-chamber, which is also hung with crimson velvet richly ornamented with gold lace, the curtains of satin, embroidered with fleurs de lis, the bed-clothes of very fine cloth of the same colour, also embroidered with fleurs de lis, the canopy drawn together by a most superb crown, and the bed surrounded with massy railing all gilt.

I was surprised to observe that in this very severe weather there was not a carpet throughout the palace: boards form the middle of the room, and marble at the edges; they are never washed, but are supposed to be rubbed bright; this is far from being the case however, as they only throw down sand and sweep it off again; there was a profusion of splendor, but no comfort. …

The ceiling of the great saloon adjoining the chapel of which I have spoken, had till lately a very fine painting by David, representing the battle of Marengo; but when Blucher paid his second visit to Paris, he gave orders to efface it, which was accordingly done, and very effectually; and now it presents only a surface of white mortar. This is pointed out to you with a shrug of the shoulders, and a gentle cast of the eyes upwards. (5)

Louis XVIII receiving the Duke of Angoulême at the Tuileries on his return from Spain, December 2, 1823, by Antoine-Jean-Baptiste Thomas

The Comtesse de Boigne referred to the less glamorous aspects of the palace.

It was inhabited by more than eight hundred people who were by no means invariably clean in their habits. There were kitchens on every floor, and an absolute lack of cellars or sinks; consequently all kinds of filth collected and made such a smell that one was almost suffocated when going up the staircase of the Pavillon de Flore and crossing the corridors of the second floor. These appalling odours eventually reached the King’s rooms.… (6)

It is in the Tuileries Palace that we first encounter Louis XVIII and his family in Napoleon in America. The King’s brother, the Count of Artois, lived in the Pavillon de Marsan. Louis XVIII died at the Tuileries Palace on September 16, 1824.

The body of Louis XVIII lying in state at the Tuileries, by Charles Abraham Chasselat, 1824

The End of the Tuileries Palace

Upon Louis XVIII’s death, the Count of Artois ascended the throne as Charles X. See “Watching French Royals Eat” for a description of a visit to the Tuileries during his reign. Charles X was overthrown by the July Revolution of 1830, during which the Tuileries Palace was attacked by an armed mob and occupied. The new king, Louis Philippe, resided at the Tuileries until the Revolution of 1848, when the palace was again invaded and extensively damaged. When Napoleon’s nephew became Emperor Napoleon III in 1852, he moved into the Tuileries. Napoleon III had the palace extensively refurbished and expanded, including completion of the wing along the Rue de Rivoli, which linked the Tuileries Palace to the Louvre on the north side.

Napoleon III lost his throne in 1870, as a result of defeats in the Franco-Prussian war. In March 1871, a revolutionary socialist group known as the Paris Commune took control of Paris. The French army suppressed the Commune in a bloody week of fighting that began on May 21, 1871. On the night of May 23, twelve men under the orders of the former military commander of the Commune set fire to the Tuileries Palace. It took two days to put the blaze out, by which time the palace was largely gutted, except for the Pavillon de Flore, which still exists. The shell of the Tuileries and some of the rooms survived and there were calls for the palace to be rebuilt. However, the government of the Third Republic decided not to restore this royal and imperial monument, except for the Pavillon de Marson. Beginning in 1874, the latter was reconstructed as part of the Louvre, which had also been damaged by fire. In 1882, the National Assembly voted to demolish the ruins of the Tuileries. The demolition started in February 1883 and was finished by the end of September. Some of the stones and marble from the Tuileries Palace were used to build the Château de la Punta in Corsica, which was modeled on the Tuileries’ Pavillon de Bullant. Other fragments wound up scattered around Paris. Furniture and paintings that had been removed from the Tuileries in 1870, at the start of the Franco-Prussian War, also remain.

The Salle des Maréchaux after the 1871 fire

France’s National Furniture Museum (Mobilier National) has put together some excellent videos of what the Tuileries used to look like.

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Frédéric Masson, Napoleon at Home: The Daily Life of the Emperor at the Tuileries, Volume I, translated by James E. Matthew (London, 1894), p. 54.
Ibid., pp. 75, 90.
Ibid., pp. 173-175.
Ibid., p. 169.
Memorandums of a Residence in France in the Winter of 1815-16 (London, 1816), pp. 62-71.
Adèle d’Osmond, Charles Nicoullaud, ed., Memoirs of the Comtesse de Boigne, Vol. III: 1820-1830 (New York, 1908), p. 122.

Robert Fulton, an American engineer and inventor best known for bringing steamboats to commercial success, also built the world’s first steam-powered warship. Although Demologos, or Fulton the First, heralded the conversion from sail to steam in naval warfare, she never saw battle and met a tragic end in the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Robert Fulton’s Demologos, the first steam warship

Robert Fulton

Robert Fulton was born on November 14, 1765, in Little Britain, Pennsylvania. Fulton’s father – an Irish immigrant – died when he was young. At age 17, Fulton became an apprentice in a Philadelphia jewelry shop where he specialized in painting miniature portraits for rings and lockets. In 1786, hoping to make his fortune as an artist, he sailed for England with a letter of introduction to the American painter Benjamin West. In 1791, Fulton exhibited his paintings at the Royal Academy.

Fulton soon concluded that his art was unlikely to be profitable. In 1793 he turned to engineering. Among other things, he began developing ideas for canals that would use inclined planes instead of locks. In 1796 he published a Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation, which also proposed improvements in bridges and aqueducts. He designed a canal dredging machine and obtained patents for several related inventions.

Fulton’s submarine

As there was little interest in his inventions in Britain, Fulton moved to Paris in 1797. France was then at war with England. Fulton approached the French government with an idea for a “plunging boat” that could secretly maneuver under British warships and attach explosive charges to their hulls. Eventually Fulton was authorized to build his machine. He also, in 1799, took out a French patent on the panorama, a technology to which he had been introduced in England.

In July 1800, Fulton conducted the first test dives of his submarine, the Nautilus, on the Seine at Rouen. Based on this success, as well as later sea trials at Le Havre, in 1801 First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte authorized 10,000 francs for Fulton to make improvements to the Nautilus.

The new Nautilus could remain submerged at a depth of 25 feet for over four hours. In August 1801, Fulton obtained permission to attack British ships blockading a small harbor near Cherbourg. However, the British ships eluded the slower submarine. In September, Fulton wrote a long report on the experiments. He offered to sell the Nautilus to the French government and to supervise the construction of additional submarines. The government decided not to pursue the project. Fulton dismantled the Nautilus and destroyed key parts, so the French could not copy the design.

A cross-section of Fulton’s submarine design

Fulton’s French steamboats

In 1801, Fulton met Robert R. Livingston, the American minister to France who negotiated the Louisiana Purchase. Livingston owned a 20-year monopoly on steamboat navigation in New York State. In 1802, he and Fulton agreed to a business partnership in which Livingston would finance a steam-powered boat built by Fulton. In the spring of 1803, the boat was placed in the Seine. Unfortunately the hull was not strong enough to support the weight of the steam engine. During a storm the craft broke in two and sank to the bottom of the river. A second boat, with a strengthened hull, was successfully tested on the Seine on August 9, 1803. Although it did not reach the speed Fulton and Livingston had hoped for, they were pleased with the experiment and resolved to construct a larger boat to navigate the Hudson. Fulton ordered a steam engine from James Watt’s firm in Birmingham. This did not reach the United States until 1806.

Return to Britain

Alarmed by Fulton’s experiments in France, the British government sent an agent to offer him a sum of money to move back to England. Fulton arrived in London in May of 1804. As Napoleon was threatening to invade England, Fulton tried to interest the government in his plans for submersible and low-lying craft that would carry explosives (he called these “torpedoes” but they were more like modern mines). In July, Fulton met with Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger. Fulton proposed an assault on the French fleet that would use a combination of fireships, torpedoes and other explosive devices. The British government agreed to pay him a salary, give him funds to build and test the weapons, and reward him for French ships destroyed.

In October 1804, Fulton’s weapons were used in a raid on Boulogne. They exploded in spectacular fashion but did little damage. In October 1805, Fulton persuaded Pitt to allow him to blow up an old 200-ton Danish brig, the Dorothea, near Walmer Castle. Two torpedoes were used, each charged with 170 pounds of gunpowder, and fired by clockwork. The boat was destroyed, but this proved to be of little help to Fulton. Britain’s victory at the Battle of Trafalgar on October 21 greatly reduced the risk of French invasion, thus Fulton’s inventions were no longer needed.

Fulton’s American steamboats

In December 1806 Fulton returned to the United States. He took his plans for torpedo warfare to the American government and was given a small amount of money for some experiments. The results were not sufficiently successful to persuade the government to adopt the system.

In the meantime, Fulton and Livingston resumed work on the steamboat they had planned in Paris. They constructed the North River Steamboat, later known as the Clermont. Launched in August 1807, it travelled the 150 miles (240 km) from New York City to Albany in 32 hours, a trip that took four days by sail. By 1810, Fulton-designed steamboats were providing regular passenger and freight transportation on the Hudson and Raritan rivers. Fulton also built the New Orleans, which in 1811-12 became the first steamboat to travel from Pittsburgh to New Orleans. Among other things, the voyage demonstrated that the steamboat could move upstream against powerful currents. This transformed river travel and shipping throughout North America.

Demologos, the first steam warship

Fulton’s steam warship design

In June 1812, the United States declared war on Great Britain. Britain began to blockade American ports and there was concern that the Royal Navy could attack New York. In early 1814, a coastal defence committee asked Fulton what he would recommend. He proposed a steam-powered warship that would carry battery of 44 guns. The committee approved the design and agreed to build the vessel, provided the federal government would accept and pay for the ship once its utility had been demonstrated. On March 9, 1814, Congress appropriated the sum of $500,000 “for the purpose of building, equipping, and putting into service one or more floating batteries of such magnitude and construction as shall appear to the President of the United States best adapted to attack, repel, or destroy any ships of the enemy which may approach the shores or enter the waters of the United States.” (1) A sub-committee of five was appointed to take charge of the work, with Fulton as engineer and constructor.

Fulton adopted a unique design for his steam warship, which he named Demologos (voice of the people). He essentially built a catamaran, using two parallel armour-clad hulls, with the paddlewheel located between the hulls to protect it from enemy fire. The 120-horsepower steam engine was located below the waterline of one of the hulls. The boilers were in the other hull. Demologos was 156 feet in length, with a beam of 56 feet. She weighed 2,745 displacement tons and stood twice as high in the water as other ships. Fulton guaranteed a speed for his warship of four to four and a half miles per hour.

Demologos was designed to be fitted with twelve 32-pounder guns on each side and three more each on the bow and stern, for a total of 30. She was also fitted to carry two “Columbiads,” cannons that could fire a 100-pound projectile below the waterline.

The keels were laid in the shipyard of Adam and Noah Brown on the East River in June 1814. After the hulls were completed, a ceremonial launch was held on October 19, 1814. Then the hulls were towed to Fulton’s workshop in Jersey City for installation of the engine, boilers and machinery.

Demologos on the water

The War of 1812 ended on February 17, 1815, when the Treaty of Ghent was ratified in Washington. One week later, on February 24, 1815, Robert Fulton died, probably of pneumonia, at the age of 49. New York went into mourning.

Work continued on Demologos, which was informally renamed Fulton the First. On June 1, 1815, she went on a four-hour voyage to try out her engines. The real trial run was arranged as the chief event of the Fourth of July celebration that year. Several guns were placed on the main deck, ready for action.

Having made a display off the Battery she proceeded to Staten Island, opposite the height on which his Excellency the Governor has taken up his summer residence. The cannon on the Governor’s hill loudly welcomed the approach of this new frigate, from which vessel the salute was returned. The Fulton the First then proceeded to Sandy Hook, went to sea, and with the afternoon tide returned to the city, having performed the two passages to sea and back in about seven hours. To use Captain Smith’s remark, ‘She performed all we want of her.’ (2)

On September 11, with twenty-six of her guns, ammunition, and stores on board, she made another trip, reaching an average speed of 5.5 miles per hour.

Launch of the steam warship Demologos / Fulton the First

Demologos, informally renamed Fulton the First, saw very little use, none of it in battle. The world’s first steam warship made her last voyage under her own power in 1817, when she carried President James Monroe from New York to Staten Island. After this she was laid up in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which is where Napoleon visits the ship in Napoleon in America.

Scottish traveler John M. Duncan visited the Navy Yard in 1818 and left the following description of Fulton’s steam warship, which he found “dismantled and roofed in.”

‘Fulton the First’ is a most singular machine; in shape pretty nearly an oblong octagon, rounded off a little at the corners. A most tortoise-looking man of war. We entered by a gun port upon her principal deck, and carefully explored every nook to which we could find admittance. Since visiting her I have had an opportunity of reading an official description, by the commissioners who superintended her while building, and the following combines what I saw, with the information which that document affords; the accuracy of the details may, I believe, be relied on. The steam frigate is a double boat, resting upon two keels, with an intervening space, 156 feet long and 15 feet wide, in which the paddle wheel revolves; this is carefully covered in, so as to be as much as possible unapproachable by shot. The wheel has a free motion both ways upon its axis, so that it can propel the vessel with either end foremost: for this purpose each individual boat has two rudders, one at each end, which are also carefully defended; each pair acts simultaneously, and when the pair at one end is in operation, the other is secured so as to offer no obstruction to the vessel’s progress. She carries two bowsprits and two masts, which are intended to bear what are called lateen sails. The rigging formed no part of the original design, but was added at the suggestion of Captain Porter who had been appointed to her command. The sides are four feet ten inches thick, composed of four thicknesses of oak timber, alternately vertical and horizontal. Her gun ports, thirty in number, are all on the principal deck, and go completely round both ends of the vessel, so that if necessary her shot can fly simultaneously at every angle like radii from the centre of a circle. She carries thirty-two pounders, some of which are in the carriages; with these she is intended to throw red hot shot, for preparing which she is amply provided with furnaces. Fulton also intended that she should carry upon her upper deck four Columbiads, as they are called, enormous guns capable of discharging a ball of a hundred pounds weight, into an enemy’s vessel, under the water mark. At present however her upper deck is without any armament, but surrounded with a strong bulwark. The officers’ cabins are in the centre of the vessel, on the main deck. The steam boilers are contained in the one boat, and the engine in the other, but of their appearance or that of the paddle wheel, I can say nothing, as the whole were completely shut up.

Room is left for a machine which Fulton purposed to add, capable of discharging with great force an incessant stream of water either hot or cold, which it was anticipated would completely inundate an enemy’s armament and ammunition, if it did not also destroy the men. Our newspapers, copying the marvellous reports which were afloat respecting her, assured their readers that this non-descript man of war was to brandish along its sides some hundreds of cutlasses and boarding pikes, and vomit boiling pitch on her unfortunate antagonists; these however are poetical exaggerations. Her machinery impels her at the rate of five and a half knots an hour, and her inventor felt confident that in a calm, or light breeze, no seventy-four would be a match for her. …

The commissioners were harassed with numerous obstacles in getting her constructed, and their difficulties give a pretty lively idea of the distress which generally prevailed throughout the country. Our vessels kept the whole of the sea coast in a state of close blockade, and it was with the greatest difficulty that building materials could be got for her. Timber, copper, iron, lead, and coal, required to be imported from distant parts of the Union, or from foreign countries, and the vigilance of our cruisers allowed so little to escape, that they were all scarce and enormously expensive. Ship carpenters had been sent off in such numbers to the lakes, and so many stragglers had volunteered into the army and navy, that workmen could scarcely be procured, and only for very high wages. When she was launched, no artillery of a suitable description was to be found in New York; but a British prize was opportunely brought into Philadelphia, and twenty of her guns were dragged round through the deep roads of New Jersey. The state of public credit was another source of embarrassment. The commissioners were supplied by government with treasury notes, which were then at a considerable discount, but which they were positively forbidden to pay away under par. Even this depreciated paper was occasionally so long withheld that they had in some cases to pledge their private credit, and in spite of all their efforts, the men at one time actually broke off from working; while those who had furnished building materials were discontented and importunate. These interruptions were chiefly felt in the latter part of 1814, and they continued till winter made it impossible for the vessel to act, even had she been finished. Peace, which was concluded early next year, rendered her for the present useless, and it was thought unnecessary to furnish her with a full equipment; but the commissioners persevered in completing her construction, and in June she made the first trial of her machinery. On a subsequent occasion she made a trip to Sandy Hook, with a considerable part of her artillery and stores on board, saluting the forts as she passed them; and the last occasion on which her powers were put in requisition, was when the present President, Mr. Monroe, made an official tour through the Union.

I have endeavoured to ascertain whether as much confidence is reposed in her powers as to realize the anticipations of her projector, and to justify the panegyrics of the newspapers; but I am led to think, that considerable doubt prevails as to the possibility of working her, so as to make her efficient against an enemy’s vessel. Fulton died before her engine was put on board; had he lived to superintend its complete adjustment, it is impossible to say to what degree of perfection he might have brought it, but his biographer acknowledges that there are, at present, great and obvious defects in her machinery. During the trial voyages various inconveniences were experienced, one of these was the heat of the furnaces, which is so insupportable, that the engine-men cannot remain beside them for more than a minute or two at a time. In the confusion and bustle of an action it would probably be found extremely difficult, if not impossible, to regulate, with deliberation and coolness, the many complicated operations which would be necessary in such a machine; and where so much internal combustion is going forward, the slightest inattention or accident in managing the powder, might be instantaneously fatal to all on board. Should they succeed in overcoming these difficulties, and acquire that expertness in her management which practice alone can be expected to produce, we can scarcely imagine for a bay or harbour, a more powerful instrument of attack or defence. Independent of wind or tide, she could plough her way under an enemy’s stern, or across his bows, and vomit forth her flaming balls, wherever the foe was most vulnerable; while the reverting of the paddle wheel would instantly relieve her from a wrong position, without the delay of working round, and the enormous thickness of her sides would render any but the largest guns inefficient upon her timbers.

The commissioners in their last report recommended, that, notwithstanding the peace, she should be commissioned and sent to sea, that officers and men might be trained to her management, and that defects in her construction, might be discovered and obviated; but this recommendation could only have been complied with at an expense which would ill agree with American ideas of economy, and here she lies, slumbering in ignoble indolence and security. I would add with all my heart, Requiescat in pace! (3)

The end of Demologos

Demologos made her last public appearance in October 1825 during the celebration of the opening of the Erie Canal. She had an honorable place in the water parade, but was towed by a larger steamship as her steam engine had been removed in 1821. Demologos continued to be used as floating barracks or a depot or receiving ship at the Brooklyn Navy Yard until June 4, 1829. On that date, the accidental explosion of a small store of gunpowder used to fire the ship’s signal gun killed 25, wounded 19, and largely destroyed the vessel

Although Demologos was never used in war, her construction marked a turning point in naval warfare. Steam eventually replaced sail as the main means of propelling warships, although it took some time. It was not until 1837 that the US Navy built its second steam warship, called Fulton (the second), which saw some service in the West Indies. During the Civil War, the Navy operated a number of steam-powered gunboats, loosely based on Fulton’s design, on the Mississippi River. Other warships improved on Fulton’s design. Even today, large warships are propelled by steam, generated by nuclear power.

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5 Easter Traditions No Longer Practiced

Richard Peters, ed., The Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America, Volume 3 (Boston, 1850), p. 104.
New York Gazette, July 6, 1815.
John M. Duncan, Travels through Part of the United States and Canada in 1818 and 1819, Volume I (Glasgow, 1823), pp. 35-41.

In 1834-35, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., sailed as a merchant seaman from Boston to Alta California, which was then a province of Mexico. The ship’s arrival in Santa Barbara coincided with the Easter holidays. Dana left a vivid description of the festivities on shore.

Santa Barbara from the beach, by Edward Vischer, 1865. Source: University of Southern California Libraries and California Historical Society

Richard Henry Dana, Jr.

Richard Henry Dana, Junior, was born into a prominent Cambridge, Massachusetts, family on August 1, 1815. His father, Richard Henry Dana, Senior, was a poet, essayist and novelist. At the age of 16, Dana Jr. entered Harvard College. In his third year he contracted measles, which led to a lingering eye inflammation that made it impossible for him to continue his studies. Dana decided to go on a sea voyage to restore his health. Instead of opting for a grand tour of Europe, he made the choice – unusual for someone of his background – to become a merchant seaman. He joined the crew of the brig Pilgrim, bound for California. The ship left Boston on August 14, 1834. It dropped anchor in Santa Barbara bay in mid-April, 1835. What follows is Dana’s record of what happened next.

Richard Henry Dana, Jr., 1842

Misspending Easter Sunday

“There we found, lying at anchor, the large Genoese ship which we saw in the same place, on the first day of our coming upon the coast. … She was a large, clumsy ship, and with her topmasts stayed forward, and high poop-deck, looked like an old woman with a crippled back. It was now the close of Lent, and on Good Friday [April 17] she had all her yards a-cock-bill, which is customary among Catholic vessels. Some also have an effigy of Judas, which the crew amuse themselves with keel-hauling and hanging by the neck from the yard-arms.

“The next Sunday was Easter, and…it was our turn to go ashore and misspend another Sunday. Soon after breakfast, a large boat, filled with men in blue jackets, scarlet caps, and various colored under-clothes, bound ashore on liberty, left the Italian ship, and passed under our stern, the men singing beautiful Italian boat-songs, all the way, in fine, full chorus. Among the songs I recognized the favorite, ‘O Pescator dell’onda.’ It brought back to my mind pianofortes, drawing-rooms, young ladies singing, and a thousand other things which as little befitted me, in my situation, to be thinking upon.

“Supposing that the whole day would be too long a time to spend ashore, as there was no place to which we could take a ride, we remained quietly on board until after dinner. We were then pulled ashore in the stern of the boat…and with orders to be on the beach at sundown, we took our way for the town. There, everything wore the appearance of a holiday. The people were dressed in their best; the men riding about among the houses, and the women sitting on carpets before the doors. Under the piazza of a pulpería two men were seated, decked out with knots of ribbons and bouquets, and playing the violin and the Spanish guitar. These are the only instruments, with the exception of the drums and trumpets at Monterey, that I ever heard in California; and I suspect they play upon no others, for at a great fandango at which I was afterwards present, and where they mustered all the music they could find, there were three violins and two guitars, and no other instruments.

A child’s funeral

“As it was now too near the middle of the day to see any dancing, and hearing that a bull was expected down from the country, to be baited in the Presidio square in the course of an hour or two, we took a stroll among the houses. Inquiring for an American who, we had been told, had married in the place and kept a shop, we were directed to a long, low building, at the end of which was a door, with a sign over it in Spanish. Entering the shop, we found no one in it, and the whole had an empty, deserted air. In a few minutes the man made his appearance, and apologized for having nothing to entertain us with, saying that he had had a fandango at his house the night before, and the people had eaten and drunk up everything.

“ ‘Oh yes!’ said I, ‘Easter holidays!’

“ ‘No!’ said he, with a singular expression on his face; ‘I had a little daughter die the other day, and that’s the custom of the country.

“At this I felt somewhat awkwardly, not knowing what to say, and whether to offer consolation or not, and was beginning to retire, when he opened a side door and told us to walk in. Here I was no less astonished; for I found a large room, filled with young girls, from three or four years of age up to fifteen and sixteen, dressed all in white, with wreaths of flowers on their heads, and bouquets in their hands. Following our conductor among these girls, who were playing about in high spirits, we came to a table, at the end of the room, covered with a white cloth, on which lay a coffin, about three feet long, with the body of his child. The coffin was covered with white cloth, and lined with white satin, and was strewn with flowers. Through an open door we saw, in another room, a few elderly people in common dresses; while the benches and tables thrown up in a corner, and the stained walls, gave evident signs of the last night’s ‘high go.’ Feeling, like Garrick, between Tragedy and Comedy, an uncertainty of purpose, I asked the man when the funeral would take place, and being told that it would move toward the Mission in about an hour, took my leave.

Mission Santa Barbara in 1856

A horse ride on the beach

“To pass away the time, we hired horses and rode to the beach, and there saw three or four Italian sailors, mounted, and riding up and down on the hard sand at a furious rate. We joined them and found it fine sport. The beach gave us a stretch of a mile or more, and the horses flew over the smooth, hard sand, apparently invigorated and excited by the salt sea-breeze, and by the continual roar and dashing of the breakers. From the beach we returned to the town, and, finding that the funeral procession had moved, rode on and overtook it, about half-way to the Mission.

“Here was as peculiar a sight as we had seen before in the house; the one looking as much like a funeral procession as the other did like a house of mourning. The little coffin was borne by eight girls, who were continually relieved by others, running forward from the procession and taking their places. Behind it came a straggling company of girls, dressed as before, in white and flowers, and including, I should suppose by their numbers, nearly all the girls between five and fifteen in the place. They played along on the way, frequently stopping and running all together to talk to someone, or to pick up a flower, and then running on again to overtake the coffin. There were a few elderly women in common colours; and a herd of young men and boys, some on foot and others mounted, followed them, or walked or rode by their side, frequently interrupting them by jokes and questions. But the most singular thing of all was that two men walked, one on each side of the coffin, carrying muskets in their hands, which they continually loaded and fired into the air. Whether this was to keep off the evil spirits or not, I do not know. It was the only interpretation that I could put upon it.

“As we drew near the Mission, we saw the great gate thrown open, and the padre standing on the steps, with a crucifix in hand. The Mission is a large and deserted-looking place, the out-buildings going to ruin, and everything giving one the impression of decayed grandeur. A large stone fountain threw out pure water, from four mouths, into a basin before the church door; and we were on the point of riding up to let our horses drink, when it occurred to us that it might be consecrated and we forbore. Just at this moment, the bells set up their harsh, discordant clangour; and the procession moved into the court. I wished to follow and see the ceremony, but the horse of one of my companions had become frightened, and was tearing off toward the town; and having thrown his rider, and got one of his hoofs caught in the tackling of the saddle, which had slipped, was fast dragging and ripping it to pieces. Knowing that my shipmate could not speak a word of Spanish, and fearing that he would get into difficulty, I was obliged to leave the ceremony and ride after him. I soon overtook him, trudging along, swearing at the horse, and carrying the remains of the saddle, which he had picked up on the road. Going to the owner of the horse, we made a settlement with him, and found him surprisingly liberal. All parts of the saddle were brought back, and, being capable of repair, he was satisfied with six reals. We thought it would have been a few dollars. We pointed to the horse, which was now halfway up one of the mountains; but he shook his head, saying, ‘No importa!’ and giving us to understand that he had plenty more.

A cockfight in the square

“Having returned to the town, we saw a crowd collected in the square before the principal pulpería, and, riding up, found that all these people – men, women, and children – had been drawn together by a couple of bantam cocks. The cocks were in full tilt, springing into one another, and the people were as eager, laughing and shouting, as though the combatants had been men. There had been a disappointment about the bull; he had broken his bail, and taken himself off, and it was too late to get another; so the people were obliged to put up with a cock-fight. One of the bantams having been knocked in the head, and having an eye put out, gave in, and two monstrous prize-cocks were brought on. These were the object of the whole affair; the two bantams having been merely served up as a first course, to collect the people together. Two fellows came into the ring holding the cocks in their arms, and stroking them, and running about on all fours, encouraging and setting them on. Bets ran high, and, like most other contests, it remained for some time undecided. Both cocks showed great pluck, and fought probably better and longer than their masters would. Whether, in the end, it was the white or the red that beat, I do not recollect, but whichever it was, he strutted off with the true veni-vidi-vici look, leaving the other lying panting on his beam-ends.

A horse race

“This matter having been settled, we heard some talk about ‘caballos’ and ‘carrera,’ and seeing the people streaming off in one direction, we followed, and came upon a level piece of ground, just out of the town, which was used as a race-course. Here the crowd soon became thick again, the ground was marked off; the judges stationed, and the horses led up to one end. Two fine-looking old gentlemen – Don Carlos and Don Domingo, so called – held the stakes, and all was now ready. We waited some time, during which we could just see the horses twisting round and turning, until, at length, there was a shout along the lines, and on they came, heads stretched out and eyes starting; working all over, both man and beast. The steeds came by us like a couple of chain-shot, neck and neck; and now we could see nothing but their backs and their hind hoofs flying in the air. As fast as the horses passed, the crowd broke up behind them, and ran to the goal. When we got there, we found the horses returning on a slow walk, having run far beyond the mark, and heard that the long, bony one had come in head and shoulders before the other. The riders were light-built men, had handkerchiefs tied round their heads, and were bare-armed and bare-legged. The horses were noble-looking beasts, not so sleek and combed as our Boston stable horses, but with fine limbs and spirited eyes. After this had been settled, and fully talked over, the crowd scattered again and flocked back to the town.

A dance

“Returning to the large pulpería, we heard the violin and guitar screaming and twanging away under the piazza, where they had been all day. As it was now sundown, there began to be some dancing. The Italian sailors danced, and one of our crew exhibited himself in a sort of West India shuffle, much to the amusement of the bystanders, who cried out, ‘Bravo!’ ‘Otra vez!’ and ‘Vivan los marineros!’ but the dancing did not become general, as the women and the ‘gente de razon’ had not yet made their appearance. We wished very much to stay and see the style of dancing; but, although we had had our own way during the day, yet we were, after all, but foremast Jacks; and having been ordered to be on the beach by sunset, did not venture to be more than an hour behind the time; so we took our way down. We found the boat just pulling ashore through the breakers, which were running high, there having been a heavy fog outside, which, from some cause or other, always brings on, or precedes, a heavy sea. Liberty-men are privileged from the time they leave the vessel until they step on board again; so we took our places in the stern sheets, and were congratulating ourselves upon getting off dry, when a great comber broke fore and aft the boat, and wet us through and through, filling the boat half full of water. Having lost her buoyancy by the weight of the water, she dropped heavily into every sea that struck her, and by the time we had pulled out of the surf into deep water, she was but just afloat, and we were up to our knees. By the help of a small bucket and our hats, we bailed her out, got on board, hoisted the boats, eat our supper, changed our clothes, gave (as is usual) the whole history of our day’s adventures to those who had stayed on board, and having taken a night-smoke, turned in. Thus ended our second day’s liberty on shore.

No danger of a Yankee Catholic

“On Monday morning, as an offset to our day’s sport, we were all set to work ‘tarring down’ the rigging. … After breakfast, we had the satisfaction of seeing the Italian ship’s boat go ashore, filled with men, gaily dressed, as on the day before, and singing their barcarollas. The Easter holidays are kept up on shore during three days; and being a Catholic vessel, her crew had the advantage of them. For two successive days, while perched up in the rigging, covered with tar and engaged in our disagreeable work, we saw these fellows going ashore in the morning, and coming off again at night, in high spirits. So much for being Protestants. There’s no danger of Catholicism’s spreading in New England, unless the Church cuts down her holidays; Yankees can’t afford the time. American shipmasters get nearly three weeks’ more labor out of their crews, in the course of a year, than the masters of vessels from Catholic countries. As Yankees don’t usually keep Christmas, and shipmasters at sea never know when Thanksgiving comes, Jack has no festival at all.” (1)

Dana’s later life

Dana arrived back in Massachusetts in September of 1836, cured of his ailment. He returned to Harvard and completed his degree, and then enrolled in what is now Harvard Law School, from which he graduated in 1839. He was admitted to the bar in 1840. That same year he published a memoir of his California trip, entitled Two Years Before the Mast (the term refers to sailors’ quarters, located in the front of the ship). The book, which among other things documented the abuse Dana and his fellow seamen suffered at the hands of their captain, became immensely popular. Dana’s experience gave him a lifelong sympathy for the oppressed. He became an expert on maritime law and championed the rights of sailors. He was also an anti-slavery advocate, representing fugitive slaves and their rescuers in court. In 1867-68, he served as a member of the Massachusetts legislature. Richard Henry Dana, Jr., died on January 6, 1882, age 66, in Rome.

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Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Two Years Before the Mast (New York, 1899), pp. 137-144.

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, had a reputation as a ladies’ man. As a handsome military hero and dashing member of Britain’s highest society, he attracted plenty of female attention. Wellington was very much at ease with women and enjoyed their company, especially if they were good-looking and intelligent. Stuck in an unhappy marriage, he developed many close friendships with women and had numerous mistresses. Here’s a look at the Duke of Wellington and women.

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, by Robert Home, 1804

Marriage with Kitty Pakenham

As a young man in Ireland, the future Duke of Wellington was already catching ladies’ eyes.

There were stories of picnics outside Dublin to which ladies refused to go if ‘that mischievous boy’ Arthur was also invited. (He specialised in twitching out the lace from shirt collars.) A young Mrs. St. George, however…noticed him favourably. He was ‘extremely good humoured and the object of much attention from the female part of what was called ‘a very gay society.’ (1)

Catherine Wellesley, Duchess of Wellington, by Thomas Lawrence

Wellington first courted Catherine (Kitty) Pakenham in Dublin in 1792. He was a debt-ridden 23-year-old captain of light dragoons. Kitty was the 19-year-old daughter of the Earl of Longford, an Irish peer. She was pretty, with a sweet disposition, and she and her suitor had some interests in common, including an enjoyment of music and books. They fell in love. Wellington twice asked for her hand in marriage, in 1793 and again in 1794. Her family rejected the match because Wellington had no fortune or visible prospects. Before Wellington left on his first campaign, he sent Kitty a letter indicating that his feelings for her would remain the same and, if his situation ever changed, he would renew his suit.

In 1796, Wellington and his regiment were sent to India. There he enjoyed a string of flirtations and liaisons. A fellow officer noted:

Colonel Wellesley had at that time a very susceptible heart, particularly towards, I am sorry to say, married ladies and his pointed attention to [a captain’s young pretty wife] gave offence to, not her husband, but to the aide-de-camp, who considered it highly immoral and indecorous. … [Wellesley] once kindly assisted me in a little affair of gallantry I had, but not with a married woman. But this was in a spirit of gratitude, I having assisted him on a like occasion. (2)

During the years that Wellington was abroad, he and Kitty did not communicate directly, but friends kept them informed about each other. When Wellington returned to England in 1805, he was told that Kitty was still pining for him. This was not exactly the case. Two or three years earlier, she had accepted a marriage proposal from Galbraith Lowry Cole, son of the Earl of Enniskillen, and had only been persuaded to break the engagement because a dear friend begged her to remain faithful to Wellington. That same friend now encouraged Wellington to revive his courtship. Feeling bound by his original letter to Kitty, Wellington sent a formal proposal of marriage. They had not seen each other for eleven years, and Wellington’s professed love for Kitty did not stop him from patronizing Harriette Wilson, a famed London courtesan. (When Wilson later offered to exclude former clients from her memoirs for a price, Wellington reportedly responded, “Publish and be damned!”)

To Wellington’s proposal, Kitty replied:

I should be the most undeserving of beings were I capable of feeling less than gratitude in return for the steadiness of your attachment…. I am conscious of a degree of happiness of which till now I had no idea. …

I do not think it fair to engage you before you are quite positively certain that I am indeed the very woman you would choose for a companion a friend for life. In so many years I may be much more changed than I am myself conscious of. If when we have met you can tell me…that you do not repent having written the letter I am now answering I shall be most happy. (3)

When Wellington arrived in Dublin in April of 1806, he indeed found his betrothed much changed. “She has grown ugly, by Jove!” he told his brother Gerald. (4) Nonetheless, on April 10 he went through with the wedding. He soon regretted it. Wellington and Kitty had two children: Arthur, born on February 3, 1807, and Charles, born on January 16, 1808. Beyond that, they had little to do with each other. Finding Kitty poor company, Wellington treated her coldly. Kitty adored her husband, but was afraid of him and intimidated by his fame. She was unsuited to the position of his consort. She had difficulty managing two large households and took little interest in his career. Shy and timid, Kitty avoided society, preferring to spend time with her children. In practice, they lived apart. Kitty and the children stayed mainly at Stratfield Saye in Hampshire, Wellington at Apsley House in London. His many female friends felt sympathy for him and contempt for her.

Wellington later complained to his friend Harriet Arbuthnot “of the distress it was to him to be united to a person with whom he could not possibly live on any terms of confidential intercourse. He assured me he had repeatedly tried to live in a friendly manner with her…[but] it was impossible, that she did not understand him, that she could not enter with him into consideration of all the important concerns which are continually occupying his mind and that he found he might as well talk to a child…she made his house so dull that nobody would go to it…& it drove him to seek abroad that comfort & happiness that was denied to him at home.” (5)

Harriet considered Kitty “the most abominably silly stupid woman that ever was born,” but told the Duke that she thought he was also to blame for their marital problems, “for that all would go on much better if he would be civil to her, but he is not. He never speaks to her and carefully avoids ever going near her.” (6)

Seeking comfort abroad

From 1808 to 1814, the Duke of Wellington was abroad, leading the fight against Napoleon’s forces in Spain and Portugal. He did not deprive himself of female company. In 1810, he was said to publicly keep a mistress at headquarters.

In April 1814, Napoleon was defeated and exiled to Elba. Wellington became the British ambassador to France, now ruled by Louis XVIII. He settled into a house that had previously belonged to Napoleon’s sister Pauline. During this period, Wellington had affairs with an Italian opera singer, Giuseppina Grassini, and the French actress Marguerite Georges, both of whom had been Napoleon’s lovers. Mademoiselle Georges claimed that the Duke was “by far the stronger.” (7) Wellington hardly curtailed his activities when Kitty joined him in October.

Wellington Master of Ordnance Exercising His Hobby

The Master of the Ordnance (Wellington) Exercising his Hobby, by Isaac Cruikshank, 1819 © The Trustees of the British Museum. One woman says, “It can’t do any harm, for he has fired it so often in various countries, that it is nearly wore!” Another says, “Bless us! What a Spanker! I hope he won’t fire it at me – I could never support such a thing!”

When Napoleon escaped from Elba to reclaim the French throne in March 1815, Wellington was attending the Congress of Vienna (Kitty returned to London). Wellington was sent to Brussels to command the British and Dutch-Belgian forces that would confront the returned French Emperor. While assembling men and arms, Wellington enlivened the social scene and attracted many female admirers. Lady Caroline Capel, on holiday in Brussels, wrote on June 2, 1815:

The Duke of W. has not improved the morality of our society, as he has given several things [parties] and makes a point of asking all the ladies of loose character. Every one was surprised at seeing Lady John Campbell at his house and one of his staff told me that it had been represented to him her not being received for that her character was more than suspicious. ‘Is it, by God,’ said he, ‘then I will go and ask her myself.’ On which he immediately took his hat and went out for that purpose. (8)

One of the ladies with whom Wellington was rumoured to have an attachment was Lady Frances Wedderburn-Webster. She and her husband later brought a successful libel action against the St. James Chronicle for suggesting Lady Frances and Wellington had an affair. Wellington also developed his friendship with Georgiana Lennox, daughter of the Duke of Richmond.

After defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815, Wellington returned to Paris. He was again surrounded by female admirers, several of whose names were linked romantically with his, including Lady Frances Shelley, Lady Caroline Lamb, Lady Charlotte Greville, and his future sister-in-law Marianne Patterson (at that time she was married to the brother of Elizabeth Patterson Bonaparte). Women practically threw themselves at his feet. Countess Granville described encountering the Duke of Wellington in Paris in 1817.

I have met his great Grace several times, and, with the weakness I have about great people, treated him [from the height of my grandeur]. I supposed he was pleased with the [rarity of the fact], and today…[h]e called me to sit by him and was quite at my feet…. The fact is that I really believe the Duke finds so few women that do not kneel to him, that he must feel a sort of respect for any who do not make up to him. Granville…will be rather pleased to hear of my successes…for an ugly good sort of woman to be attended to by a man into whose good graces beauties force themselves by dint of [servility]. (9)

Harriet Arbuthnot

The Duke of Wellington with Harriet Arbuthnot, 1834

In 1818, the Duke of Wellington returned to England. He had a brief affair with Charlotte Greville, daughter of the Duke of Portland, in whose administration Wellington had served a decade earlier. Her husband soon persuaded her to give up the romance, but she and Wellington remained close friends and her son Algernon became Wellington’s private secretary.

In 1824, another one of Charlotte’s sons, the diarist Charles Greville, took revenge on the Duke by sending an anonymous letter to Harriet Arbuthnot that accused her of being Wellington’s mistress. Harriet – 24 years younger than the Duke – was by then Wellington’s closest female friend. In 1814, she had married Charles Arbuthnot, a widower 26 years her senior with four children. He was Joint Secretary of the Treasury in Lord Liverpool’s administration, in which Wellington also served. Harriet had a keen interest in politics and shared Wellington’s conservative political views. When her dear friend Lord Castlereagh committed suicide in 1822, Wellington stepped in to fill the void.

Harriet and the Duke of Wellington became dear friends. They exchanged confidences and considerable correspondence. She often accompanied him, or acted as hostess at his events. Charles Arbuthnot, who was also Wellington’s friend, didn’t seem to mind, probably because Harriet remained devoted to him, and because there was no evidence of any physical intimacy between Harriet and Wellington.

Lady Shelley wrote after Wellington’s death that she was convinced the friendship was platonic.

Mrs. Arbuthnot, who was often the Duke’s adviser, and gave him her clear and honest opinion on matters of which others were afraid to speak – views inspired by her clear brain – was invaluable to the Duke. Their intimacy may have given gossips an excuse for scandal; but I, who knew them both so well, am convinced that the Duke was not her lover. He admired her very much – for she had a manlike sense – but Mrs. Arbuthnot was devoid of womanly passions, and was, above all, a loyal and truthful woman.’ …

The Duke required a fireside friend, and one quite without nerves. Mrs. Arbuthnot often said that he ought to have found this at his own fireside; and how easy it would have been for his wife to have made him happy. He only asked for repose from the turmoil of public affairs, for absolute truth, and the absence of little-mindedness. Alas! The Duchess had precisely those faults which annoyed him most. (10)

One of the Duke’s biographers noted that although Wellington enjoyed the company and conversation of his close women friends, and basked in their praise, it’s unlikely that any of them were his mistress in his later years.

Dangerous liaisons would leave him open to blackmail, exposure and gossip and seriously compromise the exemplary reputation of the Duke of Wellington. If he did have affairs after 1820, he took good care to ensure that no trace of them would ever be discovered; but he was so well known and lived so much in the public eye that it is not easy to see how that could have been arranged. It is more likely that he recognized that his exalted position, his concern to be a model of probity and the warm friendship with the kind of women he craved, more than physical relations, made his past conduct impossible as the shades of nineteenth century morality closed around even members of the aristocracy who were concerned about conventional respectability. This was a considerable renunciation, but a tolerable bargain for a person who needed affection and admiration but who feared complete intimacy. (11)

It was during this period that the Duke of Wellington developed a friendship with Dorothea Lieven, who appears with him in Napoleon in America.

The widowed Duke of Wellington and women

Kitty died on April 24, 1831, at Apsley House. During her final illness, Wellington was at her side. On one occasion, after being called to Kitty’s room, he returned with his face showing signs of emotion.

‘It is a strange thing,’ he remarked to his friend ‘that two people can live together for half a lifetime and only understand one another at the very end.’ Kitty had run her thin fingers up his sleeve to see whether he still wore an armlet she had given him many years before. ‘She found it,’ said Arthur, ‘as she would have found it any time these twenty years, had she cared to look for it.’ (12)

After Kitty’s death, Wellington withdrew from social life for a month. He wrote to Harriet Arbuthnot: “I walk, play at tennis and ride and read all day, so that the hours do not at all hang heavy upon my hands.” (13)

Three years later, Harriet Arbuthnot died of cholera on August 2, 1834, at the age of 40. Her death shook her husband so much that he had a nervous breakdown. Wellington brought Charles Arbuthnot to live under his care at Apsley House, where he remained for the rest of his life.

Probably in reaction to Harriet’s death, Wellington next became involved with someone who was quite unlike his previous female companions.

At the beginning of 1834 a Miss Anna Marie Jenkins, a woman of strong religious convictions who had brought a murderer to repentance in his death cell a year before, wrote to the Duke about the state of his soul. A bible and an invitation to visit followed at intervals. Wellington was always interested in religion and theology and in November, seeking consolation for his loss or merely out of curiosity, he called on Miss Jenkins. He can hardly have expected her to be an attractive woman of twenty. So overwhelmed was he that, according to her account, he burst out: ‘Oh, how I love you! how I love you!’ He assured her that the feeling was inspired by God Almighty. After their next meeting, which did not take place until 23 December, Miss Jenkins decided that his words did not quite mean what she had imagined. The second round of protestations convinced her that the Duke was not proposing marriage but seduction. Great were the outbursts of indignation and accusations from the injured saint, who may not have been as free from social ambition as she insisted. Wellington refused to reveal his real intentions but pointed to the impossibility of marrying someone nearly fifty years younger (and almost as far apart socially, he tactfully refrained from adding) while continuing to express admiration for her. (14)

Anna Marie continued to write to Wellington, and he continued to sporadically reply and occasionally meet her, for the next 17 years. Still lonely, Wellington turned to Frances (Fanny) Gascoyne-Cecil, Lady Salisbury. She was a charming platonic friend and a good listener, but she died in 1839, just five years after Harriet, at the age of 37.

Angela Burdett-Coutts, circa 1840

That same year, Wellington met Angela Burdett-Coutts, the daughter of Sir Francis Burdett, a radical turned conservative Member of Parliament, and granddaughter of the banker Thomas Coutts. She was 25 years old – 45 years younger than Wellington – and one of the wealthiest women in England. She adored Wellington and consulted him on her business affairs and charitable works. In February 1847, she proposed to him. Wellington replied that he would be her “Friend, Guardian, Protector,” but could not be her husband. “I entreat you…not to throw yourself away upon a man old enough to be your Grandfather, who, however strong, hearty and healthy at present, must and will certainly in time feel the consequences and infirmities of age.” (15) Their friendship continued, but Wellington never talked to Angela about politics or revealed his feelings to the extent that he had to Harriet Arbuthnot or even Lady Salisbury.

Wellington also for years carried on a flirtation and compromising correspondence with Lady Georgiana Fane, a cousin of Harriet Arbuthnot and the unmarried daughter of Lord Westmorland. Georgiana had first met Wellington when she danced with him at age 14 at ball after the Battle of Waterloo. In the 1820s, they had a romance, and possibly even a sexual relationship. After Kitty’s death, Wellington decided to end things with Georgiana. In 1849, Georgiana threatened to publish his love letters to her and to sue him for breach of promise. Wellington refused to see her, but she continued to send him threatening letters. One Sunday she trapped him after his regular church attendance at St. James’s, Piccadilly, and made a scene.

During the Duke of Wellington’s final year of life, he was charmed by Margaret Jones of Pantglas. Nearly 60 years younger than him, she was the wife of a Member of Parliament and niece of Lord Campbell. A Scottish compatriot of Mrs. Jones wrote, after Wellington’s death on September 14, 1852 at the age of 83:

It is much better that he is dead for this love affair he had with Mrs. Jones during his last season was very unbecoming. He always was in love with someone but never made himself ridiculous till this one, which was a source of great grief to his family and made him laughed at by every empty-headed fool in London…. At every party Mrs. Jones and the ‘Dook’ were ushered in together as she has never been known to blush since she last came to town, I daresay she will feel no remorse at all for making the last years of so great a Hero contemptible, when perhaps she might have done him some lasting service. (16)

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Elizabeth Longford, Wellington: The Years of the Sword (New York, 1969), p. 27.
Lord Monson and George Leveson Gower (eds.), Memoirs of George Elers, Captain in the 12th Regiment of Foot (London, 1903), p. 126.
Wellington: The Years of the Sword, pp. 117-118.
Ibid., p. 192.
Francis Bamford and the Duke of Wellington (eds.), The Journal of Mrs. Arbuthnot, 1820-1832, Vol. I (London, 1950), p. 168.
The Journal of Mrs. Arbuthnot, 1820-1832, Vol. II, p. 5.
Patrick Dalaforce, Wellington the Beau: The Life and Loves of the Duke of Wellington (Barnsley, UK, 2005), p. 74.
Ibid., p 79.
F. Leveson Gower (ed.), Letters of Harriet Countess Granville, 1810-1845, Vol. I (London, 1894), p. 108.
Richard Edgcumbe (ed.), The Diary of Frances, Lady Shelley, 1818-1873 (London, 1913), pp. 310-311.
Neville Thompson, Wellington After Waterloo (London, 1986), p. 26.
Jane Wellesley, Wellington: A Journey Through my Family (London, 2010), p. 246.
Seventh Duke of Wellington (ed.), Wellington and His Friends (London, 1965), p. 96.
Wellington After Waterloo, p. 146.
Wellington and His Friends, pp. 242-243.
Elizabeth Longford, Wellington: Pillar of State (New York, 1972), p. 385.

Napoleon’s sister Caroline Bonaparte Murat was ambitious and enterprising. Although Caroline and her husband owed their crowns to Napoleon, when it looked like Napoleon was going to be defeated, they allied with his enemies. French Foreign Minister Talleyrand wrote that Caroline “had the head of Cromwell upon the body of a well-shaped woman. Born with much grandeur of character, strong mind, and sublime ideas; possessing a subtle and delicate wit, together with amiability and grace, seductive beyond expression; she was deficient in nothing but in the art of concealing her desire to rule.” (1)

Caroline Bonaparte Murat by Louis Ducis, circa 1810

Fresh as a Rose

Maria Annunziata Buonaparte was born on March 25, 1782 in Ajaccio, Corsica. She was the seventh of Charles and Letizia Bonaparte’s eight surviving children, and thirteen years younger than her brother Napoleon, who was away at military school in France. Known as Annunziata as a child, as a teenager she adopted the name Caroline, in an attempt to appear less Corsican (her siblings also “Frenchified” their names).

Caroline’s father died a month before she turned three. When Caroline was eleven, Napoleon fell out with the Corsican nationalists and the family had to flee to France. Caroline had a brief taste of poverty in Marseilles, but Napoleon’s rapid rise in the French army soon put an end to that. Napoleon paid for Caroline to attend an expensive girls’ school at St. Germain-en-Laye, operated by Madame Campan, a former lady-in-waiting to Marie Antoinette. Hortense de Beauharnais, the daughter of Napoleon’s wife Josephine (whom the Bonapartes could not stand), was also at the school. Napoleon’s valet related the following anecdote from a family dinner held some ten years later.

[Napoleon] had just received a letter from a prefect who told him that a man named Geoffrin had saved several workmen in a coal mine which had caved in. The letter was given to [Caroline], who could hardly decipher it. The Emperor, seeing his sister’s embarrassment, said, ‘Give it to Hortense; she will read it.’ In fact, [Hortense], holding the letter, read it quite fluently. (2)

Suffice to say that Caroline Bonaparte was known more for her cunning than her book-learning. In 1797 she met a similarly unintellectual character in the form of General Joachim Murat, a theological student turned cavalry officer who was on Napoleon’s staff with the Army of Italy. Murat was dashing, charismatic and good-natured, with a huge mane of curly dark hair, which makes him easy to recognize in paintings. Caroline was charming and pretty, “fresh as a rose: not to be compared, for the regular beauty of her features, to [Pauline Bonaparte], though more pleasing perhaps by the expression of her countenance and the brilliancy of her complexion.” (3)

Joachim Murat by François Gérard, 1808

The two fell in love. They were married on January 20, 1800, after Napoleon – who preferred instrumental marriages to love matches – gave his reluctant permission. He did not attend the wedding. Caroline was 17 and Murat was 32.

Caroline was soon pregnant with their first child. A month before the birth, a bomb intended for Napoleon exploded in front of the carriage in which she was riding. Unlike Josephine and Hortense, who were also in the carriage, Caroline kept her cool. Her son Achille was born on January 21, 1801, followed by Letizia (April 26, 1802), Lucien (May 16, 1803) and Louise (March 21, 1805).

According to Louise, Caroline and Joachim Murat were loving parents, although Caroline was less effusive than her husband. Louise described her mother as follows:

Rather small than large, a little plump, of a dazzling whiteness to give the impression, at her toilette in the evening, that her bare shoulders were covered with white satin, my Mother did not have this regularity of features, this purity of lines which distinguished her older sister Pauline, with whom she is so often compared. The latter was a Greek statue in all her perfection; but my Mother, although much less perfect, with her natural grace, her amiability, and her elegance, pleased as much and perhaps even more than she.

Almond-shaped eyes, a velvety glance (and I have often heard it said a thousand times to explain the sweetness of this look), feet and hands of a smallness and a rare perfection were the most beautiful things about her.

For the most sought-after elegance, she loved the toilette, and to occupy herself with it, but with a sort of cavalier attitude that I may never have encountered in any other pretty woman! She lost only the essential time, and was always ready at the fixed hour, probably remembering that punctuality is the politeness of royalty. (4)

This last point contradicts what Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun found when she painted Caroline’s portrait in 1807. She complained that Caroline

perpetually failed to keep the appointments she made with me, so that…I was kept in Paris nearly the whole summer, as a rule waiting for her in vain…. Moreover, the intervals between the sittings were so long that she sometimes changed her mode of doing her hair. In the beginning…she wore curls hanging over her cheeks, and I painted them accordingly; but some time after, this having gone out of fashion, she came back with her hair dressed in a totally different manner, so that I was forced to scrape off the hair I had painted on the face…. The same thing happened with her dress…. All the annoyances that Mme Murat subjected me to at last put me so much out of temper that one day, when she was in my studio, I said to M. Denon, loudly enough for her to hear, ‘I have painted real princesses who never worried me, and never made me wait.’ (5)

Caroline Bonaparte Murat with her daughter Letizia, by Louise Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, 1807

The Quest for a Crown

In 1803 Joachim Murat became the military governor of Paris. He bought the Elysée Palace and moved his family in. This did not satisfy Caroline’s ambition. In 1804, Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French and proclaimed his brothers Joseph and Louis princes of the Empire. Caroline was furious that her sisters-in-law – including Hortense, who was married to Louis – would have a higher status than she would. On the evening of the coronation:

Madame Murat was excessively angry, and during the dinner had so little control over herself, that on hearing the Emperor address Madame Louis several times as ‘Princess,’ she could not restrain her tears…. Everyone was embarrassed, and [Napoleon] smiled maliciously….

On the following day, after a family dinner, a violent quarrel took place…. Madame Murat burst into complaints, tears, and reproaches; she asked why she and her sisters were to be condemned to obscurity and contempt, while strangers were to be loaded with honours and dignity? Bonaparte answered her angrily, asserting several times that he was master, and would distribute honours as he pleased…. The discussion ended by Madame Murat’s falling on the floor in a dead faint, overcome by her excessive anger, and by the acrimony of her brother’s reproaches. (6)

Napoleon gave in and granted his sisters the courtesy titles of “Imperial Highness.” Caroline continued to try to wheedle a proper crown out of her brother. The Murats threw lavish parties for Napoleon and his entourage. They also procured mistresses for him. In 1805, they introduced him to Éléonore Denuelle de la Plagne, a beautiful eighteen-year-old in their employ, whom Murat was bedding. In December 1806 Éléonore gave birth to Napoleon’s first child, Charles Léon Denuelle. Caroline was elated. The birth demonstrated to Napoleon that he was not responsible for Josephine’s infertility and thus sealed the case for ending their marriage, which Napoleon did in January 1810.

In the meantime, Caroline’s efforts to secure more than an honorary title had born fruit. In 1806 Napoleon made the Murats the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Berg and Cleves, having carved a principality for them out of territory taken from Prussia and Bavaria. Conveniently, Caroline did not have to reside there.

The Grand Duchess of Berg…lived in great splendour at the Elysée-Bourbon Palace. Her beauty was set off by the most exquisite dress; her pretensions were great; her manners affable when she thought it prudent, and more than affable to men whom she wished to fascinate…. [S]he endeavored to make friends among the influential members of the Government who might be useful to her…. She wanted to secure her present position, and especially to elevate her husband in spite of himself. (7)

Caroline Bonaparte Murat as Queen of Naples

Caroline Bonaparte Murat and her Children, by François Gérard, 1808

In 1808, when Napoleon moved Joseph Bonaparte from the throne of Naples to that of Spain, he made the Murats King and Queen of Naples. Caroline emptied the Elysée Palace of its French state treasures and had them brought to Naples (to be fair, Joseph had plundered Naples of its best art and later stole the royal treasures of Spain).

Murat wanted to exercise his royal power, but Caroline insisted on being consulted on all matters of importance. She tried to moderate her husband’s proud temper and soften his approach to Napoleon, with the aim of preserving their throne. Though they were often apart, frequently quarreled, and were unfaithful to one another, they remained bound by love and ambition. Caroline’s lovers included Charles de Flahaut, the illegitimate son of Talleyrand who was also Hortense’s paramour, General Jean-Andoche Junot, who had replaced Murat as governor of Paris, and Clemens von Metternich, the Austrian ambassador to France.

In March 1810, Napoleon married Princess Marie Louise of Austria. He sent Caroline to the Austrian border to escort his bride back to Paris. Although Marie Louise was cordial to her new sister-in-law, she was not particularly impressed with her. When their carriages had to be lifted over a narrow crossing of the Scheldt River, Marie Louise noted in her diary:

This affair delayed us more than an hour and put the Queen of Naples into such a bad temper that no one could speak to her for the rest of the day. I cannot understand how people when travelling can grumble and get impatient over such trifling incidents! To me they were very insignificant in comparison with all I had had to put up with in other journeys, of which I had never complained. (8)

When Caroline returned to Naples, she wrote to Murat, who was on campaign against Sicily.

I saw the Emperor at the moment of my departure as he charged me…with many expressions of friendship for you. The affair of Holland having made me fear for us, I expressed my worries to him. He responded to me: ‘I love the King, I am very happy with the attachment you have proven to me during these seven months, so I will not try to hurt you. However, I want you to speak to the King frankly, and tell him what my intentions are. … If I have put a King from my family in Naples, it is not to make my commerce worse than when I had an enemy there. Above all, I want him to do what suits France. If I have conquered kingdoms, it is so that France can derive benefits from them, and if I do not get what I want, then I will be forced to reunite these kingdoms with France. … I also do not want my troops to be commanded by Neapolitan generals, because the French don’t like this. I want all French people to be treated well in your States. I also want the King to treat you well’…. I told him that I was happy and content and that you were very good to me, and that if there might have been some little things between you and me, they were only passing things that did not merit his attention, and I begged him not to occupy himself with them further…. He is very irritable right now. So I give you good advice: it is to pass over the many little things, in order to later obtain the greater ones, and to keep us in his friendship.

What is your goal? It is to maintain yourself where we are and to keep the Kingdom, we must thus do what he wants and not anger him when he asks for something, because he is the stronger one and you cannot do anything against him. Perhaps one day he will calm down and then you will be able to enter into to all your rights. You will gain more by making sacrifices than by irritating him. (9)

In 1812, Napoleon entrusted Murat with command of the Grand Armée’s cavalry for the Russian campaign. Caroline governed Naples in her husband’s absence. It was her finest hour. She impressed her ministers and officials with her sound judgement. According to the Murats’ English nanny, Caroline was “[i]ndefatigable in her attention to the affairs of the kingdom [and] so entirely engrossed by them, that often, for a fortnight together, she neither saw nor inquired for her children.” (10)

During the march back from Moscow, Napoleon hurried to Paris, leaving Murat in charge of the army’s retreat. Murat abandoned his post and fled to Naples. Napoleon was furious. He wrote to Caroline: “The King of Naples has left the army. Your husband is very brave on the field of battle, but he is weaker than a woman or a monk when he is not in the presence of the enemy. He has no moral courage.” (11)

Betrayal

Although Murat rejoined Napoleon for the 1813 campaign in Germany, Caroline considered her brother’s defeat inevitable. She and Murat hoped to save their throne by allying with Napoleon’s enemies. On January 11, 1814, Murat signed a treaty with Austria. This guaranteed to him and his heirs the sovereignty of the territory he possessed in Italy. In return, he was bound to cooperate in the war against Napoleon.

When Napoleon learned of this treachery, he reportedly said, “I was well aware that Murat was a fool, but I thought he loved me. It is his wife who is the cause of his desertion. To think that Caroline, my own sister, should betray me!” (12)

On February 26, Napoleon wrote to Joseph:

It seems that the allies have not yet ratified the treaty with the King of Naples. Despatch by a courier, with the utmost haste, a letter to the King, in which you will frankly point out to him the iniquity of his conduct, offering to mediate for him if he will return to his duties. Tell him that this is his only hope; that if he takes any other course he must be destroyed either by France or by the allies…. Write also to the Queen on her ingratitude, which revolts even the allies. (13)

It was no use. Napoleon lost and was exiled to Elba. The Murats remained in power in Naples. Murat, however, felt sorry about what he had done, He secretly entered into communication with Napoleon. When the latter escaped from Elba and returned to France in March 1815, he told his brother-in-law to maintain the Neapolitan forces in a defensive position. Napoleon hoped to keep the Austrians neutral. For this to happen, Italy (partly under Austrian control) had to stay neutral. Murat disregarded this advice. Thinking he could help Napoleon by starting a diversion, he foolishly led his forces into Italy. He was defeated in the Battle of Tolentino in early May. Murat retreated to Naples and said goodbye to Caroline. She was so angry with him (she still supported the allies) that he said, “If you see me alive, madam, pray believe it is that I have sought death in vain!” (14) She never saw him again.

Murat went to France, but Napoleon refused to see him. “Twice Murat betrayed and ruined me,” he later said. (15) Napoleon lost the Battle of Waterloo and was banished to the remote South Atlantic island of St. Helena.

Caroline surrendered to the commander of the English squadron that was cruising around Naples. He transported her to Trieste and handed her over to the Austrians, who kept her at the castle of Hainburg, near Vienna. Meanwhile, Murat made his way to Corsica. From there he tried to reconquer his kingdom. On October 8, 1815, Murat and a small band of followers landed at the Calabrian port of Pizzo. The locals proved hostile and Murat was arrested. On October 13 he was tried by a military tribunal, condemned to death, and shot by a firing squad.

Caroline learned of Murat’s fate from a newspaper. Upon reading the account of her husband’s death, she was reportedly “attacked with violent fits which lasted till morning.” (16)

Caroline Murat, by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1814

Life after Napoleon

Caroline Bonaparte Murat took the name of the Countess of Lipona (an anagram of Napoli, or Naples). Her former lover, the Austrian Chancellor Metternich, tried unsuccessfully to obtain permission for her to settle in Rome near her mother and siblings. Instead, she was allowed to live in the castle of Frohsdorf, south of Vienna (Marie Antoinette’s daughter, Marie Thérèse, the Duchess of Angoulême, was a later resident there). In any case, Letizia Bonaparte had no desire to see her daughter. When Caroline protested that Murat’s 1814 betrayal had not been her fault, Letizia replied, “If you were unable to influence him, you should nevertheless have opposed him. But what opposition did you make? Has any blood been shed? It is only across your dead body that your husband should have smitten your brother, your benefactor, your master!” (17)

Caroline’s companion in exile was General Francesco Macdonald, who, despite his name, was of Italian origin. He had been an aide-de-camp to Murat and was the former Minister of War of Naples. Caroline married Macdonald morganatically, probably in 1817, although 1830 has also been suggested. Napoleon, in exile on St. Helena, read a newspaper notice that they had been married.

Upon this Napoleon remarked that after the recent assassination of her husband, he did not think it possible that his sister would marry; especially in so public a manner, unless she were made, or had been forced to it with a pistol at her throat; ‘especially,’ said he, ‘when I consider that my sister is a woman arrived at an age when her passions are no longer brulantes; that she has four children, and is possessed of a strong, masculine understanding, and talents superior to the generality of her sex. However,’ continued Napoleon, ‘there is no accounting for the actions of a woman.’ (18)

In 1824, Caroline settled in Trieste. Visiting her there in 1825, Madame Récamier noted:

The queen, whose skin was as fair as a lily, was still singularly pretty, almost retaining the brilliancy of her youth. She had grown stout; and, as she was not tall, her figure had not gained in elegance. She was animated in conversation; and, from her caressing manners, it was easy to see that, when she wished to please, she could exercise great powers of fascination.

Her intercourse with her daughter [Louise] was full of the most confiding tenderness. Her bearing to General Macdonald was affectionate, with a shade of authority. To her guests … she manifested a warmth and gratitude that proved, alas! how few disinterested marks of sympathy she had received since her misfortunes. (19)

Caroline’s sons moved to the United States, from where they pestered her for money. Her daughters married Italian noblemen. The American actor René Auberjonois, who played Father Mulcahy in the film version of M*A*S*H, was Caroline Bonaparte Murat’s great-great-great-grandson (see “Living Descendants of Napoleon and the Bonapartes”).

Caroline Murat’s Final Years

In 1831, Caroline was allowed to move to Florence. When Letizia Bonaparte died in 1836, Caroline fought with her brothers over her mother’s estate. To keep the dispute out of the newspapers, Joseph turned his share over to Caroline. General Macdonald died in 1837.

Caroline spent a good part of her later years trying to recover the money she claimed was owed to her by France. Although the French authorities found the claims bogus, King Louis Philippe – who, in his struggle against the legitimists, wished to flatter the enemies of the Bourbons – allowed Caroline to visit Paris to pursue her case. The American scholar George Ticknor encountered her there in January 1838.

I spent the early part of the evening at the Countess Lipona’s, the name under which Madame Murat passes here. She is a very good-looking, stout person, nearly sixty years old, I suppose, and with ladylike and rather benevolent manners. She lives in good style, but without splendour; and, like the rest of her family, allows those about her to call her Reine. Prince Musignano [Caroline’s nephew] was there, and perhaps in the course of an hour twenty people came in, for it was her reception evening; but the whole, I suppose, was Bonapartists, for I happen to know that those who wish to stand well with Louis Philippe avoid her doors; a weakness on his part as great as that which, on hers, permits her to be called Queen. (20)

At last Caroline was granted a pension of 100,000 francs. She had little time to enjoy it. On May 18, 1839 she died of stomach cancer in Florence at the age of 57. She was buried in the Chiesa di Ognissanti in Florence. There is a cenotaph honouring Caroline Bonaparte Murat and her husband, Joachim, at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

The final word regarding Caroline should go to Napoleon. On St. Helena, he reflected on her thus:

The Queen of Naples had chiefly formed herself amidst great events. She had solid sense, strength of character, and boundless ambition…. She must naturally suffer severely from her reverses, more particularly as she may said to have been born a Queen. She had not, like the rest of us, moved in the sphere of private life. Caroline, Pauline and Jerome were still in their childhood when I had attained supreme rank in France; thus they never knew any other state than that which they enjoyed during the period of my power. (21)

In his will (he died in 1821), Napoleon thanked Caroline, along with the rest of his family, “for the interest they continue to feel for me.” (22)

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Catherine Hyde Govion Broglio Solari, Private Anecdotes of Foreign Courts, Vol. 1 (London, 1827), p. 456.
Louis Étienne Saint-Denis, Napoleon from the Tuileries to St. Helena, translated by Frank Hunter Potter (New York and London, 1922), p. 11.
Laure Junot, Memoirs of the Duchess D’Abrantès, Vol. I (New York, 1832), p. 256.
Louise Murat, Souvenirs d’enfance d’une fille de Joachim Murat (Paris, 1929), excerpted and translated on the Project Murat blog: https://projectmurat.blog/2019/12/31/a-very-exact-physical-portrait/. Accessed March 3, 2021.
Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Memoirs of Madame Vigée Lebrun, translated by Lionel Strachey (New York, 1903), p. 203.
Paul de Rémusat, ed., Memoirs of Madame de Rémusat, 1802-1808, translated by Cashel Hoey and John Lillie, Vol. 1 (London, 1880), pp. 254-56. Madame de Rémusat’s account is undoubtedly coloured by her attachment to Josephine, who related part of this anecdote to her and who “could not but enjoy the vexation of a person who so thoroughly disliked her.”
Memoirs of Madame de Rémusat, p. 488.
Frédéric Masson, The Private Diaries of the Empress Marie-Louise (London, 1922) p. 74.
Joachim Murat and Paul Le Brethon, Lettres et documents pour servir à l’histoire de Joachim Murat, Vol. VIII (Paris, 1914), pp. 490-491.
Catherine Davies, Eleven Year’s Residence in the Family of Murat, King of Naples (London, 1841), p.18.
Memoirs of the Duchess D’Abrantès, Vol. VII (London, 1835) p. 391.
Joseph Turquan, The Sisters of Napoleon, translated and edited by W.R.H. Trowbridge (London, 1908), p. 291.
The Confidential Correspondence of Napoleon Bonaparte with His Brother Joseph, Vol. II (London, 1855), p. 327.
Caroline Murat, My Memoirs (London, 1910), p. 21. These are the memoirs of Caroline Bonaparte Murat’s granddaughter.
Barry O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. 1 (London, 1822), p. 134.
Eleven Year’s Residence in the Family of Murat, King of Naples, p. 68.
The Sisters of Napoleon, p. 293.
Barry O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. II (London, 1822), pp. 180-181.
Isaphene M. Luyster, ed. and trans., Memoirs and Correspondence of Madame Récamier (Boston, 1867), pp. 240-241.
George Stillman Hillard, Life, Letters and Journals of George Ticknor, Vol. II (London, 1876), p. 127.
Emmanuel-Auguste-Dieudonné Las Cases, Memorial de Sainte Hélène, Vol. II, Part III (Boston, 1823), p. 157.
Letters and Despatches of the First Napoleon, Vol. III, p. 427.

In 1824-25, the Marquis de Lafayette, one of the last surviving generals of the American Revolutionary War, made a grand visit to America. He toured all 24 states of the Union and received a hero’s welcome everywhere he went. The visit cemented his fame in America for a new generation. It also left a lasting impact in the names and monuments found across the United States.

Lafayette greeting the National Guard (2d Battalion, 11th New York Artillery) on July 14, 1825, by Ken Riley

Reasons for Lafayette’s visit to America

In January 1824, President James Monroe, supported by a Congressional resolution, invited Lafayette to visit the United States as the guest of the nation. Almost 50 years had passed since the start of the Revolutionary War and the generation that had fought to secure the country’s independence from Britain was passing away. A celebratory visit by Lafayette, who had commanded troops under George Washington, could instill the spirit of the American Revolution in younger Americans and remind them of the virtues and sacrifices involved in the struggle for liberty.

On December 2, 1823, Monroe had stated in a message to Congress that any future efforts by European nations to colonize or extend their political system to any part of the Americas would be regarded as “the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.” American political leaders feared that after France’s success in suppressing a liberal revolt in Spain, the European monarchies would help Spain reconquer its former colonies in Latin America. There were rumours of an expedition to Colombia being formed at Cádiz. The invitation to Lafayette – a prominent liberal opponent of the French regime – was a way of reinforcing this message to the European powers. Monroe and others also hoped that a visit from Lafayette would encourage the American people to support the government’s bolder stance on potential military intervention in Spanish America. “As the most famous example of a fighter for liberty on foreign shores, Lafayette could help to rally the American people to greater exertions should it prove necessary.” (1)

The invitation was not without its diplomatic dangers, since the United States was still trying to get France to pay for damages suffered by American shipping during the Napoleonic Wars. During Lafayette’s visit, both Henry Clay, who succeeded John Quincy Adams as Secretary of State in 1825, and Albert Gallatin, who served as US minister to France from 1815 to 1823, urged Lafayette to avoid anti-royalist intrigues upon his return to France.

For Lafayette, who was 66 years old, the invitation came at an opportune time. In 1821 he had supported a conspiracy to overthrow King Louis XVIII and had been accused of treason. The accusation was dropped, but in February 1824 he was defeated in his bid for re-election to the French Chamber of Deputies by a more conservative opponent. Lafayette had long wanted to revisit the United States (and had written Monroe to this effect in November 1823), but political obligations had kept him France. Now, with his political career at a low point, the prospect of an American tour offered a public relations opportunity. He could rehabilitate his reputation and revive support for his liberal agenda in France.

The trip was much more than a return to old haunts for Lafayette, much more than a chance to greet old friends and reminisce about youthful adventures. It was a means of continuing French political struggles on a new front. By focusing European attention on the United States, the most important republic in the world, he could hope to breathe new life into the almost moribund cause of liberty and constitutional government. (2)

Lafayette’s entourage

Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, by Samuel Morse, 1825

On July 13, 1824, Lafayette left the French port of Le Havre on the American merchant vessel Cadmus. He was accompanied by his only son, Georges Washington Motier de La Fayette (age 44), and by his valet, Sebastien (Bastien) Wagner, who appears with Lafayette in Napoleon in America. Georges had lived in the United States from 1795 to 1797, staying for most of that period with George and Martha Washington. Lafayette was also joined by Auguste Levasseur, a former junior military officer who had been involved in the 1821 conspiracy and other plots against the French government. Levasseur served as Lafayette’s secretary. He produced an account of the visit, Lafayette en Amérique en 1824 et 1825, ou Journal d’un Voyage aux Etats-Unis, which was published in 1829 (an English translation appeared later that year). During the tour, Georges and Levasseur regularly sent reports and newspaper clippings back to Paris, so that the French public could be kept abreast of what Lafayette was saying and doing in America, and how he was being received there. Lafayette’s family got around French press censorship by having the material released in book form.

Although not included in Lafayette’s official entourage, Frances (Fanny) Wright and her younger sister Camilla were among Lafayette’s companions. Fanny was a bright young Scottish socialist who had earlier travelled to the United States and written Views of Society and Manners in America, published in 1821. When Fanny visited Paris later that year, the widowed Lafayette (38 years her senior) fell for her. The two became close friends. Lafayette invited Fanny and Camilla to go to America with him. When Lafayette’s family objected, the Wrights followed him in another vessel. They joined Lafayette for much of the tour, leading to considerable gossip.

Arrival at New York

Portrait of General Lafayette and a view of his landing in New York in 1824

Lafayette reached New York on August 15, 1824. He spent that night at the residence of Vice President Daniel Tompkins on Staten Island. The next day, the steamship Robert Fulton – full of dignitaries, marines, a West Point band, and some old comrades-in-arms – carried him to the Battery, at the southern end of Manhattan, escorted by a flotilla of crowd-filled steamboats dressed with flags and streamers. The Commercial Advertiser reported:

The news of the General’s arrival had spread through the surrounding country with the rapidity of lightning; and from the dawn of day until noon, the roads and ferryboats were thronged with people who were hastening to the city to participate in the fete and testify their gratitude for the services, and respect for the character of the illustrious ‘National Guest.’ Our citizens also turned out in immense numbers, at an early hour, and, together with the military, presented the most lively and moving spectacle that we have witnessed on any former occasion. (3)

Lafayette landed to the cheers of the tens of thousands of people who filled the Battery, the Castle, and the surrounding area. After refreshments and introductions, he reviewed the troops. He was then conveyed in a barouche to City Hall.

The General rode uncovered and received the unceasing shouts and the congratulations of 50,000 freemen, with tears and smiles which bespoke how deeply he felt the pride and glory of the occasion. The ladies, from every tier of windows, waved their white handkerchiefs, and hundreds, unloosed by their fair owners, were seen floating in the air. He was evidently much embarrassed and even afflicted, with the conflicting and powerful sensibilities which were called up and kept in action by the continued and universal demonstrations of love.…

On the steps of the City Hall were assembled…a great number of Ladies, many of whom stepped forward and gave the General their hands as he passed along. The general enthusiasm also extended to the children of all ages; the name of the Hero continually reverberating from their lips, giving to Fayette a heart-appealing evidence that his memory has been hallowed at every family altar, and that future generations as well as this will be familiar with his name, and echo his praises. After his return to the City Hotel he had the extraordinary condescension and good feeling to come out and shake hands with 6 or 700 American youth, the future conservators of his fame. This circumstance has planted in the minds of these little ones the strongest affection of the man, which will go with them through life, and endure till its close. (4)

In response to the mayor’s greetings, Lafayette (who spoke fluent English) said:

While I am so affectionately received by the citizens of New York and their worthy representatives, I feel myself overwhelmed with inexpressible emotions. The sight of the American shore, after so long an absence; the recollection of the many respected friends and dear companions, no more to be found on this land; the pleasure to recognize those who have survived; this immense concourse of a free republican population, who so kindly welcome me; the admirable presence of the troops, the presence of a corps of the national navy, have excited sentiments to which no human language can be adequate. You have been pleased, sir, to allude to the happiest time, the unalloyed enjoyments of my public life; it is the pride of my heart to have been one of the earliest adopted sons of America. (5)

Hero worship

Over the next twelve months, Lafayette travelled over 6,000 miles, visiting all 24 states, some more than once. He was greeted with enthusiastic cheers, receptions, parades, processions, parties, banquets, concerts and balls. Locals decorated his route and erected ceremonial arches for him and his entourage to pass through. Church bells rang out in his honour. Cannons were fired in salutes. People praised him in toasts, speeches, poems and songs. He reviewed militias. He spoke with veterans and visited battlefields, including the site of the Battle of Brandywine, where he was wounded in the leg in 1777. He laid cornerstones and dedicated monuments. He toured mills, canals, farms and factories. He blessed children. He met Native Americans. A souvenir industry sprang up, producing dishes, ribbons, pins, badges, medallions, fans, quilts and clothing emblazoned with Lafayette’s name and/or image. Lithographs and paintings depicted scenes from the Revolution and his visit. New biographies of him were issued. Buildings, streets and towns were named for him, as were many children. His progress was breathlessly chronicled by the newspapers.

[At New Rochelle] the scene was brilliant in the extreme. The balcony and roof of the post office, and of Capt. Pelor’s hotel, on the opposite side of the street, were filled with ladies. The shouts of the people, the roaring of the cannon, the merry peal of the bells, the music of a full band, the eager, yet respectful anxiety of the people to shake him by the hand, and bid him welcome, must have made as gratifying an impression on the mind of the general, as any reception which had gone before. Here, more than one old seventy sixer ‘who fought and bled in freedom’s cause’ came to visit their fellow soldier. ‘Do you remember, general,’ said one, ‘who began the attack at Brandywine?’ ‘Aha! Yes – it was Maxwell, with the Jersey troops!’ ‘So it was! So it was!’ replied the delighted interrogator. ‘Well, I was with his brigade!’ A warm clasp of the hand was all the utterance to feelings which were meet reward for a life spent in the cause of liberty. (6)

Sometimes the hero worship went over the top. The Niles Weekly Register editorialized:

To preserve, in some small degree, an account of the feelings which the arrival of our venerable friend has elicited, we have noticed a few of the exhibitions of it that have taken place; but every narrative of them falls far short of the reality of what has happened. The people are wild with joy, and the gratitude and love of all persons, of every age, sex and condition, seems hardly to be restrained within the bounds of propriety – as if it would cause many to forget what was due to themselves and the general, whom they delight to honor. At one place they failed so far in self-respect as to contend with horses for the privilege of drawing the revolutionary chief in his carriage! It is to be hoped that the general will not be thus insulted again – for insulted he must be when he sees the sovereigns of this great and glorious country, aiming at the most magnificent destinies, converted into asses or other beasts of burthen. It is his desire to be treated like a man, not as a titled knave or brainless dandy. Let him be hugged to the heart of all that can approach him, so far as not to endanger his health, and incur the risk of ‘killing him with kindness’ – let the trumpet to the cannon speak, the cannon to the heavens, and the ardent prayers of free millions ascend to the throne of the OMNIPOTENT, that blessings may be heaped upon him; but, in all this, let us remember that we are men like until himself, and republicans. (7)

A dizzying itinerary

Lafayette visiting Washington's tomb 1824

Lafayette visiting George Washington’s tomb at Mount Vernon in 1824

In the fall of 1824, Lafayette toured the northern and eastern states. He visited George Washington’s family and paid his respects at Washington’s tomb. He visited President James Monroe at the White House. He was hosted by three former presidents: John Adams in Massachusetts, Thomas Jefferson at Monticello, and James Madison at Montpelier. He visited Napoleon’s brother Joseph Bonaparte and met Napoleon’s nephews, Achille Murat and Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte. On December 10, Lafayette addressed Congress. Congress voted him $200,000 and gave him his choice of a township worth of land (over 23,000 acres). Lafayette chose land in Florida, near Tallahassee. He never visited it himself. He spent the winter in the Washington area, where he witnessed the presidential election of 1824.

In February 1825, Lafayette began the southern and western portion of his tour. He traveled to North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, where he met with members of the French Vine and Olive Colony among others. He visited Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee (where he met with future president Andrew Jackson), Illinois (after which his steamboat sank on the Ohio River), Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio. By the end of May he was back in Pennsylvania. He headed overland to northern New York State and visited Niagara Falls. On June 17, he laid the cornerstone for the Bunker Hill Monument in Boston, marking the 50th anniversary of the battle. He celebrated July 4, 1825, in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Back in Washington, he stayed at the White House with the new president, John Quincy Adams.

On August 6, Adams took Lafayette to see ex-president James Monroe at his home, Oak Hill, in Virginia. Levasseur recounted the following incident, which happened on the way there:

At the Potomac bridge we stopped to pay the toll, and the gate-keeper, after counting the company and horses, received the money from the president, and allowed us to pass on; but we had gone a very short distance when we heard some one bawling after us, ‘Mr. President! Mr. President! you have given eleven-pence too little!’ Presently the gate keeper arrived out of breath, holding out the change he had received, and explaining the mistake made. The president heard him attentively, re-examined the money, and agreed that he was right, and ought to have another eleven-pence. Just as the president was taking out his purse, the gate-keeper recognized General Lafayette in the carriage, and wished to return his toll, declaring that all gates and bridges were free to the nation’s guest. Mr. Adams told him that on this occasion General Lafayette travelled altogether privately, and not as the nation’s guest, but simply as a friend of the president, and, therefore, was entitled to no exemption. With this reasoning, our gate-keeper was satisfied, and received his money. Thus, during the course of his voyages in the United States, the general was but once subjected to the common rule of paying, and it was exactly upon the day in which he travelled with the chief magistrate; a circumstance which, probably in every other country, would have conferred the privilege of passing free. (8)

Later in the month, Lafayette paid another visit to Thomas Jefferson at Monticello, joined by Monroe and James Madison. Levasseur expressed the pain when it came time for Lafayette to leave his old friends, whom he would never see again.

I shall not attempt to depict the sadness which prevailed at this cruel separation, which had none of the alleviation which is usually left by youth, for in this instance, the individuals who bade farewell had all passed through a long career, and the immensity of the ocean would still add to the difficulties of a reunion. (9)

Lafayette visiting Maysville, Kentucky, in 1825, by Robert Dalford

Return to France

On September 6, 1825, John Quincy Adams held a grand state dinner in Washington to celebrate Lafayette’s 68th birthday. On September 7, Adams and Lafayette exchanged farewell speeches at the entrance to the White House. Among other things, Adams said, “It were scarcely an exaggeration to say, that it has been, to the people of the Union, a year of uninterrupted festivity and enjoyment, inspired by your presence.” Lafayette concluded with, “God bless the American people, each of their states, and the federal government. Accept this patriotic farewell of an overflowing heart; such will be its last throb when it ceases to beat.” (10) They then tearfully embraced. After more farewells, Lafayette and his companions boarded the steamboat Mount Vernon for a trip to the mouth of the Potomac River. There, they transferred to the frigate USS Brandywine, which carried them back to France. They were accompanied on the voyage by 24 young naval officers, one from each state. They sailed into the harbour at Le Havre on October 4, 1825. Since Louis XVIII had died in September 1824, France was now ruled by Charles X.

From that October day in 1825 until his death in May, 1834, Lafayette, by his deeds and his rhetoric won the affection of a new generation of Americans and self-consciously perpetuated his legend in the American national consciousness. By his extensive correspondence with his American friends and admirers, by his hospitality to Americans visiting France, by public profession of his personal preference for the republican government of the United States, by his defense of his adopted country against French critics, and by effective support of American claims against France, Lafayette satisfied his appetite for public acclaim and added luster to the historic role that he had long ago chosen for himself, a symbol of French-American friendship and a champion of liberal government. (11)

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Sylvia Neely, “The Politics of Liberty in the Old World and the New: Lafayette’s Return to America in 1824,” Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 6, No. 2 (Summer, 1986), p. 169.
Ibid., pp. 155-156
Edgar Ewing Brandon, Lafayette, Guest of the Nation, Volume I (Oxford, OH, 1950), p. 36.
Ibid., pp. 38-39.
Niles’ Weekly Register (Baltimore), August 28, 1824, XXVI, p. 427.
Ibid., p. 429.
Ibid., p. 426.
Auguste Levasseur, Lafayette in America in 1824 and 1825; or, Journal of a Voyage to the United States, Vol. II (Philadelphia, 1829), pp. 243-244.
Ibid., p. 246.
Ibid., pp. 250, 254.
Russell M. Jones, “The Flowering of a Legend: Lafayette and the Americans, 1825-1834,” French Historical Studies, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Autumn, 1966), pp. 384-385.

François-Joseph Talma, by Henri-François Riesener, circa 1824

Napoleon’s favourite actor was François-Joseph Talma, the leading French tragedian of the period. They became friends before Napoleon became Emperor. Napoleon maintained a close relationship with Talma during his years in power and Talma remained a loyal friend.

Napoleon and the theatre

Napoleon was an avid theatre-goer. During the 15 years he governed France, he saw 374 plays, some more than once, making a total of 682 visits to the theatre. (1) Napoleon became a strong supporter of the former royal theatre in Paris, the Comédie-Française, which he re-established in 1803 as the Théâtre-Français. He commissioned plays and provided money to actors.

Napoleon preferred tragedies to comedies. He reportedly said:

The higher walk of tragedy is the school of great men; it is the duty of sovereigns to encourage and disseminate a taste for it. Nor it is necessary to be a poet, to be enabled to judge of the merits of a tragedy; it is sufficient to be acquainted with men and things, to possess an elevated mind, and to be a statesman…. Tragedy fires the soul, elevates the heart, and is calculated to generate heroes. In this respect, perhaps, France owes to [17th-century French dramatist Pierre] Corneille a part of her great actions…. [H]ad he lived in my time, I would have made him a prince. (2)

In addition to his personal enjoyment of the theatre, Napoleon recognized its political value. Live theatre was one of the main sources of public entertainment. By supporting and attending theatres, he was able to portray himself as a cultured patron of the arts. He could soften his image by allowing people to observe his reactions to the plays. He could also monitor his popularity by seeing how the audience responded to his arrival at each performance. He would deliberately turn up late so he could gauge the welcome of the crowd.

Napoleon also used the theatre as an instrument of propaganda and control. Imperial decrees in 1806 and 1807 reduced the number of theatres in Paris – which had risen to over 50 after the French Revolution – to eight, specified what type of production could be staged at each (e.g., tragedy, comedy, opera), and required them to seek permission for each play they wanted to perform. Theatres outside of Paris were similarly reduced and regulated, as were travelling theatre companies.

In order for a play to be approved, all plots and characters had to be mythological or historical, the idea being that focus on these stories would prevent regressing to the contemporary focus on revolutionary works. Automatically banned by censors was any play whose plot was taken from the Bible, referred to Napoleon himself (after 1810), as well as ‘all plays referring to the Bourbons…usurpation of a throne, punishment of a tyrant, or victory over France.’ (3)

Theatre companies and censors went through plays line-by-line to change or remove anything that might offend Imperial sensibilities. Performances were monitored by police agents. If there was any heckling or applause that could be construed as anti-regime, the play was banned.

Napoleon and François-Joseph Talma

François-Joseph Talma instructing Napoleon

Caricature of Talma instructing Napoleon how to pose like an emperor. © The Trustees of the British Museum

Even as Napoleon tightened his control over French theatre, he continued to maintain good relations with the biggest theatrical star of the day: François-Joseph Talma. Talma was born in Paris on January 15, 1763. His father, a successful dentist, was persuaded by a grateful patient to move the family to London, where Talma received a good education. Pressured by his father, Talma briefly practiced dentistry, but his real love was the theatre. He began by performing in amateur plays. In 1787, he made his professional debut at the Comédie-Française as Séide in Voltaire’s Mahomet. He played minor characters until November 1789, when he assumed the title role in an anti-monarchist play called Charles IX. François-Joseph Talma established the practice of appearing in historically accurate costuming and sets, rather than the clothes and scenery of the day (see my article on Coiffure à la Titus). He also introduced a more natural style of acting, reciting lines without unnecessary exaggeration.

The French Revolution and its aftermath led to dissension within the Comédie-Française. In 1791 Talma, a republican, left to form a rival theatre troupe. That same year he married Louise-Julie Carreau, a dancer at the Paris Opera, who ran an influential artistic and literary salon. Twelve days after the wedding Julie gave birth to their twin sons (she already had three sons by three different men). Talma had amassed a significant amount of debt, which Julie – who had some wealth from real estate speculation – took on. They separated in 1795 after Talma started an affair with another actress, Charlotte Vanhove, whom he later married.

To make ends meet, Julie had to rent out her house at Number 6, Rue Chantereine in Paris. She found a willing tenant in Marie-Joseph-Rose de Tascher de la Pagerie, otherwise known as Josephine, who married Napoleon Bonaparte at the house on March 9, 1796. In 1798, Julie sold the house to Napoleon.

By this time Talma and Napoleon were already friends. As a leading French actor, Talma was better known than the young general, and better off. Napoleon accepted free admissions to the theatre from Talma and even borrowed money from him. According to one account of their early days together:

[O]ne of the principal amusements of the two friends, together with that of a third person, a Mr. Le Noire, was the relation of stories of ghosts and old castles, into which (the candles being extinguished) the future conqueror of Europe entered with all his heart, and was seriously offended when his companions interrupted him by tripping up his chair, shaking the table, or any other practical pleasantry. (4)

Napoleon greatly admired Talma’s acting and did not forget his friend as he rose to become First Consul and then Emperor of the French. The two often dined and visited together. It was rumoured that Napoleon took lessons in deportment from Talma. In addition to his performances at the Théâtre-Français, Talma performed at Napoleon’s palaces. He directed members of Napoleon’s family and household staff in plays at Josephine’s residence Malmaison. Talma had an affair with Napoleon’s sister Pauline. Napoleon also sent Talma to perform for foreign leaders.

In 1808, Napoleon brought François-Joseph Talma, along with other members of the Comédie-Français, to the Congress of Erfurt in Germany to entertain and impress Tsar Alexander of Russia. When Talma delivered the line, “L’amitié d’un grand homme est un beinfait des Dieux,” [the friendship of a great man is a blessing from the Gods] Alexander reportedly rose in the theatre and embraced Napoleon. (5)

Talma was handsomely rewarded for his efforts. Between 1806 and 1813, Napoleon gave Talma a series of payments totalling 195,200 francs. (6)

Napoleon did not hesitate to advise Talma on how to act, as illustrated by this anecdote recounted by Napoleon’s valet Saint-Denis.

One day…at breakfast, the Emperor received Talma, who had been announced. It was the day after a performance of ‘Tippoo Saïb,’ at which His Majesty had been present. The Emperor made a number of critical observations on the piece to the great tragedian, and told him to communicate them to the author. He even gave the plan of a scene, and showed Talma what gesture Tippoo ought to make and what attitude he ought to take as he rose from his throne to go to fight the English, I think. And the better to impress on the actor the action and the language of the sovereign of Mysore, the Emperor sat down in a chair and rose from it with a most expressive gesture, full of nobility and resolution, speaking a few words suitable to the situation. (7)

During Napoleon’s exile on Elba, Talma performed for King Louis XVIII, something for which Napoleon forgave his friend. John Cam Hobhouse saw Napoleon at the Théâtre-Français after the latter’s return from Elba in 1815.

The house was choked with spectators, who crowded into the orchestra. The play was Hector. … Napoleon entered at the third scene. The whole mass rose with a shout which still thunders in my ears. The vives continued till the Emperor, after bowing to the right and left, had seated himself, and the play was recommenced. The audience received every speech which had the least reference to their returned hero with unnumbered plaudits. … Napoleon was very attentive; whilst I saw him he spoke to none of those who stood behind him, nor returned the compliments of the audience: he withdrew suddenly at the end of the play, without any notice or obeisance, so that the multitude had hardly time to salute him with a short shout….

Talma played Hector in his usual powerful style…I cannot forbear adding a story I heard from him… At the first meeting between the Emperor and actor since the return from Elba, the former, addressing him with his usual familiarity, said, ‘so Talma, Chateaubriand says that you gave me lessons how to act the Emperor; I take his hint as a compliment, for it shows I must at least have played my part well.’ (8)

After Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo and subsequent abdication, Talma went to Malmaison in disguise to bid the Emperor farewell.

Talma continued to perform under the restored Louis XVIII, who also thought highly of him and treated him well. His last performance was in Charles VI on June 3, 1826. François-Joseph Talma died in Paris on October 19, 1826, at the age of 63.

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Peter Hicks, “Napoleon and The Theatre,” https://www.napoleon.org/en/history-of-the-two-empires/articles/napoleon-and-the-theatre; accessed February 3, 2021.
Emmanuel de Las Cases, Memoriale de Sainte Hélène: Journal of the Private Life and Conversations of the Emperor Napoleon at Saint Helena, Vol. I, Part 2 (London, 1823), p. 250.
Margaret Sproule, “Performing for the State: Censorship of the French Theatre under Napoleon,” The Corvette 2, No. 1 (2013), p. 77.
John Cam Hobhouse, The Substance of Some Letters Written by an Englishman Resident at Paris During the Last Reign of the Emperor Napoleon (London, 1816), Vol. I, p. 44.
Frederic Lascelles Wraxhall and Robert Wehrhan, eds., Memoirs of Queen Hortense, Mother of Napoleon III, Vol. II (London, 1862), p. 145.
Hicks, “Napoleon and The Theatre.”
Louis Étienne Saint-Denis, Napoleon from the Tuileries to St. Helena, translated by Frank Hunter Potter (New York and London, 1922), p. 9.
Hobhouse, The Substance of Some Letters Written by an Englishman Resident at Paris, Vol. I, pp. 42-44.

Long before the word multitasking was coined, common sense frowned on the practice. “Who chases two rabbits catches neither” has been attributed both to Confucius (551-469 BC) and Publilius Syrus (85-43 BC). “The human mind can attend to only one thing at a time,” wrote 17th-century philosopher Pierre-Daniel Huet, presaging some modern neuroscientific findings. (1) In the 19th century, this turned into some rather fierce instruction about the importance of single-tasking, as well as some pseudoscience regarding the ability to concentrate.

A 19th-century caricature of composer and cellist Jacques Offenbach doing more than one thing at a time

What is it to do one thing at a time?

Consider this admonition from an 1824 publication directed at America’s youth.

It is as impossible…to do two things at once, as to be in two places at the same time. But what is it to do one thing at a time? … Is it doing one thing at a time to begin to do something one moment, and the next moment to begin something else, and the third moment to take up what we left unfinished the first moment, and the fourth moment to take up what we left the second moment? In other words, is it doing one thing at a time if we change our employment every moment? No. That is what is called doing two things at once, or three things, and every thing at once, which is much the same as doing nothing at all.

Doing one thing at a time means that we finish whatever we begin, before we attempt anything else. What would you think of a jeweller, who should one moment forge a pin, the next moment make a few spangles, after that begin to repair a watch, but leaves it before he has near half done, and who never would finish any one thing, till he had begun a hundred other things? Would such a jeweller do half as a much in a day or year, as another jeweller, who finishes whatever he begins, before he does any thing else? Honest little prattlers will tell you no, when they have read the giant letters, ONE THING AT A TIME. (2)

Multitasking teachers

Children were not the only ones susceptible to multitasking. Teachers were guilty too.

It will make it all the easier to preserve order [in the classroom], if you attempt to do but one thing at a time. This is so plain that it might seem unnecessary even to mention it. But I have known a teacher to attempt to hear two different classes, on different subjects, recite at the same time. Yea, I have witnessed the experiment of three classes, even, attempting to read simultaneously, under the same teacher, in the same room. This was done with the idea of saving time. But it is all a deception, an absurdity. Why not set the whole school into action, do all things at once, get through and go home? You may do it; but it is certain that some of the work, at least, must be done badly.

Teachers who do not carry the matter so far as this, not unfrequently look over arithmetical questions, examine slates, or set copies, while hearing a class in grammar, reading, or some of what are called the easier exercises. This, though not quite so palpably absurd as the case first named, is yet a great misjudgment, to say the least. If you would do all both well and quick, do one thing at a time. (3)

Phrenology and concentrativeness

The early 19th century saw the rise of phrenology, a pseudoscience that involved measuring and/or feeling the contours of a person’s skull to determine their personality traits. Phrenologists associated the ability to focus on one thing at a time with the mental faculty of “concentrativeness.” According to American phrenologist Orson Squire Fowler:

One having large concentrativeness is…enabled and disposed to keep his whole mind patiently fixed, for a long time, upon a single thing; to continue the existing train of thought, unity, feeling, &c. and to exclude every other; …to give his whole mind to one, and but one, thing at a time; and to hold his mind to a train of thought, subject of study, piece of labour, &c., till they are entirely completed. (4)

Fowler acknowledged that possessing too much concentrativeness was not necessarily a good thing.

One having very large concentrativeness is confused if several things claim attention at once; requires a long time to fix his mind upon any particular subject, or to divert it when once fixed; in conversation, is apt to be prolix and tedious, and wear his subjects threadbare, and, if interrupted is greatly disturbed, if not vexed. (5)

However, some concentrativeness was essential.

Many of the operations of life, and especially the acquisition of knowledge, require the continued, united, and patient application of the faculties to one thing at a time…. Without concentrativeness, the mental operations would be extremely imperfect, wanting in thoroughness, and too vapid and flashy. (6)

Education and national stereotypes

When concentrativeness was lacking, Fowler thought education was at fault, resulting in differences in national character.

The whole cast and character of the American people evinces the almost total deficiency of this faculty in character, and accordingly, in ninety-nine in every hundred of the heads I examine, its organ is small. The error lies in our defective system of education – especially in our crowding so many studies upon the attention of children and youth in a day. In our common schools, a few minutes are devoted to reading, a few minutes to spelling, a few more to writing, a few more to arithmetic, &c., &c., all in half a day. By the time concentrativeness brings the organs required in a given study to bear upon it, so that it begins to do them good, the mind is taken off, and the attention directed to another study. This is wrong.

When the mind becomes engaged in a particular study or train of thought, it should be allowed to remain fixed without interruptions, until fatigue is induced. And I am of the opinion that not more than one or two studies or subjects should be thrust upon the mind in a day. I incline to the opinion that a single study at a time should be the study, and the others, recreations merely. Make a thorough work of one study, and then of another. The Germans devote a lifetime to a single study, and in them, this organ [concentrativeness] is unusually large. It is much larger in the English and Scotch than in the Americans; and is not generally developed in the French head. (7)

How to improve concentration

Fowler was clear on how to cultivate one’s power of concentration.

Fix the mind, and let it remain fixed, on one single subject, for a long time, and avoid interruption and transition. The weavers in our factories usually have this faculty large, because their whole attention is required to one and the same thing, hour after hour and day after day. (8)

But what if it’s impossible to avoid interruption? And how should one deal with “that mental distraction which seems to grow in proportion as we struggle to restrain it”? (9) What if one’s occupation requires dealing with many things at once? Even Fowler observed that a lack of concentrativeness “may be advisable in some kinds of business, as in the mercantile, where so many little things are to be done, so many customers waited upon in a short time, and so much versatility of talent required.” (10)

Have a plan

An 1857 guide for students advised:

Each hour should have its appointed occupation. ‘There is not a rule of more essential importance than that of doing one thing at a time, avoiding distracting and desultory occupations.’ Some plan of study is therefore desirable, and attention should be given to the most important matters at those hours when we are best capable of exertion. We should obtain clear and precise ideas about everything to which the attention is directed. Any difficulty that occurs, any question that arises which cannot immediately be solved, should be committed to paper in the fullest and most exacting manner. (11)

Have your pleasures too

The 4th Earl of Chesterfield counselled his son:

You may remember that I have always earnestly recommended to you to do what you are about…and to do nothing else at the same time. Do not imagine that I mean by this that you should attend to and plod at your book all day long; far from it. I mean that you should have your pleasures too; and that you should attend to them for the time, as much as to your studies; and, if you do not attend equally to both, you will neither have improvement nor satisfaction from either. A man is fit for neither business nor pleasure who cannot, or does not, command and direct his attention to the present object, and, in some degree, banish, for that time, all other objects from his thoughts.

If, at a party of pleasure, a man were to be solving, in his own mind, a problem in Euclid, he would be a very bad companion, and make a very poor figure in that company; or if, in studying a problem in his closet, he were to think of a minuet, I am apt to believe that he would make a very poor mathematician. There is time enough for every thing, in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once; but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time. (12)

Do everything by heats

Perhaps one can take comfort from the guidance of English writer and poet Robert Southey, who authored the original version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, among multiple other works. In the summer of 1806, when Southey was working on four books at once, he wrote to a friend:

Don’t swear and bid me to do one thing at a time. I tell you I can’t afford to do one thing at a time – no, nor two neither; and it is only by doing many things that I contrive to do so much; for I cannot work long together at any thing without hurting myself; and so I do every thing by heats; then, by the time I am tired of one, my inclination for another is come round. (13)

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Pierre-Daniel Huet, Against Cartesian Philosophy (Humanity Books, 2003), p. 84.
H.S., “One Thing at a Time,” The Guardian, Or, Youth’s Religious Instructor, Volume VI, (New Haven, CT, 1824), p. 172.
Horace Mann, ed., The Common School Journal, Volume V (Boston, 1843), p. 24.
Orson Squire Fowler, Fowler’s Practical Phrenology (Philadelphia, 1840), p. 70.
Ibid., pp. 70-71.
Orson Squire Fowler, The American Phrenological Journal and Miscellany, Volume V (New York, 1843), p. 232.
Ibid., p. 232-233.
Ibid., p. 233.
Martin Archer Shee, Oldcourt, Volume III, London: 1829, p. 150.
Fowler, The American Phrenological Journal and Miscellany, Volume V, p. 232.
Daniel Bishop, An Introduction to the Study of the Mind, Designed Especially for the Senior Classes in Schools (London, 1857), p. 95.
Philip Dormer Stanhope, The Elements of a Polite Education: Carefully Selected from the Letters of the Late Earl of Chesterfield to His Son, edited by George Gregory (London, 1800), pp. 30-31.
Charles Cuthbert Southey, ed., The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey, Volume III (London, 1850), p. 46.

Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi was not as well-known as her sisters, beautiful Pauline and treasonous Caroline, but she was more capable than either of them. In fact, she was the Bonaparte sibling most like Napoleon, although she had the least influence over him. Napoleon himself said, “Elisa has the courage of an Amazon; and like me, she cannot bear to be ruled.” (1)

Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi by Joseph Franque, 1812

The ugly sister

Maria Anna Bonaparte – she did not adopt the name “Elisa” until she was about 18 – was born in Ajaccio, Corsica on January 3, 1777, seven and a half years after Napoleon. She was the fourth of Charles and Letizia Bonaparte’s eight surviving offspring, and their eldest daughter.

Napoleon moved to France to go to school when Elisa was just two years old, so the two of them did not have a chance to become particularly close. The one anecdote we have of them together in Corsica does not reflect well on Elisa. She apparently allowed Napoleon to be whipped for having eaten a basket of a relative’s grapes and figs, even though she and a friend were the guilty parties. (2)

When Elisa was seven, she was admitted on charity to an exclusive boarding school at the convent of Saint-Cyr near Versailles. Her father died the following year. Napoleon, who was at the Royal Military School in Paris, kept an eye on her. A family friend recounted:

One day my mother, and some other members of my family, went on a visit to Saint-Cyr, and [Napoleon] Bonaparte accompanied them. When Marianne [Elisa] came into the parlour she appeared very melancholy, and at the first word that was addressed to her she burst into tears…. At length my mother learned that one of the young ladies…was to leave the school in a week, and that the pupils of her class intended giving her a little entertainment on her departure. Every one had contributed, but Marianne could not give anything, because her allowance of money was nearly exhausted: she had only six francs…. Napoleon’s first movement…was to put his hand into his pocket. However, a moment’s reflection assured him that he should find nothing there; he checked himself, coloured slightly, and stamped his foot…. My mother gave [Marianne] the money, and her distress was ended. (3)

Elisa remained at Saint-Cyr until August 1792, when the French Revolution resulted in the closure of all religious houses. Newly promoted to captain in a French artillery regiment, Napoleon escorted his sister back to Corsica.

The following year, Napoleon had a falling out with the Corsican nationalists. The Bonapartes fled to France. They wound up in Marseilles where, on May 1, 1797, Elisa married Félix Pasquale Baciocchi, a minor Corsican aristocrat and infantry captain 15 years her senior. Napoleon, who was by then a general, disapproved of the match. Although Baciocchi was a decent fellow, he had – as Austrian Foreign Minister Clemens von Metternich put it – an “entire want of intellectual faculties.” (4)

Félix Baciocchi by Joseph Franque, circa 1805

For a while the couple lived with Elisa’s favourite brother, Lucien, with whom she shared a taste for literature and the fine arts. Elisa ran a salon in Paris frequented by the painters Jacques-Louis David and Antoine-Jean Gros, the writer François-René de Chateaubriand, and the poet Louis de Fontanes, who was said to be Elisa’s lover. In 1801, Lucien wrote:

Elisa is altogether taken up with savants. Her house is a tribunal where authors come to be judged. (5)

Although she was clearly intelligent, Elisa gained a reputation of being unattractive, arrogant and sharp-tongued.

A harsh and domineering expression injured the effect of features which might otherwise have been pleasing, and her manner, which was abrupt and almost contemptuous toward inferiors, rendered her address distant and suspicious. Her bones were large and prominent, and her limbs ill-shaped: her gait was not graceful, and often subjected her to the playful mockeries of her sister Pauline. (6)

A benevolent despot

Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi by Stefano Tofanelli, circa 1806

Like Caroline, Elisa was upset when Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French and did not give her a title. In response, in March 1805 Napoleon made Elisa the Princess of Piombino, a principality on the west coast of Italy, opposite Elba. A few months later he added the city-state of Lucca to her domain. Although Félix Baciocchi became a prince, Elisa outranked her husband.

The population of the Principality of Lucca and Piombino was only around 150,000, yet Elisa formed an elaborate court, in imitation of the one in Paris. She had five palaces, which she expanded and furnished in lavish style. In Lucca, she ordered the demolition of a block of medieval buildings, including a church, to build a French-style square called Piazza Napoléone in front of the palace.

While Baciocchi commanded their tiny army, Elisa governed. She took her duties seriously, ruling as a benevolent despot. She drew up a constitution, made laws, and saw to the interests of her domain within the Empire. In June 1806, she wrote to Napoleon:

If the public debt, the pensions and charges imposed on my States are not diminished, they will absorb more than half the revenues. Never in France, under the rule of your predecessors, did the debt exceed the quarter, while under your Empire it is barely a sixth of the proceeds. (7)

Elisa promoted agriculture and industry, patronized the arts and letters, and revived the marble quarries of Carrara. She opened schools and a new hospital. Niccolò Paganini became a court violinist. He gave private lessons to Baciocchi who, according to Lucien Bonaparte, could “scrape [the violin] passably, but so constantly is he at it that he ends by getting on the nerves both of his innocent instrument and his hearers.” (8)

Grand Duchess of Tuscany

Elisa did such a good job that, in 1809, Napoleon made her Grand Duchess of Tuscany, a place she had long had her eye on. She moved her court to the Pitti Palace in Florence, which she refurbished in competition with Caroline’s court in Naples. Baciocchi did not rise in rank and had little to do. As a general commanding the local military division, he remained under his wife’s supervision. The two lived apart and took lovers.

Napoleon annexed Tuscany directly to France, so Elisa had less freedom of action there than in Lucca and Piombino, although she did her best to pretend that she was an independent ruler. She complained to Napoleon about interference from French officials. Napoleon sent her letters like this one:

You have the right to appeal to me against my Minister’s decisions, but you have no right to hinder their execution in any way. The Ministers speak in my name. No one has any right to paralyse, or stop the execution, of the orders they transmit. … You are a subject, and, like every other French subject, you are obliged to obey the orders of the Ministers – for a writ of Habeas Corpus, issued by the Minister of Police, would fully suffice to arrest you. (9)

Elisa was at least able to blame the imperial government for measures that proved unpopular. She took credit for the popular ones.

Traitor

Elisa Bonaparte with her daughter, Napoléone Baciocchi, by François Gérard, 1810

When Napoleon’s empire began to crumble in early 1814, Caroline’s husband, Joachim Murat, – who had joined the coalition against Napoleon – sent troops to occupy Tuscany. Although Elisa had to leave Florence, she was allowed to remain as ruler of Lucca. Seeing that Napoleon was on his way out and hoping to secure her own position, Elisa too broke with France. She wrote to Napoleon in February of 1814:

Surrounded by powerful enemies, menaced by land and by sea, betrayed by the King of Naples who deserted your cause, I remain alone in the midst of numerous armies assembled against us. I am alone, without money, without troops, without munitions; in these desperate circumstances, what more can I do for Your Majesty? … [I]t is time that I look after my own interests, that I retain for my family the States that I owe them. (10)

The Tuscans showed no sign of attachment to their Grand Duchess. They hailed the invaders, who were soon joined by the British. Elisa and Baciocchi fled. They tried, unsuccessfully, to make off with the silver and furniture from several of the palaces. As they journeyed across Italy, seeking a place of asylum, Elisa gave birth to a son, Frédéric, on August 10, 1814, just – as one wag put it – “at a moment when she ceased to have need of an heir.” (11) Two earlier sons, born in 1798 and 1810, had died as babies. Elisa also had a daughter, Elisa Napoléone, born at Lucca on June 3, 1806.

Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi’s final years

When Napoleon escaped from Elba and returned to France in March of 1815, the Austrians arrested Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi and imprisoned her in the fortress of Brünn. She was released once Napoleon was safely on his way to exile on St. Helena. Elisa was given permission to live in Trieste, where she assumed the title of Countess of Compignano. Félix Baciocchi acquired a comfortable villa, which Elisa furnished luxuriantly. She continued to patronize artists and the theatre. She also financed archaeological excavations in the area. In June 1820 Elisa contracted a severe infection, from which she died on August 7, 1820, at the age of 43.

When the news of Elisa’s death reached Napoleon, he shut himself up alone for several hours. When he emerged, he said, “There is the first member of my family who has set out on the great journey; in a few months I shall go to join her.” (12) He died nine months later, on May 5, 1821.

Napoleon told one of his companions on St. Helena:

[Elisa] was a woman of a masterly mind. Had I not been in existence, what is said of the Duchess of Angoulême, that she wears the breeches of the family, might with reason be said of her. She had noble qualities and a remarkable mind; but no intimacy ever existed between us; our characters were opposed to this. (13)

Baciocchi moved to Bologna, where he had Elisa’s remains interred in the Basilica of San Petronio. He died in 1841. Their son, Frédéric, was killed in a riding accident in Rome in 1833, at the age of 18. Their daughter, Napoléone, married a rich Italian count, from whom she separated after a couple of years. Napoléone’s only child, Charles, committed suicide at the age of 26. Thus Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi has no living descendants.

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Charles J. Ingersoll, History of the Second War between the United States of America and Great Britain, Second Series, Vol. 1 (Philadelphia, 1853), p. 174.
Laure Junot, Memoirs of Napoleon, his Court, and Family, Vol. 1 (New York, 1881), pp. 15-16.
Ibid., p. 31.
Richard Metternich, ed., Memoirs of Prince Metternich, 1773-1815, Vol. 1 (New York, 1881), p. 309.
Joseph Turquan, The Sisters of Napoleon, translated and edited by W.R.H. Trowbridge (London, 1908), p. 22.
Frank B. Goodrich, The Court of Napoleon (Philadephia, 1875), p. 260.
The Sisters of Napoleon, p. 55.
The Sisters of Napoleon, 14.
Lady Mary Lloyd, New Letters of Napoleon I, edited by Léon Lecestre (New York, 1898), p. 150.
Frédéric Masson, Napoléon et Sa Famille, Vol. 9 (Paris, 1907), p. 260.
The Sisters of Napoleon, p. 77.
Louis Étienne Saint-Denis, Napoleon from the Tuileries to St. Helena, translated by Frank Hunter Potter (New York and London, 1922), p. 250.
Charles Tristan Montholon, History of the Captivity of Napoleon at St. Helena, Vol. 3 (London, 1847), p. 142.

In 1836, English writer Frances Trollope visited Austria, accompanied by her 26-year-old son Thomas and her 20-year-old daughter Cecilia. She provided the following description of Christmas in Vienna, including a party at the home of Austrian chancellor and foreign minister Clemens von Metternich, who appears in Napoleon in America.

Christmas Morning, by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, 1844

Preparations: Sugar plums and Christmas trees

“A more than usual degree of animation has pervaded the whole town for some days past, occasioned by the preparations making to celebrate Christmas.

“The shops are vying with each other which shall display the most tempting assortment of articles in their different lines; and though the more extensive elbow-room of London and Paris permits of larger shops and show-rooms, they can display nothing more brilliant and more beautiful that what may be seen here.

“In the important matters of shawls, blonds, velvets, silks, satins, and so forth, it is quite impossible that they should be surpassed. The silversmiths and jewellers certainly exceed in their rich exhibitions those either of France or England, with the exception, perhaps, of the interior arcana of Rundel and Bridges, and of Hamlets. The show of ornamental glass is exquisitely and delicately beautiful, and might almost make one fancy oneself within the domain of some enchanter, so bright, so tasteful, and so fanciful, in colour and in form, are the productions of the Bohemian manufactories.

“The windows of the confectioners do not indeed exhibit, as with us, plum-cakes majestic in their grandiose proportions and splendid ornaments; but, in revenge, they become magazines of bon-bons that dazzle the eyes as you enter among them, for they sparkle like grottos with a thousand crystals. The art of working in sugar was never carried, even in Paris, to greater perfection than it is here. You may find yourself eating all the fruits of the earth, whether in or out of season, while believing that you are only about to make your way through a sugar-plum.

“They are, beyond all contradiction, the prettiest-looking comestibles in the world: nevertheless, were I a Vienna lady, I would never permit the elegant pyramidical tray charged with them to travel round and round at my parties; for as each one is enclosed in a little dainty dish of scolloped paper, that it may reach the mouth without soiling the gloves, the consequence is that the purity of the drawing-room carpets must inevitably suffer; for it is not uncommon, after two or three entries of refreshments, to see the floor perfectly strewed with these sugar-plum cases.

“But all these extra preparations for enjoyment are by no means confined to the wealthier classes. At the corner of every street we see customers of quite the lower orders bargaining for trees, adorned with knots of many-coloured paper, in order to celebrate the Christmas. These trees, which, I believe, are always spruce-firs, are provided of every variety of degree, as to size and expense, by nearly every family in Vienna where there are young people.

“Nor is the custom peculiar to the capital; not a cottage in Austria, I am told, but has something of the same kind to solemnize this joyous season. The tree is called ‘the tree of the little Jesus;’ and on its branches are suspended all sorts of pretty toys, bijous, and bon-bons, to be distributed among those who are present at the fête. On the trees that are offered for sale in the streets, the place of more costly presents is supplied with an apple or a raisin, a chestnut, or a bit of gingerbread: but still they all show a gay and gala aspect to the eye, with their floating paper ribbons; and I have watched as much happy interest in the countenance of a poor body, while balancing between boughs that waved with streamers of pink, and others where blue predominated, as the richest lady could have felt, while selecting the most elegant and costly offerings for her friends.

“At some houses the tree is exhibited on Christmas-eve, which is to-night; and in others the fête is held tomorrow. For the first we are invited by the Princess Metternich [Melanie Zichy-Ferraris], who means to make a set of little princes and princesses superlatively happy.” (1)

Christmas Eve at the Metternichs

“One of the perfections of the Viennese parties is, that they are very punctual to the hour named for them; this is a good habit that I fear we did not bring with us, for we have very frequently found ourselves too late upon occasions when the being so has brought with it real loss. So it was on Christmas-eve. By fearing to arrive too early, we missed seeing the first happy rush of the children when the signal was given that the tree was lighted. We reached the scene of action, however, at the moment when everything connected with the pretty ceremony was in full activity.

“The large round dining-table was placed in the centre of the great saloon, and on it stood a fir-tree reaching almost to the lofty ceiling, on the branches of which were fastened a multitude of little waxen lights, such as the devout decorate their favourite shrines withal. Above, around, and underneath this sparkling galaxy of little stars, hung, suspended by dainty knots of various-coloured ribbons, an innumerable quantity of bon-bons and other pretty things which glittered in their rays. To disentangle these, and distribute them to the company, was to be the concluding ceremony; but, meanwhile, a beautiful circle of young faces, radiant with delight, stood round the ample table, one moment gazing at the twinkling brightness of the rich tree, and the next called upon to receive, with rapture greater still, each one a present from the abounding collection of toys that either covered the table or were ranged round it.

“The moment after, the animation of the scene became greater still. Here, a huge rocking-horse was put into violent motion by its happy new possessor; there, a game of rolling balls and tumbling nine-pins was set in action. On one side, a princely little coachman, in full Jehu costume, made his whip crack over the heads of his wooden steeds; and, on the other, a lovely little girl was making acquaintance with a splendid doll. Tiny tea-things, and tiny dinner-trays, miniature cabinets, and miniature libraries, and a world of things besides, more than I have wit to remember or rehearse, were speedily distributed, and appropriated among as happy a set of pretty creatures as ever bloomed and sparkled on a Christmas-eve.

“Nor was the beautiful mistress of the fête the least charming object among them. There are some people who, when they give pleasure, seem to find themselves in the element that is native to them, and to awaken within it to a keener feeling of life and enjoyment than in any other. The Princess Metternich is one of these, and I know from excellent authority that it is not only on a jour de fête that she shows it. …

“Many very elegant gifts were presented by the princess to those around her. No one present was forgotten; and the pretty album that she gave to me was doubly welcome, — first, as being her gift, and, secondly, as giving me a fair excuse for asking autographs which would make a less elegant volume valuable.

“After the table had been cleared of its many and varied treasures, the tree was, not without some difficulty, made to descend to the floor; and then, by the aid of sundry tall serving-men, the bon-bons were withdrawn from the illuminated branches, and distributed among the dancing, shouting, little host that stood ready to receive them. While I was admiring the brightness and ingenious decoration of the tree, the princess said to me, ‘The porter has just such another in his lodge, and depend upon it he has a circle round it just as happy as mine.’

“From this very animating scene we proceeded to another, not quite of the same kind, because no children were present at it; but where the same joyous occasion was made use of as an opportunity for indulging a liberal and affectionate spirit. The Baronne de P. assembles round her, upon this pretty solemnity, all her numerous family and connexions; and, I believe, we were the only persons present who were not of her regular annual party; an exception in favour of strangers which furnishes one example out of many of the manner in which kindness is extended to them in Vienna.

“We arrived in time to partake the tea and coffee that preceded the apparition of the tree, which was as yet invisible; but when this was over, at a signal given, the folding-doors of another apartment were thrown open, and lo! . . . . not one tree only, but five, shed their light, and glittered their brightly laden branches over a range of tables entirely covered with “Friendship’s Offerings.” I do not mean exactly that the tables bore a whole edition of the elegant little book so called; though annuals, and English ones too, made a part of the collection. No person present there but found their name inscribed on something. And now I received a very pretty toy, and a very acceptable one, being no other than a model of one of these ‘trees of the little Jesus,’ to which I shall certainly give my very best packing, in the hope of taking it home safely as a pattern. As soon as the trees themselves had been dismantled of their sugar-plums, the party returned to the other drawing-rooms, and spent the remainder of the evening in chatting and eating ices, in the manner of all other soirees.” (2)

Christmas Day

“We did not go to church, because we had no church [of England] to go to; but we ate roast beef and plum-pudding at home, and in the evening went to a very pretty party at the house of Baron von S. where again we witnessed the liberal and affectionate ceremonies of the tree, and again found our names inscribed with a kindness that was far beyond mere courtesy on elegant little souvenirs, rendered precious by being the work of the fair giver.

“The weather on this night was rough and chilling in no ordinary degree, or I should have been tempted to withdraw rather earlier than we did from the pleasant hospitality that surrounded us, for the purpose of hearing the midnight mass at St. Stephen’s.

“But I feared the cold damp of the church at such an hour; and the more so, as I had been repeatedly admonished that there would be no possibility of reaching the more sheltered part of the building, or of obtaining a seat at all, inasmuch as the crowd that assembled to share in this solemn and impressive service always collected some hours before it began. And so we passed our Christmas-day without entering a church at all.” (3)

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas.

You might also enjoy:

A 19th-Century Spanish Christmas

Christmas Eve in Early 19th-Century Pennsylvania

Celebrating a 19th-Century Christmas

Bonypart Pie and Questions for Christmas

Frances Trollope, Vienna and the Austrians, Vol. II (London: Richard Bentley, 1838), pp. 108-111.
Ibid., pp. 119-123.
Ibid., pp. 124-125.

Frustrated by long line-ups and unhelpful websites when doing your holiday shopping? Here are some situations you might have encountered if you went shopping 200 years ago, taken from early-19th-century newspapers.

Shopping for glassware at Pellatt and Green, London, 1809

Too many choices

“It is distressing to think how much valuable time is lost in this world, owing to the vast multiplicity of objects amongst which one may choose, from the choice of a wife, or a profession, to that of a walking-stick, or a box of bons bons. …

“One of the most prolific sources of this perplexity is to be found in shopping, that never-ending employment of the ladies. A lady goes to purchase ribbons, or silk handkerchiefs, or a ring, perhaps: immediately the shop counter is covered with ribbons and silk handkerchiefs, of every possible variety of colour, pattern, size, and fashion. What overwhelming difficulties are presented to the purchaser! It seems almost impossible to choose. What a very sweet colour this ribbon has! – but the shade of that other one is more delicate. Don’t you think this pattern prettier than either? But look here; this is the newest. Mr– says ‘Italian green quite the fashion’; and, in short, the lady either makes the worst purchase she could have made, or purchases nothing at all, because she cannot decide.” (1)

Shopping for fabric at Harding and Howell, London, 1809

Cheeky customers

“It was the ‘shopping hour,’ and [the Burlington Arcade was] thronged with numerous promenading parties. While I, like a native, employed myself in looking at the jewellery and trinkets which sparkle in the windows of the small but elegant shops in the Arcade; Taffrail had discovered a more piquante amusement in stringing the various grisettes who occupied the interior out of countenance. At length he got disdainful of out-door freaks, and entered a shop where a pretty brunette, with sparkling black eyes, was sorting trinkets almost as glittering. These the ‘gold-laced Triton,’ while I stood by wondering at his impudence, began fingering with several double entendres on the purchase of trinkets, which I am glad my modesty will not allow me to understand the wit of. However, the conversation ended in what is sometimes called ‘manual wit’ on the part of the lady, for, with her fair hands, she dealt the young spark so hearty a box on the ear as made the sparks fly visibly out of his eyes. Her tongue was by no means tongue-tied, but nearly as trenchant as her fingers; and she assured him with marvellous volubility that she was ‘meat for his betters’; she should not think, indeed not she, of half pay subs, who were little better than swindlers, presuming to think of making acquaintance with girls of honor. How were they to keep them? Poor devils, they could not keep themselves. Did he think she would wash his single shirt for him as he lay in bed? He had better go home and marry his landlady, by way of paying his debt for lodging and washing! In this way the young lady proceeded…and even the impudent lieutenant, like the first seducer, stood abashed.” (2)

Shopping for books at Lackington, Allen and Company, London, 1809

Fussy shoppers

A lady a-shopping, on Broadway once pass’d,
To perplex and annoy the young men;
Every store of dry goods she had rambled through fast,
From one to two hundred and nine, and at last
Popp’d in at two hundred and ten.

Here goods after goods were exposed to her view,
Prints, laces, and silks, at her call;
Thirty patterns she took – the Lord knows for who!
Then the strings of her huge indispensable drew,
With the prices of each mark’d on all.

‘Have you now any gloves?’ (mark the question she made);
Those for gentlemen quickly were shown;
‘Ladies’ sir, if you please,’ – and long whites were display’d;
‘Oh! the short ones,’ – short English before her were laid;
But ‘Lord! French, sir,’ next was the tune.

French kid, still unmoved, Dicky drew from a case,
Where they lay pack’d superbly together;
But he soon had to wish them well back in their place,
When for silk she exclaimed with a wonderful face,
‘Silk – Lord bless me, you see these are leather!’

Dick now stood aghast, twenty others the while
Roar’d for goods like a battling host,
The counter was heap’d to a terrible pile;
His countenance lost its accustomed smile,
And his patience now gave up the ghost.

‘Confusion!’ he stammers, with rage nearly burst,
And his face not in graces or loves;
‘Were ever poor mortals like shopkeepers curs’d?
‘Why, in Lucifer’s name, did you not ask at first
For ladies’ short white French silk gloves?’ (3)

Inspired shopkeepers

A Bonnet Shop, Caricature by Thomas Rowlandson, 1810. Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959

“Happy he whose tailor is a genius; thrice happy she who buys her silks and gauzes of an inspired shopman. Go to Flint’s with your wife or sister, and, instead of scolding her for delay, abusing shops and shopping, fashions and flounces, dress and dressers, tapping your stick incessantly on the ground, looking at your watch every three minutes, and interrupting by your own impatience and complaints a pending decision between a gros de Naples and Zephyreene, amuse yourself by watching the countenance and manner of the numerous shopmen and shopwomen, and endeavour to discover which among them were intended by nature to serve customers at Grafton-house. Civil and patient as the generality may be, a look of abstraction, an air of languor may be observed in their eyes and demeanour, proving that their whole soul is not engrossed by their occupation, and that necessity, not taste, has placed them at the counter.

“How different he who is acting in his proper sphere, and whose genius delights to expatiate amidst the multitudinous contents of Flint’s shelves and warehouses. He is evidently enjoying the labour which others endure. His eagerness never betrays him into confusion, nor his quickness into bustle. ‘Rapido sì, ma rapido con legge.’ He appears to take a personal interest in every lady’s choice: he would not for worlds precipitate the important decision; but affords her ample time to reflect upon the comparative merits of the articles he displays, merits which he has previously stated with great clearness and most amiable impartiality. No caprice disgusts him, no delay wearies him, every shade of every colour, every quality, every texture, is cheerfully exhibited; and when the important choice is at length made, when the lady has changed her mind till she is tired of her own indecision, and the decisive snip has precluded further vacillation, he then never fails to stamp her taste with his own humble approval. If not the prettiest, it is the newest, or cheapest, or the most durable article in the shop, and altogether he may venture to congratulate the purchaser upon her choice.

“His manner and language, too, are either respectful or familiar, as may best suit the rank or the taste of his customer. To the real gentlewoman he is all deference and humility, says little, and bows often. With her who is lower in mind than in station, and to whose coarse vanity the admiring eye of a shopman can minister, he changes his tone, speaks more familiarly, smiles often, peeps under the bonnet, and appears very much disposed to flirt, and to compliment. ‘Every one may not venture to wear green, Madam, but with your complexion.’ Apparently a fear of offending stops the flattering sentence. There is yet another class of purchasers with whom he is on still more easy terms; he calls them ‘my dear,’ hopes their sweetheart is well, advises them to trim their bonnet with love, and begs they will purchase their wedding-gown of him.

“How happy is a man of this description compared with the unfortunate wight who is tied to a business for which he has no taste, and to whom every difficulty seems formidable, every inconvenience a distress.” (4)

For more on 19-century shopping see “How did people shop in the early 1800s.” You might also enjoy:

Currency, Exchange Rates & Costs in the 19th Century

Things People Were Thankful for 200 Years Ago

One Thing at a Time: 19th-Century Multitasking Advice

“Editorial,” The Scots Magazine (Edinburgh), Vol. XI, December 1, 1822, p. 676.
Frank Gayland, “Sketches of Scenes in London,” Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle (London), No. 20, July 14, 1822, p.158.
R.S.W. and the Boston Kaleidoscope, “The Dessert,” Illinois Emigrant (Shawnee-town, IL), June 12, 1819.
“On the Choice of Professions,” Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette (Bath, UK), Vol. 64, Issue 3092, June 7, 1821, p. 2.

Although Thanksgiving traditions have changed over the years, giving thanks for life’s blessings has been customary for centuries. Here are some things people were thankful for 200 years ago.

Landscape with a Harvest Scene, circa 1800. Source: Fenton House, National Trust

The present compared with the past

Mary Ann Wodrow Archbald (1762-1841) emigrated to the United States from Scotland in 1807 with her husband, James, and their four children. They settled on a farm in Auriesville along the Mohawk River in eastern New York State. In July 1820, Mary Ann wrote to her cousin John Ruthven, who lived in New York City:

I would give a great deal to have you here just now because I think you would very much enjoy the surrounding scenery. You remember the field behind the house that Jamie was ploughing – it is the perhaps the handsomest field of wheat you ever saw & you would be pleased to see him with his pail of milk & water beside him, swinging the cradle scythe from morn till night. We have the most blessed harvest weather – never did the fields exhibit so rich an appearance of plenty as they do at present. A field of ripe wheat waving with every breeze is really a beautiful object independent of the other agreeable ideas suggested by the sight of it. The deep green of the corn, trees, &c., also form a fine contrast to it, & the oats look still handsomer than the wheat, being a fine bright yellow, the other has a brownish cast. This grain also reminds us of home. The face of nature will be considerably changed before you get to us, but almost every diversity of it is pleasant at least to those who can view it with your eyes, who can see in every change & every movement the hand of Him whose tender mercies are over all his works.

To your affectionate question about my being really satisfied with my jaunt, I can without hesitation answer in the affirmative. I had a great deal of enjoyment, indeed as much nearly as it was possible for me to have. Your long hard streets reminded me that I was old, but what of that – I enjoyed rest & a book more when I got in, & if fatigue sometimes prevented me from so fully enjoying our walks as I otherwise would have have done, I have amply made up the deficiency by the pleasures of memory & reflection…. Independent of every thing else, it was worth my while to go to [New York City] for Montgomery’s poems & my fine spectacles. We had on the whole a pleasant sail up…. On arriving at Albany I again experienced that dreary feeling which the approach to this town especially by water never fails to inspire. It was here 13 years ago I felt myself destitute, a stranger in a strange land with a helpless train around & [my daughter] Louisa in my arms. It is true that the goodness of the Lord has followed & graciously supported me & when I compare the past with the present I ought to be very thankful. (1)

Not being born a slave

English merchant Adam Hodgson (1788-1862) travelled across North America from 1819 to 1821. In a letter to friends and family, written in Charleston, North Carolina, in February 1820, Hodgson reflected on his visit to Virginia.

You will believe that it was not without the most painful emotions that I for the first time contemplated the revolting spectacle of man in bondage to his fellow-man, and that I felt myself surrounded by unhappy victims for whom nature and humanity seemed in vain to urge the unanswerable plea, ‘Am I not a man and a brother?’ …

Three out of four of the black coachmen we had the other day, (all slaves,) I found very intelligent. They said, all they wanted was good masters, but that their liability to be sold to bad ones, and to be separated from their families, was a cruel part of their condition; that in that part of the country (Virginia), they had Sunday to themselves; one holiday in April, one in May, and four at Christmas; that they had public worship on Sundays, and on one evening in the week; that many of them could read; and that some of their preachers were slaves. I cannot describe my feelings when sitting by the side of a fellow-creature and talking to him of his own price! Often did a little verse, with which our English children are familiar, recur to my recollection, with some sense, I hope, of the gratitude which it ought to inspire.

‘I was not born a little slave,
To labour in the sun,
And wish I were but in my grave,
And all my labour done.’ (2)

Public esteem

John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) was the sixth president of the United States. Before that, he held many public offices, including serving as Secretary of State under President James Monroe from 1817 to 1825. Adams wrote to his wife, Louisa, in August 1821:

I well know that I never was and never shall be what is commonly termed a popular man, being as little qualified by nature, education, or habit, for the arts of a courtier, as I am desirous of being courted by others. Such as I am, I envy not the reputation of any other man in the Union. There is not another man in the Union, excepting the Presidents past and present, who receives or continues to receive from the people of this country indications of esteem and confidence more distinguished and flattering than I have. With the exception of one signal mark of dissatisfaction from the legislature of my native state thirteen years since, my life has been one continual succession for more than five and twenty years of high, of honorable and important trusts, and of literary and scientific distinctions – all conferred without any of those blandishments by which some others acquire esteem or favors. If ever a man had reason to be grateful for the portion of public consideration which has been shown him, it is I, and I trust I am grateful for it. (3)

Friends in a time of suffering

Louisa Adams, the wife of John Quincy Adams, frequently suffered from illness. In January 1819, she wrote to her father-in-law, John Adams, about one such episode.

Waked very unwell and while in bed received a note from Mrs. Hull requesting me to present her to Mrs Monroe at the Drawing Room this evening, stating that her husband was going out to dinner and could not accompany her. I answered I should be happy to attend her and would call for her at 8 o’clock intending, if I remained so ill, to send her with Mr A [John Quincy Adams] and Miss Buchanan…

When Miss B. returned she refused going to the drawing room and, as it was very late, I was under the necessity of going, although my illness was every moment increasing. I made Mr A promise he would not lose sight of me as I was apprehensive of a fainting fit or something equally disagreeable, which would have made talk for a month. We called for Mrs. Hull and I introduced her to Mrs. Monroe and Mrs. Hay, but finding myself more and more indisposed, in fact in a high fever, I made a sign to Mr A and immediately sought my carriage to return home and immediately on arriving was put to bed. At about one o’clock I was seized with a dreadful faintness so deadly that I thought my hour was come. I retained my senses but cold clammy dews hung over me and it was some time ere I could shake off the heavy…pressure which seemed to crush my heart. When I recovered, I found all my family round me and soon after the doctor arrived. The spasms soon returned and I remained in great agony during the night, which was only occasionally suspended by the complete exhaustion of wearied and almost expiring nature. Oh my dear Sir, great as is the suffering, you know not with what joy and delight my heart beats in thankfulness to my Creator for the kind and unwearied attentions of my affectionate friends on those occasions, and indeed I am so surrounded with blessings [that], without these necessary checks to the arrogance of human nature, I fear I might be tempted to forget that the hour must sooner or later arrive in which I must surrender my soul to its maker, and with a deep sense of gratitude I implore his farther mercies to enable me to sustain with propriety the trials which yet await me. (4)

The health of one’s children

Mary Brown Austin (1768-1824) was the mother of Stephen F. Austin, who established the first Anglo-American colony in the Mexican province of Texas. Mary wrote to Stephen from Hazel Run, Missouri, in July 1822:

The long silence of my dearest sons has for a long time caused great anxiety of mind to your mother and sister. We have had no letters from you since you left Mexico…. What can possibly be the real cause of your long silence I cannot tell, but am willing to conclude your letters have got lost through the neglect of those who had the charge of them…. In regard to your sister [Emily, recently widowed] and myself, I can only say we are exerting ourselves by our industry and economy in order to provide for the wants of another winter. Emily has been engaged in keeping a female school for the last three months and will continue it three months more. We have five boarders at 15 dollars a quarter and nine day scholars at three dollars. This we think will be sufficient to furnish our family with clothing and other necessaries for the winter. I am truly thankful that your sister is blessed with fortitude and strength of mind to sustain her in every difficulty. She has no friend to act for her or to assist her in any thing, but as long as she is blessed with health she has nothing to fear for the want of the necessaries of life. We still look forward with faith and hope of seeing better days. Most sincerely do we pray to the father of mercies to preserve the lives of my dear sons and to crown their exertions with complete success. We well know if you are spared and are so fortunate as to accumulate property you will most cheerfully share it with her and her children, for I am firmly persuaded my dear Stephen and his brother [James] will ever prove to be the best of sons and brothers and are at this moment doing every thing in their power for our future happiness and comfort. (5)

You might also enjoy:

Celebrating Thanksgiving in the 1800s

Humour in the 19th Century: 200-Year Old Jokes

Napoleon’s View of Slavery and Slavery in New Orleans

Louisa Adams, First Foreign-Born First Lady

Hugh Archbald, ed., The Letters and Diary of Mary Ann Archbald, 1762-1840 (Caldwell, NJ, 1951), pp. 963-964.
Adam Hodgson, Letters from North America, Written During a Tour in the United States and Canada, Vol. I (London, 1824), pp. 24-26.
Worthington Chauncey Ford, ed., Writings of John Quincy Adams, Vol. VII (New York, 1917), p. 170.
“To John Adams from Louisa Catherine Johnson Adams, 15 January 1819,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-03-02-3603.
“Transcript of letter from Mary Austin to Stephen F. Austin, July 24, 1822,” The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth216250/.

Every once in a while, a lock of Napoleon Bonaparte’s hair comes up for auction. Is it likely to be authentic? What does Napoleon’s hair look like? Where can one see a sample? And how much does it cost? Here are answers to your burning questions about Napoleon’s hair.

A lock of Napoleon’s hair on display in the Dernier Quartier-Général de Napoléon Museum next to the battlefield of Waterloo. Source: Henk Bekker, Flickr

What colour was Napoleon’s hair?

Napoleon’s hair was brown, although this question is not as easy to answer as one might think. Portraits are not necessarily a reliable guide (see “What did Napoleon look like?”) and first-hand descriptions of Napoleon’s hair colour contradict each other.

The son of General Würstemberger, who accompanied Napoleon in Switzerland in 1797, wrote that Napoleon’s “black, unpowdered hair hung down evenly over both shoulders in wide, lengthy tresses – oreilles de chien [dog’s ears], as one says – and was gathered into a rather flattened pigtail reaching to the middle of his narrow back.” (1)

However, Russian soldier Denis Davydov, who was with Tsar Alexander when he met Napoleon at Tilsit in 1807, reported that, “[t]he hair on his head was not black, but dark reddish-blond; his eyebrows and eyelashes were much darker than the colour of his hair….” (2)

Napoleon as First Consul, François Gérard, 1803

Such contradictions might be put down to differences in lighting, or to changes in Napoleon’s hair colour as he aged, but even people who were together on the ships ferrying Napoleon to permanent exile in 1815 did not agree on the precise shade of his hair.

Frederick Maitland, captain of the British frigate Bellerophon, which conveyed Napoleon from France to Plymouth Harbour, wrote: “His hair was of a very dark brown and though a little thin on top, had not a grey hair amongst it.” (3) Lieutenant John Bowerbank, on the same voyage, described Napoleon’s hair as “very black.” (4)

From the Bellerophon, Napoleon was transferred to HMS Northumberland for the voyage to St. Helena. Captain Charles Ross, commander of the Northumberland, mentioned Napoleon’s “rather thin, greasy-looking brown hair.” (5) William Henry Lyttleton, who obtained passage on the ship from Portsmouth to Plymouth, noted: “the top of his head was almost quite bald; his hair, of a reddish brown colour, was long, rough, and, if the expression may be permitted, dishevelled.” (6) John Glover, secretary to Rear Admiral Cockburn, referred to Napoleon’s “darkish-brown cropped hair, thin on the fore-part of the head.” (7) British surgeon William Warden wrote: “His forehead is thinly covered with dark hair, as well as the top of his head, which is large, and has a singular flatness: what hair he has behind is bushy, and I could not discern the slightest mixture of white in it.” (8)

Betsy Balcombe, the daughter of the East India Company official at whose home Napoleon stayed when he first arrived on St. Helena, became a good friend of Napoleon and had many opportunities to closely observe him. According to her, “his hair was dark brown, and as fine and silky as a child’s, rather too much so indeed for a man, as its very softness caused it to look thin.” (9)

Even French historians have not been entirely on the same page regarding the colour of Napoleon’s hair. Jules Michelet (1798-1874) described Napoleon’s hair as being “an uncertain brown, which in his youth seemed black in consequence of a free use of pomatum.” (10) Frédéric Masson (1847-1923) wrote:

The Emperor’s hair was not black but auburn. For the exact colour we must without doubt not depend upon those specimens which, having been preserved under glass have possibly lost their colour by exposure to light; but there are specimens which have been carefully wrapped up and have remained so since the time they were taken from his head. These tend almost to a dark flaxen…. (11)

The authoritative word on Napoleon’s hair colour should go to those who knew him best. Claude-François Méneval, Napoleon’s private secretary from 1802 to 1813, wrote:

His very fine chestnut hair, which, until the time of the expedition to Egypt, he had worn long, cut square and covering his ears, was clipped short. The hair was thin on the upper part of the head, and left bare his forehead…. (12)

Louis-Joseph Marchand, Napoleon’s first valet from 1814 to 1821, verifies this.

His head was large, covered with very fine chestnut hair, thin over the forehead but sufficient to form a characteristic curl; he shaved so as to have no whiskers. (13)

What was Napoleon’s hairstyle?

Flowing locks: Napoleon on the bridge at Arcola, by Antoine-Jean Gros, 1796

The historian Masson nicely summarized how Napoleon went from having long, flowing locks to a comb-over.

It was only at the end of the Consulate that he made up his mind to wear his hair quite short at the neck, and we may suppose that the reason must have been the very early baldness which is already foreshadowed in Gérard’s fine portrait of 1803. In Italy he wore his hair quite long, flowing over his temples, a few locks only tied up into a pigtail with a ribbon. The whole of his head was at that time slightly powdered. On coming back from Italy he gave up powder at Joséphine’s request; but he kept his hair long during the passage from Toulon to Alexandria. At Cairo, possibly even at the battle of the Pyramids, his hair was shorter. The hair on the temples has disappeared – all that light and floating veil which surrounded his face – and except at the back his hair is cut pretty close; but not so much as might be fancied – witness a series of busts executed on his return to France, from nature, which still show some long locks falling over the forehead, covering three-quarters of the ears, and encroaching considerably on the collar. At the same time the First Consul allowed his whiskers to grow as far as a third of the cheeks, which went down lower than the lobe of the ear, and appear to be pretty thick. These whiskers disappeared at the same time that the hair became shorter at the back; but it was only quite at the end of the Consulate that Bonaparte became ‘le Tondu’ (the shorn) as the soldiers called him. Gradually from that time the forehead became bare; so much so that in some of the unflattered sketches of the end of the Empire, we see that he brings the hair forward, and that the long lock which gives so lively a character to this face comes from a distance. (14)

Napoleon Bonaparte abdicated at Fontainebleau, by Paul Delaroche, 1845

Comb-over: Napoleon abdicated at Fontainebleau, by Paul Delaroche, 1845

How much of Napoleon’s hair is still around?

During the period in which Napoleon lived, it was common to request and to give locks (pieces) of hair as a sign of affection or devotion, or as a way of remembering someone. These locks were often fashioned into jewelry.

[L]ocks of hair can have many meanings: commemoration of a person’s life, tokens of friendship or love, or tangible reminders of a life passed. Hair does not decompose, and because of this, many people cherished it as a symbol of eternal life. Families often passed down keepsakes of hair from generation to generation even after those touched by the person’s life were no longer living. (15)

Napoleon certainly gave people locks of his hair, particularly when he was on St. Helena. Betsy Balcombe wrote that when she and her family left the island in 1818, Napoleon asked her what she would like to have in remembrance of him.

I replied, I should value a lock of his hair more than any other gift he could present. He then sent for Monsieur Marchand, and desired him to bring in a pair of scissors and cut off four locks of hair for my father and mother, my sister, and myself, which he did. I still possess that lock of hair; it is all left me of the many tokens of remembrance of the Great Emperor. (16)

Because of Napoleon’s fame, even those who had never met him were eager to possess such tokens, as can be gathered from this letter that accompanied a piece of Napoleon’s hair that was sent to Sir Walter Scott in 1827.

I [R. Dalton] came by it in the following manner. My friend Captain Haviside was the bearer of certain presents from Mr. Elphinstone, a gentleman filling a high official situation in China, to the exiled Emperor, who had on some occasion shown either polite or humane attentions…to Mr. Elphinstone’s brother, an officer in the British army. On leaving these presents at St. Helena, Captain Haviside obtained a pass for Longwood, and went there for the express purpose of having an audience of the Emperor. He, the Emperor, was ill and could not receive him, but he was entertained by his suite, and Mme. Bertrand gave him a small quantity of the Emperor’s hair, which she had obtained from his valet a few days before. This quantity, small originally, has diminished hair by hair, to gratify the curiosity of the officers of the ship, until the portion I now send you was all that remained. (17)

In his will, Napoleon wrote:

Marchand shall preserve my hair, and cause a bracelet to be made of it, with a little gold clasp, to be sent to the Empress Maria Louisa, to my mother, and to each of my brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, the Cardinal; and one of larger size for my son. (18)

When Napoleon died in 1821, his hair was cut off for this purpose. Members of his household also took pieces of hair as keepsakes. Although this means that there are locks of Napoleon’s hair in museums and private collections, the amount of hair that Napoleon gave away, plus what was removed upon his death, does not add up to the amount of hair that is claimed to be Napoleon’s.

There are very few authentic samples of Napoleon’s hair in existence…. There are many more samples in circulation whose authenticity is suspect, and many that are clearly fake. As the Comte Flahaut once famously remarked, he’d seen enough hair since Napoleon’s death to carpet the floors of Versailles. (19)

Where can one see locks of Napoleon’s hair?

Institutions that have Napoleon’s hair on display in their online collections include:

Britain’s Royal Collection Trust (a lock of Napoleon’s hair on a card);
National Army Museum, London (a lock of Napoleon’s hair from 1817);
Royal Academy of Arts, London (a crystal locket containing a lock of Napoleon’s hair); and
Sir John Soane’s Museum, London (a mourning ring containing a lock of the Emperor Napoleon’s hair).

The Briars Park Homestead in Australia had a lock of Napoleon’s hair (from the pieces given to the Balcombe family), along with a ring and a locket containing Napoleon’s hair, in its collection. Sadly, these and other Napoleon artifacts were stolen in 2014.

What is Napoleon’s hair worth?

In 2010, a lock of Napoleon’s hair that belonged to descendants of Denzil Ibbetson, a British officer stationed on St. Helena during Napoleon’s captivity, sold for more than US$13,000 (£8,600). In 2015, a single strand of hair believed to be from Napoleon’s head sold for £130 (US$200) at an auction in Dorset.

Wasn’t Napoleon’s hair tested for arsenic poisoning?

Yes, and arsenic was not the cause of Napoleon’s death. See “Hair analysis clears Napoleon’s ‘poisoners’” by Will Knight in the New Scientist, and “Hair Analysis Deflates Napoleon Poisoning Theories” by William J. Broad in the New York Times.

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Weird Pictures of Napoleon

Coiffure à la Titus

Friedrich Kircheisen, Napoleon (New York, 1932), p. 129.
Denis Davidov, In the Service of the Tsar Against Napoleon: The Memoirs of Denis Davidov, 1806-1814, Translated and edited by Gregoroy Troubetzkoy (London, 1999), p. 65.
Frederick Lewis Maitland, Narrative of the Surrender of Buonaparte and of his Residence On Board H.M.S. Bellerophon (London, 1826), p. 209.
“Lieutenant Bowerbank’s Journal,” The American Monthly Magazine and Critical Review, Vol. 1 (New York, 1817), p. 32.
Clement Shorter, ed., Napoleon and His Fellow Travellers (London, 1908), p. 60.
Ibid., p. 77.
John R. Glover, Taking Napoleon to St. Helena: From the Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine of October and November, 1893 (New York, 1893), p. 92.
Napoleon and His Fellow Travellers, p. 143.
Lucia Elizabeth Balcombe Abell, Recollections of the Emperor Napoleon, during the First Three Years of His Captivity on the Island of St. Helena (London, 1844), pp. 21-22.
Jules Michelet, Histoire du XIXe Siècle: Directoire, Origine des Bonaparte, (Paris, 1872), p. 336.
Frédéric Masson, Napoleon at Home, translated by James E. Matthew, Vol. I (London, 1894), p. 106.
Claude-François Méneval, Memoirs Illustrating the History of Napoleon from 1802 to 1815, Volume I (New York, 1894), p. 105.
Louis-Joseph Marchand, In Napoleon’s Shadow (San Francisco, 1998), p. 91.
Napoleon at Home, Vol. I, pp. 106-108.
Laura Peimer, “Tokens of Eternal Life: Locks of Hair in Collections,” Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University, https://www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/schlesinger-library/blog/tokens-eternal-life-locks-hair-in-collections. Accessed November 12, 2020.
Recollections of the Emperor Napoleon, during the First Three Years of His Captivity on the Island of St. Helena, 230-231.
Mary Monica Maxwell Scott, Abbotsford: The Personal Relics and Antiquarian Treasures of Sir Walter Scott (London, 1893), p. 29.
Emmanuel-Auguste-Dieudonné Las Cases, Memoirs of the Life, Exile, and Conversations of the Emperor Napoleon, Vol. IV (New York, 1855), p. 404.
David Andrew Roberts and Kathleen Roussac, “Authenticating a Lock of Napoleon’s Hair: The Bizarre and Dubious Career of Frederick Lahrbush,” Napoleonic Alliance Gazette, Vol. 2002, No. 2, p. 11.

American folk hero Davy Crockett, known for his hunting skills and his defence of the Alamo, was also a politician. “Endowed with a good measure of common sense, an uncommon streak of pure honesty, and a warm sense of humor, Crockett was a natural for the rough-and-tumble, down-home brand of backwoods electioneering.” (1) In 1835, on his way to Texas, Crockett reportedly provided advice on how to get elected, based on his own experience.

Portrait of Davy Crockett by Chester Harding, 1834

Davy Crockett’s political career

David (Davy) Crockett was born on August 17, 1786, in what is now Greene County, Tennessee. Davy’s father was of French-Huguenot descent; an ancestor changed the family name from Crocketagne to Crockett when emigrating to Ireland during the reign of King Louis XIV.

The Crocketts had nine children and no money, so Davy was hired out to help pay off the family’s debts. He became a skilled hunter, killing 105 bears in a single season. In 1813, he joined the Tennessee militia and fought in the Creek War in Alabama, acting as a scout because of his experience in the woods. In 1814, he re-enlisted as a sergeant. He served in Spanish Florida during the War of 1812, but saw little action.

Davy Crockett’s political career began in 1817, when he became a magistrate in Lawrence County, Tennessee. This was followed by posts as justice of the peace, town commissioner, and colonel of the local militia regiment. In 1821, Crockett was elected to the Tennessee state legislature.

His campaign style was simple and direct, and it fit well in an era in which political meetings usually opened with a barbecue and ended in a dance, with the candidates expected to buy drinks for everyone. (2)

In 1825, Crockett ran unsuccessfully for a seat in the US House of Representatives. In 1827, he tried again and was elected to Congress. Crockett opposed the policies of President John Quincy Adams and Secretary of State Henry Clay, who appear in Napoleon in America. Although Crockett initially supported fellow Tennessee politician Andrew Jackson, who became president in 1828, he soon broke with Jackson, particularly over the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Crockett tried to champion the rights of impoverished farmers and squatters, but without wider support in Congress, he was unable to get any legislation passed. Crockett was defeated in 1831, re-elected in 1833, and then defeated again in 1835.

In November 1835, Crockett headed for Texas, where American settlers were attempting to achieve independence from Mexico. Crockett hoped to make some money and possibly rebuild his political career. He arrived in San Antonio in early February 1836. On February 23, a Mexican army reached San Antonio and laid siege to the Alamo, to which the Texians had retreated. Although Crockett had minimal experience as a soldier, his shooting skills proved valuable to the defenders. The siege ended on March 6, 1836, when the Mexicans overran the fort in the Battle of the Alamo. Davy Crockett died on that day, at the age of 49.

Davy Crockett on electioneering

The Colonel Electioneering. Print with a man assumed to be Davy Crockett at the centre, drawn & engraved by H. Alken, circa 1834. Source: Library of Congress

In his autobiography, Davy Crockett wrote about how he wooed voters.

[W]hen I set out electioneering [in Tennessee in 1821], I would go prepared to put every man on as good footing when I left him as I found him on. I would therefore have me a large buckskin hunting-shirt made, with a couple of pockets holding about a peck each; and…in one I would carry a great big twist of tobacco, and in the other my bottle of liquor; for I knowed when I met a man and offered him a dram, he would throw out his quid of tobacco to take one, and after he had taken his horn, I would out with my twist and give him another chaw. And in this way he would not be worse off than when I found him; and I would be sure to leave him in a first-rate good humour. (3)

On his journey to Texas in November 1835, Crockett reportedly made the following remarks to some young politicians in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Attend all public meetings…and get some friend to move that you take the chair; if you fail in this attempt, make a push to be appointed secretary; the proceedings of course will be published, and your name is introduced to the public. But should you fail in both undertakings, get two or three acquaintances, over a bottle of whisky, to pass some resolutions, no matter on what subject; publish them even if you pay the printer – it will answer the purpose of breaking the ice, which is the main point in these matters. Intrigue until you are elected an officer of the militia; this is the second step toward promotion, and can be accomplished with ease, as I know an instance of an election being advertised, and no one attending, the innkeeper at whose house it was to be held, having a military turn, elected himself colonel of his regiment. … You may not accomplish your ends with as little difficulty, but do not be discouraged – Rome wasn’t built in a day.

If your ambition or circumstances compel you to serve your country, and earn three dollars a day, by becoming a member of the legislature, you must first publicly avow that the constitution of the state is a shackle upon free and liberal legislation; and is, therefore, of as little use in the present enlightened age, as an old almanac of the year in which the instrument was framed. There is policy in this measure, for by making the constitution a mere dead letter, your headlong proceedings will be attributed to a bold and unshackled mind; whereas, it might otherwise be thought they arose from sheer mulish ignorance. …

When the day of election approaches, visit your constituents far and wide. Treat liberally, and drink freely, in order to rise in their estimation, though you fall in your own. True, you may be called a drunken dog by some of the clean shirt and silk stocking gentry, but the real rough necks will style you a jovial fellow, – their votes are certain, and frequently count double. Do all you can to appear to advantage in the eyes of the women. That’s easily done – you have but to kiss and slabber their children, wipe their noses, and pat them on the head; this cannot fall to please their mothers, and you may rely on your business being done in that quarter.

Promise all that is asked…and more if you can think of any thing. Offer to build a bridge or a church, to divide a country, create a batch of new offices, make a turnpike, or any thing they like. Promises cost nothing, therefore deny nobody who has a vote or sufficient influence to obtain one.

Get up on all occasions, and sometimes on no occasion at all, and make long-winded speeches, though composed of nothing else than wind – talk of your devotion to your country, your modesty and disinterestedness, or on any such fanciful subject. Rail against taxes of all kinds, office holders, and bad harvest weather; and wind up with a flourish about the heroes who fought and bled for our liberties in the times that tried men’s souls. To be sure you run the risk of being considered a bladder of wind, or an empty barrel; but never mind that, you will find enough of the same fraternity to keep you in countenance.

If any charity be going forward, be at the top of it, provided it is to be advertised publicly; if not, it isn’t worth your while. None but a fool would place his candle under a bushel on such an occasion.

These few directions…if properly attended to, will do your business; and when once elected, why a fig for the dirty children, the promises, the bridges, the churches, the taxes, the offices, and the subscriptions, for it is absolutely necessary to forget all these before you can become a thorough-going politician, and a patriot of the first water. (4)

The legend of Davy Crockett

As a politician with an unusual background and a gift for storytelling, Davy Crockett became a celebrity during his lifetime. In 1831, a play called “The Lion of the West,” featuring a character called Colonel Nimrod Wildfire – a thinly-veiled caricature of Crockett – opened in New York to great success. In 1834, Crockett published his autobiography and went on a tour of Eastern cities to promote it, building on his image as a backwoods common man.

In 1835, the first in a series of Crockett almanacs was published. These consisted of tall tales and folksy sayings, interspersed with information on the phases of the moon and weather predictions. “Crockett emerged in the stories as an American Hercules – wading the Mississippi, steering an alligator up Niagara Falls, straddling a streak of lightning, wringing the tail of a comet, and kicking the sun loose from its frozen axis.” (5) The Crockett almanacs continued to be published until 1856.

In 1836, a book that claimed to be Davy Crockett’s journal was published under the title Col. Crockett’s Exploits and Adventures in Texas: wherein is contained a full account of his journey from Tennessee to the Red River and Natchitoches, and thence across Texas to San Antonio; including many hair-breadth escapes; together with a topographical, historical, and political view of Texas … Written by Himself. It was actually written by American playwright Richard Penn Smith. Largely fictional, it became hugely popular and influenced public perceptions of the Texas Revolution and Davy Crockett’s career.

Stories about Davy Crockett were reprinted and popularized through stage plays and – later – movies, television, and a comic strip. Many people are familiar with Crockett from a 1954-55 Disney television miniseries in which he was played by Fess Parker. The show had a memorable theme song, “The Ballad of Davy Crockett.” Crockett was also famously portrayed by John Wayne in the 1960 film The Alamo.

According to historian Paul Andrew Hutton, Davy Crockett “didn’t kill a bear when he was three, didn’t care much for fighting Indians, didn’t look like Fess Parker (in fact, portraits of him depict a stocky, middle-aged businessman), didn’t go down swinging Old Betsy at the Alamo (he left his favorite rifle in Tennessee, and yes, it’s true – he surrendered at the Alamo).” (6)

Since Crockett’s speech on how to win an election comes from Richard Penn Smith’s account, there’s a good chance that it was made up too.

You might also enjoy:

Jim Bowie Before the Gaudy Legend

San Antonio in the Early 1800s

Jean Laffite: Mexican Gulf Pirate and Privateer

Paul Andrew Hutton, “Davy Crockett, Still King of the Wild Frontier,” Texas Monthly, November 1986; https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/davy-crockett-still-king-of-the-wild-frontier/, accessed October 29, 2020.
Ibid.
David Crockett, Narrative of the Life of David Crockett, of the State of Tennessee (Philadelphia, 1834), p. 169.
Richard Penn Smith, David Crockett, Crockett’s Exploits and Adventures in Texas (Philadelphia, 1836), pp. 56-59.
Hutton, “Davy Crockett, Still King of the Wild Frontier.”
Ibid.

The Lively, a schooner that many 19th-century Texans believed had been lost with all its passengers, did meet its end in a shipwreck, but not with loss of life. Here’s how events got conflated in early Texas folklore.

A schooner, larger than the Lively, in a storm

Schooner O. H. Booth in a Storm, 1862. Source: Museum of Fine Arts Boston. Gift of Maxim Karolik for the M. and M. Karolik Collection of American Watercolors and Drawings, 1800–1875

The Lively’s first Texas voyage

In 1821, Stephen F. Austin took up his father’s plan to settle 300 American families in Texas, which was then part of Mexico. Austin chose a tract of land between the Colorado and Brazos Rivers. In New Orleans, Austin and his business partner, Joseph H. Hawkins, purchased the Lively, a small schooner of thirty tons burden, for $600. The vessel was fitted out and loaded with provisions, tools, seeds and other supplies for the new colony. One of the passengers, William S. Lewis, described the provisions.

There were six sacks of salt, four barrels of mess pork, six barrels flour, three barrels Irish potatoes, a small cask of side bacon, several boxes and barrels of pilot and sea bread, a tierce of rice and lard, but little of which was put ashore when we landed…. (1)

The Lively set sail around November 23, 1821, with over 20 men on board.

The list of the passengers was as follows: The two Lovelaces [brothers Edward and Jackson], Stephen Holston, Young [James E.A.] Phelps, Mr. Harrison, Captain Jennings, Captain Cannon [in command of the vessel], Mr. Butler, and myself [William Lewis], making nine in all, to occupy the cabin, when there were but seven berths. The list of the other immigrants, as far as I can recollected, was as follows: Nelson, an engineer from New York, who came out on the ‘Feliciana’’; a Mr. James Beard, fifty years old; Beddinger, a small man forty years old; Mr. Wilson; Mr. Williams; Mr. Mattigan; Mr. Thompson, a carpenter; Mr. Willis; William, the servant of Mr. Harrison; a man named O’Neal; and two or three others whose names I have forgotten or never knew. (2)

The captain was instructed to sound the Texas coast and land in Matagorda Bay, at the mouth of the Colorado. Around the same time, Austin left New Orleans to travel overland to Texas, by way of Natchitoches with another group of colonists.

Austin’s party reached the Colorado River in late December. Austin proceeded downriver through the wilderness to meet the Lively, but the ship failed to appear.

[A]fter waiting nearly 3 weeks at that place and vicinity, subsisting on catfish and wild onions – without bread or salt [Austin] despaired of meeting his vessel and ascended the river to the la Bahia Crossing. There he met his brother [James] E. B. Austin and they proceeded on together with 20 men to San Antonio where he arrived on the 15 of March 1822 much fatigued and reduced in the flesh. (3)

Austin feared the Lively had been lost. In fact it had arrived in Texas, but not at the Colorado River.

We had gotten through the Rigolets and into the blue gulf. It had been threatening weather for two or three days. This overtook us about 12 o’clock our first night out, and for thirty-six hours there blew a terrible gale. We were driven, it was said, among the Bahamas, or some of the islands in that region, and when it ceased we were becalmed for a similar length of time. The wind was nearly all the time contrary, and then came another storm of wind and rain, and we did not reach the coast for over four weeks so as to make a landing or learn where we were, when finally we located ourselves in the neighborhood of the bay of Sabine. Having then a fine east wind, we sailed west and passed the opening of the bay of Galveston. We beat back and saw the mouth of the Brazos, but at the time did not suspect it to be a river. We returned to the entrance of Galveston bay. (4)

In late December, the Lively mistakenly landed its cargo and passengers at the mouth of the Brazos River. The ship then continued further along the coast to make soundings. Thinking they were at the Colorado, six or seven of the men started up the river in a boat to see if they could find Austin, while the rest remained to watch the stores. When the exploratory party returned six days later without news of Austin, the entire group moved upriver a few miles. They then spent three weeks building boats to carry the tools and supplies to a place more suitable for settlement. They soon exhausted their provisions and were dependent on hunting game for food. Around February 1, 1822, they embarked their goods on seven boats and worked their way up the Brazos to what is now Richmond, Texas. They built a large log house and planted a crop of corn. Unfortunately, there was a severe drought that year, so they did not reap the expected bounty.

Meanwhile, Austin had left for Mexico City to confirm his land grant. He was away for a year and a half, much longer than intended (see my post about Austin). Discouraged, many colonists returned to the United States, including most of the men from the Lively. Those who stayed in Texas included William Little, James Beard and James A.E. Phelps.

The Lively’s second Texas voyage

By early February 1822, the Lively was back in New Orleans, where it took on a second load of supplies and emigrants bound for Austin’s colony. The Lively sailed sometime between April and June and was wrecked on Galveston Island, with loss of cargo but no recorded loss of life. The passengers were taken off the island by the schooner John Motley and put ashore near the mouth of the Colorado River in June 1822. They left most of their provisions and property in the care of three men at the landing site. These men were reportedly murdered by Karankawas, who carried away or destroyed the goods belonging to the settlers. Galveston Island is where some of Napoleon’s followers fictionally wind up after a shipwreck in Napoleon in America.

Cargo from the Lively’s first voyage eventually reached San Antonio. Austin wrote from Mexico instructing his brother James to “sell the articles for cash or mules,” except for the trunks, which were to be kept safe until his return: “there are some things in one of them for the Governor and his Lady.” (5) Joseph Hawkins had earlier written to Austin wondering how he had been received “by those whose friendships we most need?”

Did the little presents to our friends meet the welcome hoped for? Did they please? Do they begin to believe we are something more than mere swinish multitude? Did the fair ones grow more fair and the kind ones more kind? (6)

On May 4, 1823, James wrote to Austin, advising that “[m]ost of the articles…sent out in the Lively the first voyage are disposed of in various ways….” Austin replied from Saltillo on May 10.

I am very glad Littleberry Hawkins took charge of the things from the Lively…. [I]f he still has the suit of blue request him to keep it until I arrive. I am destitute of clothes and want it. (7)

The legend of the Lively

The fact that the Lively did not meet Austin at the mouth of the Colorado River led to the rumour that the vessel and its passengers had been lost. According to William Lewis, “[i]t was said we were all lost in attempting to pass the bar at the mouth of the Brazos. Another story was that we had been murdered by the Indians.” (8)

Even though some of the original Lively passengers remained in Texas and had plenty of contact with other colonists, the rumour spread widely and became accepted as truth. It even made its way into some early histories of Texas. This error was not corrected until later in the 19th century. Historian Eugene Barker wrote:

Though the history of the Lively was well known to the early settlers, Austin’s failure to find the first immigrants and the subsequent loss of the vessel became confused in the memory of later arrivals. This accounts for the legend of its mysterious disappearance with all on board. (9)

You might also enjoy:

The Karankawa Indians of Texas

Advice to Texas Settlers in the 1830s

The Wreck of the Packet Ship Albion

San Antonio in the Early 1800s

William S. Lewis, “The Adventures of the ‘Lively’ Immigrants,” The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Vol. 3, No. 1 (July 1899), p. 14.
Ibid., p. 14.
Eugene C. Barker, ed., Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1919: Vol. II: The Austin Papers, Part 1 (Washington, 1924), pp. 4-5.
“The Adventures of the ‘Lively’ Immigrants,” p. 16.
The Austin Papers, Part 1, p. 516.
Ibid., p. 477.
Ibid., p. 639.
“The Adventures of the ‘Lively’ Immigrants,” p. 15.
Eugene C. Barker, The Life of Stephen F. Austin (Nashville, 1925), p. 44.

At a time when the quality of public discourse is often complained of, it’s interesting to look back to when people took oratory, or eloquence in public speaking, seriously. One such period was 200 years ago, in the early 19th century. Inspired by Greek and Roman ideals, politicians, lawyers, religious leaders and other public speakers sought to stir emotions, change minds and inspire action by speaking so masterfully that people would pack rooms just to hear what they said.

Henry Clay demonstrating his oratorical skills in the Senate in 1850. Daniel Webster is seated to the left of Clay, and John C. Calhoun to the left of the Speaker’s chair.

Oratory an ancient skill

Orators were held in high esteem in ancient Greece and ancient Rome, where citizens participated in government. Rhetoric (the art of persuasive speaking) was formally taught to boys, and politicians were expected to be good speakers. Cicero, one of Rome’s most famous orators, wrote of the “incredible magnitude and difficulty of the art” of oratory.

A knowledge of a vast number of things is necessary, without which volubility of words is empty and ridiculous; speech itself is to be formed, not merely by choice, but by careful construction of words; and all the motions of the mind, which nature has given to man, must be intimately known; for all the force and art of speaking must be employed in allaying or exciting the feelings of those who listen. To this must be added a certain portion of grace and wit, learning worthy of a well-bred man, and quickness and brevity in replying as well as attacking, accompanied with a refined decorum and urbanity. Besides, the whole of antiquity and a multitude of examples is to be kept in the memory; nor is the knowledge of laws in general, or of the civil law in particular, to be neglected. And why need I add any remarks on delivery itself, which is to be ordered by action of body, by gesture, by look, and by modulation and variation of the voice, the great power of which, alone and itself, the comparatively trivial art of actors and the stage proves, on which though all bestow their utmost labour to form their look, voice, and gesture, who knows not how few there are, and have ever been, to whom we can attend with patience? What can I say of that repository for all things, the memory, which, unless it be made the keeper of the matter and words that are the fruits of thought and invention, all the talents of the orator, we see, though they be of the highest degree of excellence, will be of no avail? (1)

Oratory was a less useful skill in the feudal, monarchical and oligarchical governments of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The Enlightenment, and the American and French Revolutions, occasioned a revival of interest in Greek and Roman democratic and republican traditions, including civic eloquence. Oratory again became regarded as an important practice of a free people.

How to be a good orator

A “how to” book published in 1823 defined oratory as “the art of communicating, by the immediate action of the vocal and expressive organs, to popular, or to select assemblies, the dictates of our reason, or our will, and the workings of our passions, feelings, and imaginations.”

Oratory…includes the idea of eloquence; for no man can be an orator who possesses not a flow of thought and language. But eloquence does not necessarily include the idea of oratory; since a man may be rich in all the stores of language and thought, without possessing the advantage of a graceful and impressive delivery. (2)

Instruction in oratory included pronunciation, voice, articulation, punctuation, pausing, gestures and expression. This involved many rules, such as:

When a sentence concludes an antithesis, the first branch of which requires the strong emphasis, and therefore demands the falling inflection; the second branch requires the weak emphasis and the rising inflection. (3)

In calm and sedate discourses, the head should keep its natural state and upright posture, occasionally moving, and turning gently, sometimes on one side, and sometimes on the other, as occasion requires, and then returning to its natural position. It should always accompany the other actions of the body, except in aversion, which is expressed by stretching out the right hand, and turning the head to the left. But nothing is more indecent than violent motions and agitations of the head. (4)

The settings in which oratorical skills were thought to be most applicable were the law, religion, politics, theatre, and public meetings. There was a sense that instruction was needed, particularly when it came to political oratory.

It is in the senate alone, and the popular assemblies of the nation, that the orator is to hurry away the impetuous passions, and transport the hearer into absolute action; and there only are, of course, required the full thunders of elocutionary energy. But it is not only in the fervid tones of an impetuous declamation that the senatorial elocutionist should excel; in the calm dignity of a well-modulated cadence, and the polished grace and propriety of enunciation, he should also surpass; and in the easy urbanity of tone and euphony (when the stronger exertions of eloquence are not required) he should manifest, at once the dignity of the statesman, and the elegance and refinement of the polite scholar. How little these circumstances (almost all of them within the reach of a well-directed education) are attended to, is but too generally known; and in the humble state of modern oratory (as judged by its effects) the consequences may but too well be discovered. (5)

John Quincy Adams on oratory

America’s sixth president, John Quincy Adams, was a big fan of the ancient ideal of the citizen-orator. In 1805, Adams was offered the Boylston Professorship of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard, a position he held from 1806 to 1808 while he was a senator from Massachusetts. Adams gave a series of lectures in which he extolled the virtues of oratory and its importance to the United States.

Between authority and obedience there can be no deliberation; and wheresoever submission is the principle of government in a nation, eloquence can never arise. Eloquence is the child of liberty, and can descend from no other stock. …

[Our] own nation is at this time precisely under the same circumstances which were so propitious to the advancement of rhetoric and oratory among the Greeks. Like them, we are divided into a number of separate commonwealths, all founded upon the principles of the most enlarged social and civil liberty. Like them, we are united in certain great national interests, and connected by a confederation, differing indeed in many essential particulars from theirs, but perhaps in a still higher degree favorable to the influence and exertion of eloquence. … Persuasion, or the influence of reason and of feeling, is the great if not the only instrument whose operation can affect the acts of all our corporate bodies; of towns, cities, counties, states, and of the whole confederated empire. Here, then, eloquence is recommended by the most elevated usefulness, and encouraged by the promise of the most precious rewards. … So dear, and so justly dear to us are the blessings of freedom, that if no other advantage could be ascribed to the powers of speech, than that they are her inseparable companions, that alone would be an unanswerable argument for us to cherish them with more than a mother’s affection. (6)

Examples of great orators

According to Congressional librarian George Watterston, John Quincy Adams was not in the first rank of orators.

He is evidently well skilled in the rhetorical art on which he has lectured, and in which he displays considerable research and ability; but whether he succeeded in reducing his principles to practice, while a member of the Senate, I am not able to say. I should infer, however, that his speeches were more correct and polished, if they were not more eloquent, than those of his coadjutors in legislation. Yet after all…there is something more required to complete an orator than the mere knowledge and practice of those principles which rhetoricians have established as the ground work of this art. If there be an absence of that peculiar kind of talent, or want of that peculiar enthusiasm, which propels the mind to embrace with ardour and delight the profession of an orator, the most intimate and accurate knowledge or the most perfect dexterity in the use of the ‘rhetorician’s tools’ will be inadequate to produce excellence. And, however skilfully a man may round his periods and balance his sentences, select his phrases or direct their harmony; without that ethereal and incomprehensible power which gives animation to matter, sweeps through nature like the lightning of Heaven, and creates and embodies and unfolds; he will still be cold and tame and spiritless, correct indeed but frigid, regular but insensible. From what I can learn, Mr. Adams, with all his knowledge and talent, did not attain the first rank among American orators. He wanted enthusiasm and fire; he wanted that nameless charm which, in oratory as well as poetry, delights and fascinates, and leads the soul captive, without the desire of resistance, or the consciousness of error. (7)

Below are some examples of oratory from people who were thought, by their contemporaries, to be great orators. Along with Adams, two of them appear as characters in Napoleon in America.

Robert Hall on the prospect of Napoleon invading England

Robert Hall (1764-1831), a Baptist minister at Cambridge in England, was reckoned among the greatest British orators of the early 19th century. Here is an extract from his sermon on the prospect of the invasion of England by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1803.

To form an adequate idea of the duties of this crisis, it will be necessary to raise your minds to a level with your station, to extend your views to a distant futurity, and to consequences the most certain, though most remote. By a series of criminal enterprises, by the successes of guilty ambition, the liberties of Europe have been gradually extinguished: the subjugation of Holland, Switzerland, and the free towns of Germany, has completed that catastrophe: and we are the only people in the eastern hemisphere who are in possession of equal laws, and a free constitution. Freedom, driven from every spot on the continent, has sought an asylum in a country which she always chose for her favourite abode: but she is pursued even here, and threatened with destruction. The inundation of lawless power, after covering the whole earth, threatens to follow us here; and we are most exactly, most critically placed in the only aperture where it can be successfully repelled – in the Thermopylae of the world. As far as the interests of freedom are concerned, the most important by far of sublunary interests, you, my countrymen, stand in the capacity of the federal representatives of the human race; for with you it is to determine (under God) in what condition the latest posterity shall be born; their fortunes are intrusted to your care, and on your conduct at this moment depend the colour and complexion of their destiny.

If Liberty, after being extinguished on the continent, is suffered to expire here, whence is it every to emerge in the midst of that thick night that will invest it? It remains with you then to decide whether that Freedom, at whose voice the kingdoms of Europe awoke from the sleep of ages, to run a career of virtuous emulation in every thing great and good; the Freedom which dispelled the mists of superstition, and invited the nations to behold their God; whose magic torch kindled the rays of genius, the enthusiasm of poetry, and the flame of eloquence; the Freedom which poured into our lap opulence and arts, and embellished life with innumerable institutions and improvements, till it became a theatre of wonders; it is for you to decide, whether this Freedom shall yet survive, or be covered with a funeral pall, and wrapped in eternal doom. … I cannot but imagine that the virtuous heroes, legislators, and patriots of every age and country, are bending from their elevated seats to witness this contest, as if they were incapable, till it be brought to a favourable issue, of enjoying their eternal repose. (8)

John C. Calhoun on the need for war against Britain

John C. Calhoun (1782-1850) was a South Carolina planter and politician who served in the House of Representatives and the Senate, and as secretary of war, secretary of state and seventh vice president. Although he was short on charisma, Calhoun was considered a brilliant orator. James C. Jewett, a citizen of Maine, wrote in 1817:

Yesterday I had the pleasure to listen to (in my opinion, and generally speaking, the opinion of all good judges,) the most elegant speaker that sits in the House. I mean Mr. Calhoun. His gestures are easy and graceful, his manner forcible, and language elegant; but above all, he confines himself closely to the subject, which he always understands, and enlightens everyone within hearing; having said all that a statesman should say, he is done. (9)

Calhoun’s skill at oratory helped propel the United States into the War of 1812 against Great Britain. Here’s an excerpt from one of his speeches to the House, delivered on December 12, 1811.

[T]he report could mean nothing but war or empty menace. I hope no member of this House is in favor of the latter. A bullying, menacing system has every thing to condemn and nothing to recommend it. In expense, it almost rivals war. It excites contempt abroad, and destroys confidence at home. Menaces are serious things; and ought to be resorted to with as much caution and seriousness as war itself; and should, if not successful, be invariably followed by it….

I might prove the war, should it ensue, justifiable…and necessary, by facts undoubted, and universally admitted…. The extent, duration, and character of the injuries received; the failure of those peaceful means heretofore resorted to for the redress of our wrongs, are my proofs that it is necessary. Why should I mention the impressment of our seamen; depredations on every branch of our commerce, including the direct export trade, continued for years, and made under laws which professedly undertake to regulate our trade with other nations; negotiation resorted to, again and again, till it is become hopeless; the restrictive system persisted in to avoid war, and in the vain expectation of returning justice? The evil still grows, and, in each succeeding year, swells in extent and pretension beyond the preceding. The question, even in the opinion and by the admission of our opponents, is reduced to this single point – Which shall we do, abandon or defend our own commercial and maritime rights, and the personal liberty of our citizens employed in exercising them? These rights are vitally attacked, and war is the only means of redress. The gentleman from Virginia [John Randolph] has suggested none, unless we consider the whole of his speech as recommending patient and resigned submission as the best remedy. Sir, which alternative this House will embrace, it is not for me to say. I hope the decision is made already, by a higher authority than the voice of any man. It is not for the human tongue to instil the sense of independence and honor. This is the work of nature; a generous nature that disdains tame submission to wrongs.

This part of the subject is so imposing as to enforce silence even on the gentleman from Virginia. He dared not deny his country’s wrongs, or vindicate the conduct of her enemy. Only one part of his argument had any, the most remote relation to this point. He would not say, we had not a good cause for war; but insisted, that it was out duty to define that cause. If he means that this House ought, at this stage of its proceedings, or any other, to specify any particular violation of our rights to the exclusion of all others, he prescribes a course, which neither good sense nor the usage of nations warrants. When we contend, let us contend for all our rights; the doubtful and the certain; the unimportant and essential. It is as easy to struggle, or even more so, for the whole as for a part. At the termination of the contest, secure all that our wisdom and valor and the fortune of war will permit. This is the dictate of common sense; such also is the usage of nations. (10)

Daniel Webster on a jury’s duty

Daniel Webster (1782-1852) was an American lawyer and statesman who represented New Hampshire and Massachusetts in Congress and served as secretary of state under three presidents. He was widely regarded as an excellent orator. As a lawyer, Webster argued over 200 cases before the Supreme Court. British social theorist and writer Harriet Martineau observed his oratory on a visit to Washington in 1835.

[I]t was amusing to see how the court would fill after the entrance of Webster, and empty when he had gone back to the Senate Chamber. The chief interest to me in Webster’s pleading, and also in his speaking in the Senate, was from seeing one so dreamy and nonchalant roused into strong excitement. It seemed like having a curtain lifted up through which it was impossible to pry; like hearing autobiographical secrets. Webster is a lover of ease and pleasure, and has an air of the most unaffected indolence and careless self-sufficiency. It is something to see him moved with anxiety and the toil of intellectual conflict; to see his lips tremble, his nostrils expand, the perspiration start upon his brow; to hear his voice vary with emotion, and to watch the expression of laborious thought while he pauses, for minutes together, to consider his notes, and decide upon the arrangement of his argument. (11)

Webster was the prosecuting attorney at the trial of John Francis Knapp for the murder of Captain Joseph White in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1830. Here is the opening of his summation for the jury.

Your whole concern should be to do your duty, and leave consequences to take care of themselves. You will receive the law from the court. Your verdict, it is true, may endanger the prisoner’s life; but, then, it is to save other lives. If the prisoner’s guilt has been shown and proved beyond all reasonable doubt, you will convict him. If such reasonable doubts still remain, you will acquit him. You are the judges of the whole case. You owe a duty to the public as well as to the prisoner at the bar. You cannot presume to be wiser than the law. Your duty is a plain, straightforward one. Doubtless, we would all judge him in mercy. Towards him, as an individual, the law inculcates no hostility; but towards him, if proved to be a murderer, the law, and the oaths you have taken, and public justice, demand that you do your duty.

With consciences satisfied with the discharge of duty, no consequences can harm you. There is no evil that we cannot face or fly from but the consciousness of duty disregarded.

A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent, like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the seas, duty performed or duty violated is still with us, for our happiness or our misery. If we say the darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as in the light our obligations are yet with us. We cannot escape their power nor fly from their presence. They are with us in this life, will be with us at its close; and in that scene of inconceivable solemnity which lies yet farther onward, we shall still find ourselves surrounded by the consciousness of duty, to pain us wherever it has been violated, and to console us so far as God may have given us grace to perform it. (12)

Henry Clay on the plight of the Cherokees

Henry Clay (1777-1852) was a lawyer and statesman who represented Kentucky in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. He was the seventh House speaker and America’s ninth secretary of state. Harriet Martineau observed Clay speak in the Senate during her visit to Washington in 1835.

The chief characteristic of his eloquence is its earnestness. Every tone of his voice, every fibre of his frame bears testimony to this. His attitudes are, from the beginning to the close, very graceful. His first sentences are homely, and given with a little hesitation and repetition, and with an agitation shown by a frequent putting on and taking off of the spectacles, and a trembling of the hands among the documents on the desk. Then, as the speaker becomes possessed with his subject, the agitation changes its character, but does not subside. His utterance is still deliberate, but his voice becomes deliciously winning. Its higher tones disappointed me at first; but the lower ones, trembling with emotion, swelling and falling with the earnestness of the speaker, are very moving, and his whole manner becomes irresistibly persuasive. I saw tears, of which I am sure he was wholly unconscious, falling on his papers as he vividly described the woes and injuries of the aborigines. I saw Webster draw his hand across his eyes; I saw every one deeply moved except two persons, the vice-president, who yawned somewhat ostentatiously, and the Georgian senator, who was busy brewing his storm. (13)

The speech Clay delivered was on the subject of the treatment of the Cherokees by Georgia. Here is a portion of his oratory.

I go into this subject with feelings which no language at my command will enable me adequately to express. … I am actuated only by feelings of grief, feelings of sorrow, and of profound regret, irresistibly called forth by a contemplation of the miserable condition to which these unfortunate people have been reduced by acts of legislation proceeding from one of the State of this confederacy. I again assure the honorable senators from Georgia that, if it has become my painful duty to comment upon some of these acts, I do not with any desire to place them, or the State they represent, in an invidious position; but because Georgia was, I believe, the first in the career, the object of which seems to be the utter annihilation of every Indian right, and because she has certainly, in the promotion of it, far out-stripped every other State in the Union. …

[I]n the observations I have made, I am actuated by no other than such as ought to be in the breast of every honest man, the feelings of common justice. I would say nothing, I would whisper nothing, I would insinuate nothing, I would think nothing which can, in the remotest degree, cause irritation in the mind of any one, of any Senator here, of any State in this Union, I have too much respect for every member of the confederacy. I feel nothing but grief for the wretched condition of these most unfortunate people, and every emotion of my bosom dissuades me from the use of epithets that might raise emotions which should draw the attention of the Senate from the justice of their claims. I forbear to apply to this law any epithet of any kind. Sir, no epithet is needed. The features of the law itself; its warrant for the interposition of military power, when no trial and no judgment has been allowed; its denial of any appeal, unless the unhappy Indian shall first renounce his own rights, and admit the rights of his opponent – features such as these are enough to show what the true character of the act is, and supersede the necessity of all epithets, were I even capable of applying them.

The Senate will thus perceive that the whole power of the State of Georgia, military as well as civil, has been made to bear upon these Indians, without their having any voice in forming, judging upon, or executing the laws under which he is placed, and without even the poor privilege of establishing the injury he may have suffered by Indian evidence: nay, worse still, not even by the evidence of a white man! Because the renunciation of his rights precludes all evidence, white or black, civilized or savage. There then he lies, with his property, his rights, and every privilege which makes human existence desirable, at the mercy of the State of Georgia; a State in whose government or laws he has no voice. Sir, it is impossible for the most active imagination to conceive a condition of human society more perfectly wretched. …

To me, in that awful hour of death, to which all must come, and which, with respect to myself, cannot be very far distant, it will be a source of the highest consolation that an opportunity has been found by me, on the floor of the Senate, in the discharge of my official duty, to pronounce my views on a course of policy marked by such wrongs as are calculated to arrest the attention of every one, and that I have raised my humble voice, and pronounced my solemn protest against such wrongs. (14)

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Last Words of Famous People

John Selby Watson, ed., Cicero on Oratory and Orators (London, 1855), pp. 147-148.
Robert James Ball, The Academic Cicero; or Exercises in Modern Oratory (Dublin, 1823), p. 2.
Ibid., p. 82.
Ibid., p. 112.
Ibid., p. 120.
John Quincy Adams, Lectures on Rhetoric and Oratory, Vol. I (Cambridge, MA, 1810), pp. 68-71.
George Watterston, Letters from Washington, on the Constitution and Laws; with Sketches of Some of the Prominent Public Characters of the United States, (Washington, 1818), pp. 44-45.
Ball, The Academic Cicero, pp. 184-186.
“The United States Congress of 1817 and Some of its Celebrities,” William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 2 (October, 1908), p. 143.
Frank Moore, American Eloquence: A Collection of Speeches and Addresses, by the Most Eminent Orators of America, Vol. II (New York, 1857), pp. 475-476.
Harriet Martineau, Retrospect of Western Travel, Vol. I (London, 1838), p. 166.
Ibid., 169.
Ibid., p. 178.
Henry Clay, The Life and Speeches of Henry Clay, Vol. II (Philadelphia, 1860), pp. 256-265.

France and England were at war for most of the period between 1793 and 1814. This made tourism between the two countries extremely difficult. After Napoleon was defeated and exiled to Elba in April 1814, English visitors flocked across the English Channel, eager to see Paris now that France was under the rule of England’s ally, King Louis XVIII. One of those making the trip was British journalist John Scott, who left the following account of one of his countrymen.

A French Diligence, by John Samuel Templeton, 1829

The chances of travelling threw amongst our party a young English shopkeeper, who had taken it into his head to pay a visit to Paris of one week’s duration. He must, he said, be back to business by Monday for the bustling time was coming on. He knew not one word of the French language, nor a single individual in the French capital: his days and nights had been devoted, not to Belles-Lettres, but to the ledger; yet he was determined to see for himself what was fine in the Louvre. This was the great object of his expedition and it was disappointed — for the Louvre was shut against the public when he arrived, and he did not stay long enough to enable us to fulfill our promise of procuring him a permission to be admitted. He was an excellent national specimen, of faults as well as of good qualities, and furnished some amusing contrasts on the road; so that his introduction here will probably be held very excusable.

Never were instinctive curiosity, personal confidence, and regardless intrepidity more conspicuous than in the travels of this personage. He knew but one side of every question, and he was as positive as if he had spent his life in impartial examination; he had provided for nothing, but he was quite sure of finding himself comfortable in every thing. He had not procured a passport, for he was certain passports were all nonsense, — they would never dare to stop an Englishman; one could travel all over England without a passport. He had no letter of credit, or French money of any kind; but he had plenty of bank-notes, and he would like to see a Frenchman refuse a Bank of England note! Of course he was exposed to many difficulties, which, had he been alone, he would have found serious; but he treated them all with the utmost carelessness, and attributed them to the awkwardness and ignorance of the people amongst whom he had come.

The first occurrence that a little shook his notion that an Englishman might stride, like a superior being, over France, just as he pleased, attending to none of its customs or rules, and treated with respectful submission by its inhabitants, — was the entrance of a young French dragoon officer, of a fine commanding figure, and authoritative expression of face, into the diligence. Our shopkeeper saluted him with just such a look of familiar examination as that with which Sir Joseph Banks would regard an inhabitant of a South Sea island on his first visit to Soho square: but there was a checking haughtiness in the returned glances that soon had its influence on the spirits and behaviour of our countryman.

The soldier, it was easy to see, had no feeling of partiality towards the foreigners he had accidentally joined: and he soon explained the state of his mind in this respect by pulling out of his pocket a snuffbox, on the top of which there was a beautiful portrait of Napoleon in enamel. He carried his devotion so far as to bear about his person another portrait of the same individual suspended by a black ribbon, worn round his neck. He was evidently a gentleman, and was the first we had seen in France who bore that assurance in his external appearance: this circumstance I believe repressed our companion far more than the fierce sword and fiercer looks of the stranger.

Besides, all that our traveller had read in his country’s newspapers of that monster Buonaparte, rushed into his mind, and to have before his eyes, and actually touching his knees, a man who wore the pictures of such a wretch, who clearly regretted his downfall, and who had most probably taken a part in his dreadful deeds, quite bewildered the comprehension, and overpowered the senses of the Englishman. He probably would not have felt more alarmed or horror-struck if Dr. Faustus, immediately after making over his soul to the Devil, had sat down within six inches of him; or if one of those human beings who float down the Ganges, devouring corpses, had come reeking from such a repast to breathe in his face.

The officer resisted conversation with more firmness than is usual in France: it generally happens there that sulkiness soon gives way to loquacity, but our military companion cut off the approaches to his sentiments, and shut himself up in almost total incommunicativeness. Once only he made an observation which bore on the state of public affairs; — and it was perfectly explanatory of the whole system of his thinking — its causes as well as its condition. Something was said to convey a civil compliment to France, in an expression of satisfaction that she was now open to the visits of Englishmen, and a hope was added, that this pleasant intercourse might last, and the tranquillity of Europe remain uninterrupted. The remark was not addressed to the officer, but he replied to it, evidently under a strong impulse. ‘Very good, Gentlemen, — this tranquillity of Europe is a fine thing, but will it not keep me always a Captain?’ — Toujours Capitaine, was the emphatic conclusion of this sudden burst from taciturnity.

He did not long continue with us, and the traveller of a week looked after him as he descended the steps of the vehicle, as a man looks after the smoke of a piece of artillery that has suddenly gone off near him, and startled him more through the influence of surprise than of fear. Our countryman withdrew his looks slowly from the disappearing object of his astonishment and then fixed his eyes on ours, as if to say — ‘Well, this is something, however!’

To those of us who had spoken to the Frenchman, he addressed himself with that sort of admiring curiosity for information which the crowd, who visit a menagerie of wild beasts, show towards the man who dare put his hand into the lion’s mouth, and venture within reach of the tiger’s paw. ‘Did he really, then, like Buonaparte’? — ‘Had he been at Moscow?’ — ‘Was he likely to rebel against Louis the Eighteenth?’ (1)

The Englishman got his answer in March 1815, when Napoleon — having escaped from Elba — returned to France and was welcomed by enough of his former soldiers to enable him to peacefully regain the French throne. Napoleon remained in power for three months before being defeated by a coalition of British, German, Dutch-Belgian and Prussian forces at the Battle of Waterloo. He was exiled to the remote island of St. Helena where he died in 1821.

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John Scott, A Visit to Paris in 1814 (London, 1815), pp. 42-46.

Was Napoleon Bonaparte a good leader? Was he a hero or a tyrant? I often get asked questions that boil down to “was Napoleon good or bad?” It is not an easy question to answer. Like most of us, he was neither entirely good, nor entirely bad. Reasonable people can disagree about how Napoleon’s life and legacy should be regarded. The answer depends on what you value, and by what standards you are judging him. Below is a brief summary of arguments usually made in favour of, and against, Napoleon.

Napoleon Crossing the Alps, by Jacques-Louis David

Napoleon the good

Napoleon was an excellent general.

Napoleon was an exceptional military commander (see, for example, “Napoleon was the Best General Ever, and the Math Proves it”). He fought over 70 battles, and was defeated in only eight. He transformed the way in which the French army operated and turned France into the greatest military power in Europe. His confidence and ambition inspired his troops, and their victories brought glory to France.

Napoleon saved France from the chaos of the French Revolution.

Napoleon brought stable government to France after years of violent political turmoil resulting from the French Revolution of 1789. He granted amnesty to most émigrés (royalists who had fled the country after the Revolution), and admitted a number of talented émigrés to government service.

Napoleon established the Napoleonic Code.

Under Napoleon’s guidance, a commission of jurists finished drafting a body of clearly written civil laws to replace the patchwork of customary feudal and religious laws that existed in France (the effort to come up with a rational, uniform set of laws actually started before he came to power). The code recognized the principles of civil liberty, the equality of men before the law, and the secular nature of the state. The Napoleonic Code influenced the development of legal systems around the world. It remains the basis of civil law in France, Belgium and many former French colonies.

Napoleon introduced beneficial reforms in France.

Napoleon brought a number of useful innovations to France that survive to this day. He centralized government administration and introduced the prefecture system. He facilitated the adoption of the metric system, built public roads and sewers, and instituted a system of state-supported secondary education, through the lycées. He established a stable, single currency and created the Bank of France. He introduced meritocracy to both the French government and the French army, in which people were promoted on the basis of their ability, rather than on the basis of their family background.

Napoleon reconciled the French state and the Catholic Church.

During the French Revolution, the French church was removed from papal authority, church lands and endowments were seized by the state, and most clergy fled the country. In 1801, Napoleon signed a concordat with the Pope. This agreement acknowledged Catholicism as the religion of the majority of French people. Priests were allowed to return to their churches and preside over worship, although the church’s confiscated property was not returned.

Napoleon the bad

Napoleon compromised the gains of the French Revolution.

The French Revolution ended monarchical rule in France. Napoleon brought it back. Instead of returning power to the people, he truncated the powers of the legislature, rewarded his supporters, had himself proclaimed Emperor, presided over an extravagant court, and showered his family with wealth, positions and privileges. He reduced the rights of women. He ended freedom of the press, constrained freedom of association, and created a new, greedy nobility.

Napoleon was responsible for a lot of death and destruction.

Napoleon kept Europe at war for 15 years. This resulted in an estimated 3.5 million to 6 million deaths, and millions wounded. Numerous cities, towns and villages were looted, bombarded, or burned. Thousands were left homeless. An unknown number of women and girls were raped. Institutions were shattered in the territories he conquered, and the economic life of Europe was severely disrupted. Napoleon’s proponents blame other European countries for the Napoleonic Wars, but in many cases he provoked the allies. He was the one who chose to invade Spain and Russia. He refused to take opportunities for peace when they were offered.

Napoleon was responsible for the massacre at Jaffa

During the Egyptian campaign in 1799, the French laid siege to the city of Jaffa, in what is today Israel and was then under Ottoman (Turkish) control. After capturing the city, Napoleon allowed his troops to spend at least two days looting the place and raping and slaughtering its inhabitants, including the elderly, women, and children. He also ordered the execution of up to 3,000 prisoners of war (mainly Albanians), even though they had been promised mercy when they surrendered to Napoleon’s stepson, Eugène de Beauharnais. The prisoners were marched to the beach and shot or bayoneted. Overall, an estimated 4,100 people were massacred by the French at Jaffa.

Napoleon left France diminished and bankrupt

Napoleon left France in a weaker position than when he started: exhausted by war; out of money; confined to borders that were smaller than when he came to power; shorn of most of her overseas colonies; and at the mercy of victorious allies.

A long debate

The debate over whether Napoleon did more good or harm has been going on ever since he died. When news of Napoleon’s death reached London in 1821, The Times commented: “Upon the whole, Buonaparte will go down to posterity as a man who, having more good at his disposal than any other potentate of any former age, had actually applied his immense means to the production of a greater share of mischief and misery to his fellow-creatures.” (1) In contrast, a liberal paper in Paris observed: “History, an impartial judge, will confess that Napoleon has rendered eminent services to the social order…. The truth must sit upon his tomb; and let us not be diffident in saying that the prisoner of St. Helena will be counted among the great men.” (2)

Over a century later, French President Charles de Gaulle wrote:

Napoleon left France crushed, invaded, drained of blood and courage, smaller than when he had taken control of her destinies, condemned to ill-drawn frontiers, the evils of which still persist, and exposed to the distrust of Europe which has weighed upon her to this day. But it is impossible to dismiss as of no account the matchless lustre which he imparted to our armies.… (3)

More recently, Andrew Roberts and Adam Zamoyski debated whether Napoleon should be regarded as great (watch here and here).

Regardless of one’s view of Napoleon, he has long captured the popular imagination. With his iconic hat, his image is recognized around the world. He has inspired artists, musicians and writers for over 200 years. He has been used to sell everything from antacid to wine. Napoleon was a man of huge ambition and ability who rose to the pinnacle of success and then wound up like Prometheus, chained to a rock. In the words of late 19th-century British Prime Minister Lord Rosebery:

No name represents so completely and conspicuously dominion, splendor, and catastrophe. He raised himself by the use, and ruined himself by the abuse, of superhuman faculties. He was wrecked by the extravagance of his own genius. No less powers than those which had effected his rise could have achieved his fall. (4)

My novel, Napoleon in America, gives Napoleon a second chance, this time in North America.

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The Times, London, July 5, 1821.
Le Constitutionnel, Paris, July 11, 1821.
Charles de Gaulle, France and Her Army (London, 1945), p. 60.
Lord Rosebery, Napoleon: The Last Phase (London, 1900), p. 252.

Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, was fond of children and children were very fond of him. Like the tales of Napoleon with Arthur Bertrand on St. Helena, anecdotes of the Duke of Wellington with his young friends provide a tender picture of Britain’s great soldier and statesman. Wellington’s niece wrote:

The kindness of his heart showed itself in his love of children from the earliest age, the delight he took in their prattle and remarks, and his dislike to any severity being used towards them. He liked to praise them, and always said the best way to make a child good was to show him that he was considered a good child. (1)

Wellington and His Grandchildren, by Robert Thorburn, 1852

The playful Duke of Wellington

Spencer Madan, tutor to the children of the Duke and Duchess of Richmond, described the Duke of Wellington in 1815, not long before the Battle of Waterloo.

The Duke of Wellington seems to unite those two extremes of character which Shakespeare gives to Henry V. – the hero and the trifler. You may conceive him at one moment commanding the allied armies in Spain or presiding at the conference at Vienna, and at another time sprawling on his back or on all fours upon the carpet playing with the children….

In the drawing room before dinner he was playing with the children, who seemed to look up to him as to one on whom they might depend for amusement. When dinner was announced they quitted him with great regret saying, ‘Be sure you remember to send for us the moment dinner is over,’ which he promised to do, and was as good as his word. (2)

This was not the only occasion when children were reluctant to quit the Duke’s company. Another friend noted:

I afterwards learnt from Mademoiselle Brun that the Duke stopped at the corner-house of Walmer village, and got out to take leave of Lady Wilton’s children. They had received so many kindnesses from him, and bore him so much attachment, that all three – poor little things – ran to the door when he wished to go again, and attempted to bar his way. (3)

The Duke of Richmond’s daughter Georgiana recollected:

When we assembled for dinner, we usually found the Duke, who had dressed early, engaged in a regular game of romps with the children, who came down on purpose for what they called the Battle of Waterloo, which commenced by one of them throwing a cushion at the newspaper the Duke was reading. (4)

When the artist Benjamin Haydon visited Walmer Castle in 1839 to paint Wellington’s portrait, he found Wellington unperturbed to have his breakfast interrupted by children.

In the midst, six dear healthy noisy children were brought to the windows. ‘Let them in,’ said the Duke, and in they came, and rushed over to him saying, ‘How d’ye do, Duke? How d’ye do, Duke?’ One boy, young Grey, roared, ‘I want some tea, Duke.’ ‘You shall have it, if you promise not to slop it over me as you did yesterday.’ Toast and tea were then in demand. Three got on one side and three on the other, and he hugged ‘em all. Tea was poured out, and I saw little Grey try to slop it over the Duke’s frock coat. Sir Astley said, ‘You did not expect to see this.’ They then all rushed out on the leads by the cannon, and after breakfast I saw the Duke romping with the whole of them, and one of them gave his Grace a devil of a thump. (5)

Wellington wrote to a friend in October 1851:

I cannot tell you how much I enjoy and prize the affection which children have for me. When they become familiar with me I believe that they consider me one of themselves, and make of me a sort of plaything! They climb upon me and make toys of my Hair and my fingers! They grow up into friends. (6)

The Duke of Wellington’s kindness to children

When he was not romping with children, the Duke of Wellington found other ways to show kindness to them. Georgiana Lennox wrote:

[W]hen he invited his friends to visit him, their children were always included; and on one occasion, passing through the room where some of his juvenile guests were at tea…he was very angry at finding they had no jam, and instantly gave orders it was never to be omitted. When my little girl of five years old – his goddaughter – worked him a pincushion, he apologized for his delay in writing to thank her. (7)

Wellington made “medals” to give to his young friends.

The Duke…kept in a cabinet several half-sovereigns, having a hole drilled through them, through which was passed a blue ribbon; and whenever any of the young nobility visited him, they frequently went away in raptures, having had one of these now precious mementoes placed over their shoulders by the kind old man…. It is a well-known fact that his Grace frequently carried about his person a number of new shillings, for the purpose of distributing among the juveniles of the more humble classes of society. (8)

When the Duke of Wellington was sitting for a portrait by Henry Weigall:

An interesting little girl was present during the sitting, and amused herself with some childish attempts at drawing what she called the ‘windows of the opposite house,’ which she desired to draw the Duke’s attention to. Patting her on the head, he observed, ‘Very meritorious! Very ingenious! I’m considered a great favourite with children. I was at the house of Lord S– the other day, and a fine little fellow was there who had evidently been told that I was coming, and was on the look out for me. He called soldiers ‘Rub-a-dubs.’ As soon as I went in he came up to me, and said, ‘You are are not a Rub-a-dub at all, for you don’t wear a red coat!’

His Grace soon, however, remarked that he was not always fortunate with children. ‘I was lately,’ said the Duke, ‘in the house of a French marquis; they brought in a little child to see me; I wanted to take it in my arms, but the child seemed to have a great aversion to me, and shrunk from me; so I said to the little thing, ‘Pourquoi?’ and clinging to the nurse, it said, ‘Il bat tout le monde!’ I suppose she had heard her nurse say so, and thought I should beat her.’ (9)

In 1851, the Duke of Wellington sent Mary, Lady Salisbury “a machine called a Jump Baby,” for her youngest child’s amusement. Wellington was very concerned that the machine be securely hung up before the child sat in it. “I cannot think this screw sufficiently secure! but Lord Salisbury, or the House Carpenter, who must screw it into the ceiling will know whether it is sufficiently secure to bear the weight. My opinion is that there ought to be some Key upon it, if inserted in a beam in the Ceiling.” Upon learning that the baby jumper was properly installed, he expressed his satisfaction. “It is certainly a delightful instrument!” (10)

The following year, Irish politician John Croker visited the Duke of Wellington and noted:

Lady Barrow’s five little girls were with us, and he won their hearts by writing his name in their albums; in the signature of one, the best written of the five, he wrote his name with a single l. His good humour and kindness to the children, and indeed to everybody, was very pleasing. (11)

And there is reportedly a letter, dated 1837, in which Wellington informs young William Harries that his toad is alive and well.

In the country, one day, the Duke saw in the garden a young boy, whom he recognised as belonging to the gardens, but who was busily engaged in some inscrutable occupation on the ground. The Duke went close and looked, but still could not solve the mystery. ‘What are you about?’ he asked, in his point-blank way. ‘It’s a pet toad I’m feeding,’ answered the boy; ‘and they’re going to send me to school, and the toad will die.’ ‘Never mind; go to school,’ said the great captain; ‘I’ll take care of the toad.’ And so he did. The boy when to school; and subsequently he received a letter which reported the well-being of the toad, in the well-known autograph writing of ‘[Field Marshal] the Duke of Wellington.’ (12)

The Duke of Wellington as babysitter

Friends and relatives of the Duke of Wellington often left their children in his care when they were away. He treated the children with great thoughtfulness, as this anecdote from 1837 at Walmer Castle indicates.

The Duke has now staying with him two little children of Lord and Lady Robert Grosvenor [Wellington’s niece], who are gone abroad, and his conduct to these chicks displays a kindheartedness and warmth of feeling such as their own parents could not surpass, but such as the Duke displays to all. Lady Mahon was told by Lady Mary Grimston who was staying in the house, that the children having expressed their desire to receive letters by the post, the Duke every morning writes a little letter to each of them, containing good advice for the day, which is regularly delivered to them when the post comes in.

It also appears that the Duke gratifies Bo, as they call little Robert, by playing almost every morning with him at football on the ramparts. We saw him playing with them with cushions in the drawing-room before dinner. (13)

Every summer, Wellington’s other niece Priscilla Fane (Lady Burghersh) and her children spent several months at Walmer Castle. “Every possible occasion for giving pleasure or advantages to them was seized by the Duke. Lady Burghersh’s only complaint was that the Duke spoiled the children so outrageously.” Wellington told Priscilla that he was happy to have any of the children stay with him. “I can lodge them all if they were ten times more numerous.” When Priscilla was away, Wellington wrote to her reporting that the children “are looking in the highest health. They come and run and play here upon the rampart. But I don’t think they would come if I was absent. (14)

Priscilla’s son Julian was a special favourite of the Duke’s.

[W]hen the old gardener at Walmer was objecting to a raid on the fruit trees by a party of children, Julian (about 7 or 8 years old) was heard to say, ‘Never mind, let’s go to the Duke; he always allows everything and gives you what you like directly.’ (15)

Priscilla’s daughter Rose remembered Wellington as “some one extraordinarily kind and indulgent, always ready to play with them, and who gave her delicious thrills by carrying her shoulder-high so that she could look down on the lighted lamps.” (16)

In October 1851, a friend of the Duke’s left her children in London while she was away. On learning that the children were nearby, Wellington went to visit them and wrote to their mother:

They were in health, appearance, spirits, and every other respect, as you could wish that they should be…. I desired [their governess] to let me know if any of them should be sick! and gave her my address, and desired her to write to me in case anything should occur to any of them. … You may rely upon it, that if any interference on my part should be necessary, I will do by them exactly as I would if they were my grandchildren. (17)

When two of the children came down with measles, Wellington interviewed the landlady and the governess, met with the apothecary, visited the children in their sick room, and wrote to their mother daily with reports on the children’s health.

Other anecdotes of the Duke of Wellington with children

The Duke’s old Waterloo charger was a great favourite with his master, who would sometimes walk by his side while the groom led him out for an airing. On one occasion our friend’s little boy, a fine, frank fellow, attended by his nurse, was about to pass through the archway at the Horse Guards, in London, when they saw the Duke coming, walking by the side of his horse. By some means ‘Georgie’ attracted his notice, and he began to talk to him. Presently he asked the child whether ‘he would like to be a soldier?’

‘O, that I should!’ was the childlike reply.

‘And to ride on a war-horse, should you my boy?’

‘O, yes!’

‘Up with him; up with him!’ said the Duke, at the same time holding the reins, to allow the groom to hoist master ‘Georgie’ on to the charger’s back.

Great was the child’s delight, proud was his nurse; but quite as happy as either was the renowned warrior who that morning contributed so much to a little fellow’s enjoyment.

We have also another pleasing incident connected with the Duke when out hunting.

A farmer was wishful to prevent the hunters riding over his newly-cultivated fields. He therefore sent a boy to watch at the gate telling him to keep it shut whoever might come. During the day the hungers, as was expected, arrived. ‘Open the gate my boy,’ said one of them. ‘No! I shan’t,’ was the reply. ‘Boy,’ said another horseman, ‘do you know whom you are speaking to? This is His Grace the Duke of Wellington.’ ‘I don’t care,’ said the lad. ‘Master sent me here to keep the gate shut, and I won’t open it for any of you.’ The Duke seeing that the boy was doing his duty smilingly commended him, gave him a sovereign, and rode off another way. (18)

The following anecdote involves the son of Kendall, the Duke’s valet, who was spending the day with his father at Wellington’s London residence, Apsley House.

The Duke’s bell rang; Kendall, answering it, was followed by the lad into the study. ‘Whose boy is that?’ asked the Duke quickly.‘ Mine, your Grace,’ replied Kendall, ‘and I humbly ask your Grace’s pardon for his coming into the room, not knowing your Grace was here.’‘Oh! that is nothing,’ quoth the Duke; ‘but I didn’t know you had a son, Kendall. Send him in and leave him with me.’

So the boy – greatly trembling – was sent in to the Duke, who asked him if he knew to whom he was speaking. ‘Yes, sir – your Grace, I mean.’ ‘Oh, my little fellow,’ answered the Duke, ‘it will be easier for you to call me ‘sir.’ You call your schoolmaster ‘sir,’ don’t ye? Call me ‘sir’ too, if you choose. Now I wonder if you can play draughts.’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Come on then; we’ll have a game, and I’ll give you two men.’

Down they sat; the boy said afterwards that he really thought he was going to win the second game, but his doughty antagonist laid a trap for him, and chuckled mightily when he fell into it. The games over, the Duke asked the boy a lot of questions in geography, and then said –

‘Well, you shall dine with me to-day; but I shall not dine yet: would you like to see my pictures?’ and he trotted him round the great gallery. Then the Duke took him among the statues – ‘important fellows’ he said they were – but the boy said he preferred the pictures. ‘I thought so,’ observed the Duke; ‘but tell me – which of these is most like your schoolmaster?’

Young Kendall picked out a bust without mustaches, which happened to be a likeness of the Duke himself. ‘Oh! well,’ laughed the Duke, ‘that is a very good man of his sort. Come now, we’ll go to dinner. I have ordered it early, as I suppose you dine early at school.’ ‘At one o’clock, sir,’ said the lad. ‘A very good hour,’ said the Duke. ‘I used to dine at one when I was at school.’

They sat down tête-a-tête, the anxious father being told that the bell would ring when he was required. Having said grace, the Duke told the boy that he would give him a little of every dish, as he knew boys liked to taste all they saw. Dinner over, the lad was dismissed with the injunction – ‘Be a good boy; do your duty; now you may go to your father.’ (19)

Wellington’s godchildren

The Duke of Wellington, Queen Victoria and Prince Arthur

The First of May 1851, by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, the Duke of Wellington offering a gift to Queen Victoria and his godson Prince Arthur

The Duke of Wellington had many godchildren, including Dorothea Lieven’s youngest son Arthur, as well as Lady Salisbury’s three oldest children, all of whom had Arthur in their names, even the girl, Mary Arthur. In 1842, when meeting with his four-year-old godson Arthur Stanhope, the son of the 5th Earl Stanhope and his wife Emily, “he showed – as he always does to children – the greatest possible kindness and good-nature, conversing with and questioning the young fellow for some time. Little Edward [Arthur’s two-year-old brother] showed a disposition to cry; [Wellington] said, “You will not do so when you come to know me better.” (20)

Wellington’s most notable godson was Queen Victoria’s and Prince Albert’s seventh child, Arthur, the Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, who served as Canada’s 10th Governor General. Arthur was born on May 1, 1850, which was the Duke of Wellington’s 81st birthday. On his 82nd birthday, Wellington presented a jewelled casket to one-year-old Arthur. May 1st, 1851, was also the day the Great Exhibition opened at the Crystal Palace in London. Later that year, Wellington wrote to one of his correspondents regarding his royal namesake:

I have seen my Godson, who is in a very prosperous state. He trots about in hand perfectly. He saluted me in my fashion! Put his hand up to his head! He is a fine and clever child. (21)

Wellington with his own children

Although Wellington was delightful with other people’s children, he had less effusive relations with his own sons, Arthur (born in 1807, known as the Marquess of Douro) and Charles (born in 1808).

They were born in the first two years of his marriage and scarcely knew their father before he returned permanently to England in 1818. Wellington was always afraid that they would disgrace him by falling short of the high standards expected of his sons. He thought he saw in them too much of their mother, who did indulge them and shield them from their grim father, and perhaps too much of what he had been in his own youth, and feared that without the goad of poverty they would never develop his discipline but drift through life in an aimless and even dissolute manner. These fears were not entirely groundless. His sons could not remember when their father was not a great man and grew up accepting their place at the top of society as perfectly natural…. (22)

Wellington in quarantine with his grandchildren

In 1851, the Duke of Wellington found himself in quarantine with Charles’s children (Arthur was childless), as he reported to Lady Salisbury.

I have not been able to fix a day on which I should go down to Hatfield to pay you a visit; nor can I yet do so, as I consider myself at present in a State of Quarantine! My grandchildren have had the measles since Friday. The two eldest have had it and they are considered well; but still confined to the House on account of the cough! The two younger ones, although in the same room, have not caught the infection! Lady Charles came to town yesterday and expects and intends to have the disease which she has never had! I desired Lady Douro not to come here after Friday! She was to be in waiting on this day, and it is very fortunate that I did so, as the Queen sent Sir James Clark yesterday to see how she was and enquire about the chances of her carrying the infection.

I believe that we are all over cautious about infection. If it is so easily carried, how does it happen that Physicians and Apothecaries do not carry it?

The only precaution that they pretend they take is that they change their clothes and wash their hands.

Of course I keep out of the sick Nursery and there is no chance that I should carry the infection. I am on the ground floor and the children two stories above me! But still I think it best not to go down [to Hatfield] or to think of paying a visit till every-body in the measles has recovered and gone out. (23)

You might also enjoy:

Napoleon and Arthur Bertrand

Rose Weigall, ed., Correspondence of Lady Burghersh with the Duke of Wellington (London, 1903), p. 211.
Herbert Maxwell, The Life of Wellington, Vol. II (London, 1900), p. 10.
Philip Henry Stanhope, Notes of Conversations with the Duke of Wellington, 1831-1851, (London, 1889), p. 213.
Georgiana, Dowager Lady de Ros, “Personal Recollections of the Great Duke of Wellington,” The Living Age, Vol. 180 (Boston, 1889), p. 314.
Edith Walford, The Words of Wellington (London, 1869), p. 165.
“Selections From Wellington’s Letters,” The Century Magazine, Vol. 39 (December 1889), p. 172.
“Personal Recollections of the Great Duke of Wellington,” p. 314.
William Hamilton Maxwell, Life, Military and Civil, of the Duke of Wellington (London, 1852), p. 444.
John Timbs, Wellingtoniana: Anecdotes, Maxims, and Characteristics of the Duke of Wellington (London, 1852), pp. 129-130.
John Gurwood, ed., Speeches of the Duke of Wellington in Parliament, Vol. II (London, 1854), pp. 226-228.
John Wilson Croker, The Croker Papers, Vol. 3 (London, 1885), p. 280.
Walter K. Kelly, A Life of Wellington for Boys (London, 1853), p. 301.
Notes of Conversations with the Duke of Wellington, 1831-1851, pp. 107-108.
Correspondence of Lady Burghersh with the Duke of Wellington, pp. 52, 122, 117.
Ibid., pp. 199-200.
Caroline Rachel Selina Weigall, Lady Rose Weigall: A Memoir Based on Her Correspondence and the Recollections of Friends (New York, 1923), p. 5.
“Selections From Wellington’s Letters,” pp. 174-175.
The Child’s Friend (London, 1875), p. 175.
The Life of Wellington, Vol. II, pp. 378-379.
Notes of Conversations with the Duke of Wellington, 1831-1851, p. 278.
“Selections From Wellington’s Letters,” p. 177.
Neville Thompson, Wellington After Waterloo (London, 1986), p. 22.
Speeches of the Duke of Wellington in Parliament, Vol. II, pp. 220-221.

“Taking the waters,” the practice of drinking and bathing in mineral springs to treat illness and promote health, was a popular habit in 19th-century America. Spa villages developed around the springs to cater to the growing number of visitors. Two of the most renowned resorts were the neighbouring communities of Saratoga Springs and Ballston Spa in upstate New York. This is where Napoleon and his brother Joseph Bonaparte fictionally take the waters in Napoleon in America.

Congress Spring, Saratoga, 1849

The water cure

Across time and across cultures, water has been used for healing. Accounts of the curative use of water can be found in some of the earliest written records. The Romans built baths at mineral and thermal springs across Europe. After the fall of the Roman Empire, these fell into disuse. During the Renaissance, Italian doctors rediscovered ancient medical texts and began to recommend bathing and drinking cures for various medical conditions. This spread to other parts of Europe, where Roman spas at places like Aachen and Bath were revived as centres for the treatment of pain and disease. In the 1600s the practice reached North America, where English, Dutch and French colonists built log huts and wooden tubs near springs that Native Americans had long frequented.

A spring is a place where water wells up from an underground source. A mineral spring produces water that contains minerals or other substances dissolved during the water’s passage underground. This could include magnesium, calcium, sodium, zinc, iron, lithium, lime, alkalis, hydrogen sulfide, carbon dioxide, or even traces of radium or uranium. By the beginning of the 19th century, doctors were analyzing mineral water and attempting to refine its use in medicine.

Individual treatments were prescribed, based on the composition and temperature of the water. Also, combinations of treatments were developed consisting of hot and cold baths, herbal baths, mud packs, active physical exercises, massages, and diets. (1)

In 1804, Napoleon’s first wife, Josephine, took the waters at Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen), hoping in vain that they would cure her of infertility so that she could produce the heir Napoleon desperately wanted. Aix-les-Bains, a spa town in southeastern France, was frequented by many members of Napoleon’s family, including Josephine, his second wife Marie Louise (who began her affair with Count von Neipperg there), his mother Letizia, his sister Pauline, and his adopted daughter Hortense.

At resorts such as these, the spa culture was as important as the springs themselves. Spa towns were fashionable places to see and to be seen. In addition to bath houses and fountains, they offered grand hotels, theatres, ballrooms, dining places, gardens and parks in which to walk and ride, and other forms of entertainment. Taking the waters was a social activity and an excuse to have fun.

The mineral waters of Saratoga Springs and Ballston Spa

The mineral springs in upstate New York were valued by Native Americans for their medicinal properties. In 1767, the Mohawks revealed the location of High Rock Spring, which they regarded as sacred, stirred by the god Manitou, to Sir William Johnson, the British Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the northern colonies. Johnson, who suffered from pain resulting from a bullet wound at the Battle of Lake George in 1755, drank some of the water, felt his health notably improved, and afterwards wrote to a friend: “I have just returned from a visit to a most amazing Spring, which almost effected my cure; and I have sent for Dr. Stringer, of New York, to come up and analyze it.” (2)

The village of Saratoga grew up around this and neighbouring springs, which are the only naturally carbonated springs in America east of the Rocky Mountains. As settlers drank the water, accounts of its healthful benefits spread. The first permanent dwelling was built around 1776. An inn was constructed above High Rock Spring, and, in 1802, a three-story tavern was built across from Congress Spring. This later became the Union Hotel.

Meanwhile, some 16 miles (26 km) to the west, the mineral springs at Ballston Spa were noted by surveyors in 1771. The first tavern was built there in 1787, with a hotel added in 1792. In 1803, the Sans Souci hotel was built at Ballston Spa. It was the largest hotel in the United States at the time: three stories high, with accommodation for 250 people. The first floor featured several parlors, a ballroom and a large dining room. The Sans Souci operated only in the summer, because of the expense of heating it. Initially it cost about $8/day to stay there, compared to $4/week at lesser lodgings. Prominent guests included Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Martin Van Buren, James Fenimore Cooper, Franklin Pierce, and Andrew Jackson. Although there were fewer springs at Ballston Spa, and the waters were thought to be less efficacious, it was considered an equally fashionable resort, thanks to the Sans Souci.

Sans Souci Hotel, Ballston Spa

Businessman Elkanah Watson stayed at the Sans Souci in 1805.

We seated ourselves at a sumptuous table, with about a hundred guests of all classes, but generally, from their appearance and deportment, of first respectability, assembled here from every part of the Union and from Europe…. This is the most splendid watering place in America and is scarcely surpassed in Europe in its dimensions, and the taste and elegance of its arrangement. The building contains about one hundred apartments, all respectably furnished. The plan upon which it is constructed, the architecture, the style of the outbuildings and the gravel walks girted with shrubbery,—are all on a magnificent scale….

In the evening, we attended a ball in the spacious hall, brilliantly illuminated with chandeliers, and adorned with various other appliances of elegance and luxury. Here was congregated a fine exhibition of refinement of the ‘beau monde.’ A large proportion of the assembly was from the Southern States, and was distinguished by elegant and polished manners. Instead of the old-fashioned country dances and four-hand reels of revolutionary days, I was pleased to notice the advance of refined customs, and the introduction of the graces of Paris, in the elegant cotillion and quadrille. At table, I was delighted in observing the style and appearance of the company, males and females, intermixed in the true French usage of ‘sans souci.’ The board was supplied in profusion, not only with a rich variety, but with the luxuries of more sunny climes. There was a great display of servants, handsomely dressed, while the music of a choice band enlivened the festivities. (3)

Joseph Bonaparte at the springs

Napoleon’s brother Joseph Bonaparte, who lived for many years in the United States, was a regular visitor at both Saratoga Springs and Ballston Spa. When visiting the latter, he stayed at the Sans Souci. When visiting the former, he stayed at the United States Hotel. Scottish politician James Stuart noted in 1828: “He now associates at the public table as an American citizen, which he did not do at first on coming to this country.” (4) Stuart also reported the following anecdote.

There is…a fishing pond conveniently situated only two miles from the Springs, the proprietor of which, Mr. Barhyte, of German extraction, makes strangers very welcome to enjoy the sport. Although he has considerable property, not of trifling value, we found him, the first time that we called in the evening to see the place, at work with the necessary implements, mending his shoes. I positively at first took him for a shoemaker but he received us so hospitably that I soon was convinced of the mistake I had so nearly committed. Everyone in this country is taught to do much more for himself than with us. I have never met an American who, when put to it, could not use the needle well. Mr. Barhyte set down cider and peach brandy and forced us to partake before he would show us his grounds. The pond is not of great extent but the scenery about it, though on a small scale, is sweet. It pleased Joseph Bonaparte so much that Mr. Barhyte told us he would have been very glad to acquire it as a retired situation for himself on his annual visit to the springs, but Mr. Barhyte was not inclined to sell. King Joseph got the first lesson in fishing from Barhyte, in which, however, he says, he is by no means proficient. (5)

Another tale about Joseph surfaced later in the 19th century, purportedly from a manuscript discovered in a tin case under a skeleton on Mount Vista in 1866. The manuscript contained the following passage, dated Saratoga Springs, August 1, 1828. The authenticity is highly doubtful, given that it refers to Joseph being there with his sister and his daughters, none of whom were in America at the time. Nonetheless, I’ll include it for your amusement.

Joseph Bonaparte, at present the guest of Mr. Walton, did not arrive until quite late. He was accompanied by his sister, Caroline Murat, and two young ladies, his daughters. Though a crowned king, he looks very much like other mortals. His manners, dress, and equipage are wholly unassuming, quiet, and unpretentious, as is likewise the case with the ladies of his family. The rank is there, and needs no demonstration. The delay in coming to the party was occasioned by a little incident, which occurred while he was at dinner today with Mr. Walton…. It seems that in the course of the dinner, Bonaparte all at once turned deadly pale, and, with the perspiration standing in great beads on his forehead, faced imploringly to Mr. Walton, gasping out, ‘Un chat! Un chat!’

‘John,’ said Mr. Walton to his waiter, ‘take away the cat; it disturbs this gentleman.’

‘Cat, sir?’ echoed John, ‘I can see no cat!’

The other members of the family now joined in the search; and at last, sure enough, under the side-board, crouched away in a dark corner, was discovered a poor little frightened kitten. But it was not until Bonaparte had lain down for some hours that he fully recovered from the nervous prostration into which the presence of the little feline had thrown him. (6)

A day at the spa in 1790

Elkanah Watson first visited the mineral springs at Saratoga and Ballston in September of 1790, when the amenities were primitive.

I spent a day, bathing in a trough, and drinking the exhilarating water, which gushes from the centre of a rock. I met with about a dozen respectable people, sojourning at a wretched tavern. The wildness of the region, and the excessively bad accommodation, made me recur to the condition of Bath, in the barbarous ages, when, several centuries before Christ, as the legend says, the springs were discovered by their salutary effect upon a herd of distempered swine wallowing in the mud.

The Saratoga waters were discovered, about twenty years ago, as I was informed by Mr. Ball of Ballston, in following a deer track; but, it is supposed, their existence was known to the Indians. The remarkable medicinal qualities of these springs, and their accessible position, must render this spot, at some future period, the Bath of America. At present, it is enveloped in rudeness and seclusion, with no accommodations appropriate to civilized man. The rock through which the water issues by a narrow passage, has been probably formed by petrifaction. Vessels are let down, through this fissure or natural well, to procure the water for drinking.

There is no convenience for bathing, except an open log hut with a large trough, similar to those in use for feeding swine, which receives water from a spring. Into this you roll from a bench. This water appears to be strongly impregnated with saline ingredients, highly charged with fixed air, and is almost as animated as champagne wine. Its taste is grateful, but it leaves an unpleasant impression upon the palate. Those accustomed to it, however, regard it as a great luxury. It is in high estimation, as a specific in all scorbutic affections, gout, rheumatism, etc. These springs are situated in a marsh, partially encompassed by slight and pretty eminences, along the margin of which the road winds. A little off from the highway, I visited a new spring, which is much more highly charged with mineral elements. This is called the Congress Spring.

From Saratoga I proceeded to Tryon’s, a low one-story tavern on a hill in Ballston. At the foot of this hill, I found an old barrel with the staves open, stuck into the mud in the midst of a quagmire, surrounded with trees, stumps, and logs. This was the Ballston Spring. I observed two or three ladies, walking along a fallen tree, so as to reach the fountain; and I was disgusted at seeing as many men washing their loathsome sores near the barrel. There was also a shower bath, with no protection except a bower of bushes. Tryon’s was the only public house, no buildings having been erected below the hill. The greatest number of visitors at one period, the past summer, was ten or twelve, and these were as many as could be accommodated. (7)

A day at the spa in 1828

James Stuart found things considerably improved when he visited Saratoga Springs in 1828.

The taste [of the water from the Congress Spring] is very agreeable; and the briskness of the water at the fountain delightful. Three or four pint tumblers are generally taken in the morning before breakfast. We also, as most people do, use it at meals from choice, although it is never so good as at the fountain, before there is any escape of gas. The people resident in the village and its neighbourhood, within six or eight miles of the place, have it carried to their houses, preferring it very much to ordinary spring water. The quantity of gas is such, that a very nice sort of breakfast bread is baked with Congress water, instead of yeast. So large a quantity of it is bottled, and sent all over the states, that the proprietors, Messrs Lynch and Clarke, are said to be making a fortune of it. Even the American packet ships are supplied with it in abundance; but there is a very considerable loss of the gas in bottling, which renders the taste insipid, and the least loss of gas occasions a precipitation of iron, which gives the water a muddy appearance. Seltzer water in the bottled state is as pleasant as Congress water, except at the fountain.

The use of the water is chiefly recommended in bilious, dyspeptic, and calculous complaints, for diseases of the skin, and for chronic rheumatism ; but the great bulk of the people who resort to these celebrated springs, many of them regularly once a year, come for amusement, and for the preservation, rather than the recovery, of health, at a period of the year, when the violence of the heat renders a visit to a high and comparatively a cold country very desirable. I have found the use of the water and the baths so beneficial for a trifling complaint, for which I had last year tried the water at Harrowgate, that we resolved to remain here and at Ballston springs for a couple of months.

The gay people had almost disappeared before we arrived. The invalids seem to live very sparingly, — hardly tasting any liquid but the water, and tea, which here, and at other places where we have been, we sometimes observe ladies take at dinner. Many of those invalids are quite able to take exercise in the open air, and would, if I am not much, mistaken, derive as much benefit from it, if taken in moderation, as from the use of the water ; but they seem to confine themselves to a five or ten minutes walk in the morning, when they go to the fountain, and to a drive in an open carriage for an hour, or an hour and a-half. When they meet us walking several miles for exercise, and the pleasure of being in the open air, they, whether acquainted with us or not, frequently stop their vehicles, and very civilly offer us a ride with them, and can hardly believe us serious, when we, in declining to avail ourselves of their kindly meant offer, tell them that we prefer to walk.

There are few more striking points of difference between this country and Britain, than in the numbers of the people who ride and walk on the public roads. It absolutely seems disgraceful to be seen walking; and, though there are no fine equipages here, every one rides in his gig, dearborn, or open carriage of some description or other. This circumstance no doubt proves the easy circumstances of the mass of the people, as well as the value of time to a mechanic, or labourer, whose wages may be from one to two dollars a-day, and can better afford to pay for a conveyance, and spend less time, than to walk, and spend more. Still I am persuaded that our habits in this respect are far more favourable for health; and that dyspepsia, a very general complaint in New York State, and in this country, is in no inconsiderable degree owing to the people supposing, that enough of exercise can be had in carriages and waggons, especially by persons almost always partaking of animal food largely three times a-day, who hardly ever walk a mile, or mount on horseback.” (8)

Stuart also checked out Ballston Spa.

On the 31st of October, we changed our quarters from Saratoga springs to Ballston Spa, in a pleasant situation, in a hollow surrounded on all sides by high grounds. The Kayaderoseras, a small river, runs through the village, containing 800 or 1000 people.

There are only two great hotels here, the Sans Souci, which is on the largest scale, and Mr. Aldridge’s. There are several small hotels and boarding-houses. The baths are equally good here as at Saratoga springs; but the water is obviously not so pleasant to the taste, nor are its effects so powerful. The quantity of carbonic acid gas in a gallon of the water is only 210 cubic inches, while in the Congress water it is 343 cubic inches. The substances common to both are here in smaller quantity.

We are in the boarding-house of Mrs. Macmaster, one of the most comfortable we have seen in this country. The house is managed by herself, two daughters, and a little girl. Every thing good of its kind ; poultry the best that we have met with; dinners well-cooked; and coffee as well prepared as in the best restaurateurs in the Palais Royal. The charge four dollars per week. But this is not the gay season, when the rate is of course greater. (9)

Decline of the springs

With the advent of the railroad in 1832, tourism to the area burgeoned. Doctors recommended the waters as a treatment for kidney and liver diseases, rheumatism, cancer, and a host of other conditions. For a time, Saratoga Springs was America’s most popular tourist destination. The opening of the Saratoga race course in 1863, with horse racing and betting, added to the appeal. By the late 19th century, however, the mineral springs at both Saratoga Springs and Ballston Spa were considerably depleted due to overuse. Businesses were pumping water out of the springs to extract carbonic gas for use in soft drinks and soda fountains. Meanwhile, advances in medicine reduced the springs’ therapeutic appeal. Tourism dropped off and the Sans Souci Hotel was demolished in 1887.

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A van Tubergen, S. van der Linden, “A brief history of spa therapy,” Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, Vol. 61, No. 3 (March 2002), p. 274.
William Leete Stone, Reminiscences of Saratoga and Ballston (New York, 1875), p. 10.
Winslow C. Watson, Men and Times of the Revolution; or, Memoirs of Elkanah Watson (New York, 1856), pp. 407-409.
James Stuart, Three Years in North America, Vol. I (Edinburgh, 1833), p. 194.
Ibid., pp. 199-200.
“Chronicles of Saratoga,” Onward: A Magazine for the Young Manhood of America, Vol. 2, (New York, 1869), p. 212.
Watson, Men and Times of the Revolution; or, Memoirs of Elkanah Watson, pp. 334-335.
Stuart, Three Years in North America, Vol. I, pp. 192-194.
Ibid., p. 221.

The telegraph used by France during the Napoleonic Wars was an optical system based on the use of semaphore signals. When the Chappe semaphore telegraph was introduced during the French Revolution, it revolutionized communications by dramatically reducing the length of time it took for messages to travel. Although the semaphore telegraph was costly and could not operate at night or during bad weather, it was used for over 60 years, and paved the way for the introduction of the more efficient electrical telegraph later in the 19th century.

Chappe semaphore telegraph demonstration

A demonstration of the Chappe semaphore telegraph

Chappe’s invention

The Napoleonic telegraph system was invented by Claude Chappe. Chappe, who was born in Brûlon on December 25, 1763, initially embarked on a religious career. When he graduated from college in 1783, he became a commendatory abbot and was given two benefices near Paris. Chappe had a longstanding interest in science (his uncle, astronomer Jean-Baptiste Chappe d’Auteroche, was known for his observations of the Transit of Venus), so he used the funds to set up a laboratory in his home. He conducted physics experiments and wrote papers about the results.

With the crackdown on the church during the French Revolution, Chappe lost his benefices. He returned to Brûlon and turned to science full-time. In early 1790, he began working with his brothers on the development of a long-distance signalling system. Chappe experimented with different designs, trying methods that relied variously on electricity, sound, and smoke. He finally settled on a system in which telescopes were used to observe visual signals that could then be deciphered. Optical signalling systems dated back over two thousand years, in the form of hydraulic telegraphs (used in ancient Greece), torches and smoke signals, but had not been used on a large scale in the modern world.

On March 2, 1791, the Chappes offered the first public demonstration, sending a message between Brûlon and Parcé, some 16 kilometres (10 miles) away. The message was: “Si vous réussissez vous serez bientôt couvert de gloire [If you succeed, you will soon bask in glory].” (1)

More than glory, Chappe needed money. Fortunately, his brother Ignace was soon elected to the new Legislative Assembly in Paris. Ignace arranged for Claude to address the Assembly on March 24, 1792. Among other things, Claude pointed out how useful his system could be in sending orders to the frontiers, something that became particularly relevant when France declared war on Prussia and Austria a month later.

In September 1792, the Legislative Assembly was disbanded and replaced with the National Convention, to which Ignace did not gain election. But by then the Chappes had supporters among the legislators. On August 4, 1793, the Convention approved funds for the construction of a line of stations from Paris to Lille, some 200 km to the north, near the Austrian Netherlands. Chappe was given the title of “Telegraph Engineer” and a salary. He continued to improve on his design.

On August 15, 1794, the first official message was sent along the line to Paris, reporting the recapture of Le Quesnoy: “Austrian garrison of 3,000 slaves has laid down its arms and surrendered at discretion.” (2) The message arrived about an hour after the battle ended. A courier would have taken a further 10 hours to arrive.

In October 1794, the Convention authorized the construction of a second line, connecting Paris to Strasbourg. This was completed in May 1798. Later that year, a telegraph line opened between Paris and Brest.

How the Chappe telegraph worked

Scale model of a Chappe telegraph

Claude Chappe initially called his invention the tachygraphe (from the Greek for “fast writer”), but was persuaded to change the name to telegraph (“far writer”), a name coined by French statesman André François Miot de Mélito.

Telegraph stations were situated roughly 10 to 15 km apart, within sight of each other, either on existing high places, such as belfries, or on towers specially-constructed for the purpose. Each tower was equipped with two telescopes – one pointed toward the nearest station up the line, the other toward the nearest station down the line – and an apparatus that Chappe called a semaphore (from the Greek for “bearing a sign”). The latter consisted of two movable wooden arms (each called an indicator) connected by a long, movable wooden cross-bar (called the regulator). The arms were counterbalanced with iron weights. The regulator and indicators were painted black to increase their contrast against the sky.

The regulator could be positioned vertically or horizontally (when it was in an oblique, or diagonal, position, it was not transmitting a signal). Each indicator could be placed at one of seven angles, each 45 degrees apart (excluding the position in which an indicator was extending the regulator). This resulted in a total of 98 (2 x 7 x 7) unique positions. Six positions were reserved for control signals, leaving 92 positions for coded signals (letters of the alphabet, numbers, frequently-used syllables).

In 1795, a 92-page code book was introduced, along with a two-step signalling system. The first signal indicated the page of the code book; the second indicated the line (individual words, abbreviations, sentences, etc., numbered from 1 to 92) on that page. This meant that 8464 (92 x 92) codes could be transmitted. Later refinements eventually resulted in 40,000 codes.

Each station was staffed by two operators. A control mechanism, designed and built by clockmaker Abraham-Louis Breguet, allowed an operator to adjust the regulator and indicators from inside the building, via a scale model of the semaphore, using pulleys and ropes.

An operator moved the arms through a sequence of positions, spelling out a message in code. The operator in the next tower read the message through a telescope, and then replicated it, passing it along to the next tower. Operators had to verify that the next station was correctly reproducing each signal, thus reducing the risk of transmission errors. Coding and decoding happened only at the end station and at divisional stations (every 10th to 15th station). At the in-between stations, the operators simply repeated the signal without knowing the code. The ability to code and decode at divisional stations meant that when weather conditions obscured the line of sight, a messenger could carry the message to a divisional station that was experiencing better weather and have the message re-transmitted from there. Special signals were used to indicate the priority of the message, which was helpful in situations where there were messages travelling in opposite directions. In cases where messages had equivalent priority, those from Paris were transmitted first.

In good weather, the duration of a transmission was 20-30 seconds per symbol per station. In 1823, a newspaper reported:

News can be received at Paris in three minutes from Calais by means of thirty-three telegraphs; in two minutes from Lisle, by twenty-two telegraphs; in six minutes and an half from Strasbourg, by forty four telegraphs; in twenty minutes from Toulon by 100 telegraphs; and in eight minutes from Brest, by sixty four telegraphs. (3)

This was compared to the average speed of a mail coach of around 10 km/hour.

The telegraph under Napoleon

Claude Chappe

In 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte seized power through a coup d’état. Chappe met with Napoleon to propose commercial use of the telegraph system. He suggested using it to relay daily commodity prices and national news, but Napoleon agreed to only one civilian use: the weekly transmission of results from the state-run lottery.

Napoleon regarded the telegraph as more useful for military and administrative purposes. He ordered an extension of the network, including a line to Boulogne in preparation for his planned invasion of England. In 1801, he asked Claude Chappe’s brother Abraham to design a station capable of transmitting a signal across the English Channel. Chappe built and tested a prototype (with an extra-large semaphore) between Belleville and Saint-Martin-du-Terre, approximating the shortest distance across the Channel. A large station was installed in Boulogne, but Napoleon’s invasion never happened.

Under Napoleon, the Paris-Lille line was extended to Brussels in 1802, and to Antwerp in 1809. In 1804, Napoleon ordered the construction of a line from Paris to Milan via Lyon. Other European countries, including Sweden, Britain, Denmark and Portugal, were spurred into developing their own telegraph systems, or adopting variations of Chappe’s design.

Meanwhile, Claude Chappe was growing increasingly depressed as rivals claimed to have invented better forms of the telegraph, or to have invented it before him. Even Breguet insisted he contributed more to Chappe’s design than he was given credit for. On January 23, 1805, Chappe killed himself by jumping into a well outside the Telegraph Administration building in Paris. He was 41 years old. His tombstone, at Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris, features a lead replica of a telegraph tower with the arms positioned in the signal for “at rest.”

During the 1809 campaign, Napoleon tried to use the telegraph to command his army from a distance. He sent his Chief of Staff, Louis-Alexandre Berthier, to set up Imperial headquarters at Strasbourg. On April 10, Napoleon sent orders to Berthier telling him to go to Augsburg, and if the Austrians attacked before April 15, to concentrate the troops at Augsburg and Donauworth, make them ready to march, and send Napoleon’s guard and horses to Stuttgart. Unfortunately, the message was delayed by fog and did not reach Berthier until April 16. Napoleon was also communicating with Berthier via courier, which led to further confusion as messages would arrive out of sequence, depending on the form of transmission. Berthier finally told Napoleon that he needed to join the army in person.

In 1810, the telegraph system was extended to Venice and Amsterdam, and in 1813 to Mainz. In 1811, the telegraph was used to announce the birth of Napoleon’s son. In 1812, Napoleon asked Abraham Chappe to design a mobile telegraph he could take with him on the Russian campaign, but this proved unviable.

Unfortunately, there was no telegraph line between Paris and Toulouse, in the south of France. This meant that on April 10, 1814, four days after Napoleon abdicated the French throne, some 1,000 people were killed and over 7,000 were injured in a battle at Toulouse between French forces under Marshal Soult and a coalition of British, Spanish and Portuguese troops under the Duke of Wellington. A French colonel and an English colonel left Paris on April 7 with the news that the war was over, but they did not reach Toulouse until April 12.

The telegraph after Napoleon

Although the French telegraph lines in Italy, Belgium, Germany and Holland disappeared after Napoleon’s fall, new telegraph lines continued to be constructed until 1846. The network grew to 556 stations covering approximately 5,000 km (3,000 miles) of lines, most of them in France. Small telegraph lines were installed in the French colonies of Algeria and Morocco.

In 1846, the French government decided to replace the optical telegraph with an electric one. England had been using the electric telegraph since 1837. This did not mark the last French use of the optical telegraph, however. During the Crimean War (1853-56), specially designed mobile Chappe stations could be built in 20 minutes, faster than long-distance electric telegraph lines. The last news reportedly transmitted by a Chappe telegraph was the fall of Sebastopol in 1855.

The optical telegraph was expensive to operate, limited to government use (a French bill passed in 1837 banned private networks), unable to operate at night (attaching lanterns to the ends of the indicators did not help) or in bad weather (fog, rain, snow), and susceptible to operator misbehavior. In 1836, some telegraph operators were found to have been introducing a specific pattern of errors into messages, to relay information about the stock market to Bordeaux. Nonetheless, the Chappe telegraph was a revolution in communications at the time, and paved the way for future developments by proving that simple signs could be used to rapidly send complex messages over long distances.

In Alexandre Dumas’ novel, The Count of Monte Cristo, the count says:

Yes, a telegraph! I had often seen one placed at the end of a road on a hillock, and in the light of the sun its black arms, bending in every direction, always reminded one of the claws of an immense beetle; and I assure you it was never without emotion that I gazed on it, for I could not help thinking how wonderful it was that these various signs should be made to cleave the air with such precision as to convey to the distance of some 300 leagues the ideas and wishes of a man sitting at a table at one end of the line to another man similarly placed at the opposite extremity, and all this effected by the simple act of volition on the part of the individual communicating the intelligence. I began to think of genii, sylphs, gnomes, in short, of all the ministers of the occult sciences until I laughed aloud at the freaks of my own imagination. Now, it never occurred to me to wish for a nearer inspection of these large insects with their long black claws, for I always feared to find under their stone wings some little human genius fagged to death with cabals, factions, and government intrigues. But one fine day I learned that the mover of this telegraph was only a poor wretch hired for 1200 francs a year, and employed all the day, not in studying the heavens like an astronomer, nor in gazing on the water like an angler, nor even enjoying the privilege of observing the country around him; but all his monotonous life was passed in watching his fellow-insect, who was placed four or five leagues distant from him. (4)

The telegraph is how news of Napoleon’s (fictional) escape from St. Helena reaches Paris in Napoleon in America.

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Ignace Chappe, Histoire de la télégraphie (Paris, 1824), p. 239.
C.B. Rogers, Napoleon’s Army (Barnsley, South Yorkshire, 2005), p. 90.
Niles Weekly Register (Baltimore, MD), May 17, 1823.
Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo, Vol. II (London, 1846), p. 55.

In addition to being dependent on personal taste, humour tends to be specific to culture, to place and to time. This makes it tricky to weave jokes into fiction set in the past, like Napoleon in America. What did people find funny 200 years ago? How well have those jokes held up over time? You be the judge of this humour from the early 19th century.

A laughing gas party in the early 1800s, by Thomas Rowlandson. Source: Wellcome Images

Very punny

A wag describing an elephant remarked that this sagacious animal takes care never to be robbed, for he always carries his trunk before him. (1)

A coquette at a ball asked a gentleman who was adjusting her tucker if he could flirt a fan. ‘No madam,’ answered he, proceeding to use it, but I can fan a flirt.’ (2)

An officer, once relating to his friend the circumstances of his having fallen over a pig when full dressed for a ball, the other replied immediately, ‘that must have been a vile boar.’ (3)

A school-master, who was charged with using the birch rather too violently, declared that it was the only way to make a dull boy smart. (4)

A gentleman once observing that a person famous in the musical line led a very abandoned life. ‘Aye,’ replied a wag, ‘the whole tenor of his life has been base.’ (5)

A punster observing a person folding some bank bills remarked, ‘you must be in excellent business, for I see you double your money very easily.’ (6)

Just for laughs

A little boy having been much praised for his quickness of reply, a gentleman observed [that] when children were so keen in their youth, they are generally stupid and dull as they advance in years. ‘What a very sensible boy must you have been, Sir, then,’ replied the child. (7)

A scholar, a bald man, and a barber, travelling together, each agreed to watch four hours at night, in turn, for the sake of security. The barber’s lot came first, who shaved the scholar’s head when asleep, then waked him when his turn came. The scholar, scratching his head, and feeling it bald, exclaimed: ‘You wretch of a barber, you have waked the bald man, instead of me!’ (8)

A coxcomb, by no means an Adonis, was remarkable for looking at his face in a glass wherever he met one; which, being mentioned by a person as an instance of his conceit, another said, ‘He thought it rather a mark of his courage, for it showed that he was not easily frightened.’ (9)

A fop, introducing his friend, a plain man, into company, said, ‘Gentlemen, I’ll assure you he is not so great a fool as he seems.’ ‘No,’ replied the gentleman, ‘that’s the difference between me and my friend.’ (10)

Marital jokes

A French gentleman, being married a second time, was often lamenting his first wife before his second, who one day said to him, ‘I assure you, Sir, no one regrets her more than I!’ (11)

Lady H. one day said to her Lord, who is much attached to reading: ‘I wish I was a book, that I might always have your company.’ ‘Then,’ answered he, ‘I should wish you an almanac, that I might change once a year. (12)

A vixen of a wife, abusing her husband for his mercenary disposition, told him that if she was dead, he would marry the devil’s eldest daughter, if he could get anything by it. ‘That’s true,’ replied the husband, ‘but the worst of it is, one can’t marry two sisters.’ (13)

A young gentleman who had had the misfortune to bury five wives, being in company with a number of ladies, was severely rallied by them upon the circumstance. At last, one of them put the question to him, how he managed to have such good luck. ‘Why, madam,’ says he, ‘I knew they could not live without contradiction; therefore I suffered them to have their own way.’ (14)

One said that to live quiet in a marriage state, the husband ought to be deaf that he may not hear his wife’s impertinence, and the wife blind that she may not see her husband’s gallantries. (15)

Wink wink nudge nudge

As Marshal Saxe was one day walking in the Tuileries with Madame Pompadour, one said: ‘There goest the king’s sword and his sheath.’ (16)

A poor woman, who had borne twenty-two children, hearing many observe how much the staff of life was wanted during the late scarcity of grain, said it was odd that she and her family were no more exempt from poverty than others, although her husband had one of the best staffs of that sort in the world. (17)

A young lady being rebuked for not writing to her consort, who was on a journey, said it was out of her power, as he had carried away the pen with him, and left her nothing but the ink-stand. (18)

A country farmer going across his grounds in the dusk of the evening, espied a young fellow and a lass very busy near a five-bar gate in one of his fields; and, calling to them to know what they were about, said the young man: ‘No harm, farmer: we are only going to prop-a-gate!’ (19)

Two dashing ladies of easy virtue going down Gracechurch Street one evening were repeatedly asked by the different coachmen if they were not going to Greenwich or Deptford. At length one of the coachmen, a greater wag than the rest, cried out, ‘Pray don’t plague the ladies so; they are not going your road – they are going to Clap’em.’ (20)

Military jokes

A soldier refused to take food previous to an engagement because he was not sure of living long enough to allow it time for digestion. (21)

In besieging a certain town, the soldiers had been strictly forbidden to give quarter to anyone. An officer however begged hard for his life of one of the besiegers. Ask me anything else, replied he; but for your life I cannot consent. (22)

When the Persian ambassador was in England, he was paid a handsome compliment by Captain Topham. As he was showing the many wounds he had received in the wars with the Turks, the captain said that his excellency’s skin would sell for little or nothing, it had so many holes in it. (23)

In the rebellion, a villain stole into the King’s Mews, where the light horse were stationed, and cut off the tails of all the horses in the regiment. When it was discovered, the captain, greatly vexed, cried out, among other ejaculations: ‘What must we do!’ ‘Do!’ said a way near him, ‘sell them by wholesale.’ ‘Why so,’ said the captain. ‘Because,’ replied he, it is plainly to be seen we cannot re-tail them!’ (24)

Certain peasants complaining to a captain that his soldiers had robbed them, he asked whether they had left them anything? They answered, ‘Yes!’ ‘Then,’ said the captain, ‘they were none of my soldiers’ for they would have cleared all!’ (25)

Class jokes

A low Frenchman bragged that the king had spoken to him. Being asked what his majesty had said, he replied, ‘He bade me stand out of his way!’ (26)

A Scotsman being accosted by a duke, who wished to create a laugh at the expense of his national accent, asked him where he had been. ‘Shooting,’ he replied. ‘Shooting what?’ said the Duke. ‘Fools,’ meaning fowls. ‘Fools! What sort of fools?’ ‘Dukes,’ i.e. ducks, and such sort of fools. (27)

Of two brothers, one served the king, the other toiled hard for his food. The former saying to the latter: ‘Why do you not serve the king, and get rid of your toil?’ was answered: ‘Why do you not toil, and get rid of your slavery?’ (28)

Religious jokes

A gentleman talking of the four elements expressed great admiration at the creation of water. ‘Lord, Sir,’ said a merry lady ‘there’s nothing so very curious in that – for I can make it!’ (29)

A link-boy asked Dr. Burgess, the preacher, if he would have a light? ‘No, child,’ says the doctor, ‘I am one of the lights of the world!’ ‘I wish, then,’ replied the boy, ‘you were hung up at the end of our alley; for we live in a devilish dark one!’ (30)

A gentleman talking to a fisherman one day at Brighton asked him whether the Prince of Wales ever went to church. ‘Lord, and please your honour,’ said the fisherman, ‘what should he go to church for? We poor souls are obliged to pray for ourselves, but there are enough to pray for him!’ (31)

A bad Italian preacher one day, in his sermon, panegyrised a saint; and, in the heat of his discourse, asked with great emotion: ‘Where shall I place my saint?’ A merry fellow, who was tired of the gibberish, cried out in a loud voice: ‘Here I am going; you may give him my place!’ (32)

A certain preacher, having changed his religion, was much blamed by his friends for having deserted them. To excuse himself, he said he had seven reasons; and being asked what they were, replied, ‘a wife and six children.’ (33)

Doctor jokes

‘See how my harvest is ripening!’ said a carpenter to his neighbour, a surgeon, as they both stood viewing some houses on fire. ‘And see, mine is ready to reap!’ answered the latter, as he removed a piece of lighted timber which had just fallen on and ground his friend’s foot to powder. (34)

Mr. Cruikshanks the surgeon, being sent for to a gentleman who had just received a slight wound in a rencontre, gave orders to his servant to go home with all haste imaginable and fetch a certain plaster. The patient, turning a little pale, cried out: ‘Lord, Sir, I hope there is no danger?’ ‘Yes indeed there is,’ answered the surgeon, ‘for if the fellow does not set up a good pair of heels, the wound will heal before he returns.’ (35)

A medical gentleman, in an advertisement, informed the public that he had removed from his old station to a place near the churchyard for the accommodation of his patients. (36)

Lawyer jokes

Three counsellors meeting a waggoner asked him how came it that one of his horses was so fat, and the other three so lean? ‘The fat one,’ answered he, ‘is a lawyer, and the other three his clients!’ (37)

A counsellor told a rich client that his adversary had removed his suit from the King’s Bench to the Court of Chancery; on which the latter replied: ‘Let him remove it to the devil, if he pleases; I am sure my attorney will follow it!’ (38)

A lawyer, being ill, made his will, and bequeathed all his estate to fools and lunatics. Being asked why he did so, he replied: ‘From them it came, and to them it shall return.’ (39)

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Sam Splicem, Joke Upon Joke (New Haven, 1818), p. 27.
Ibid., p. 27.
Ibid., p. 30.
Ibid., p. 32.
Ibid., p. 34.
Ibid., p. 37.
Martin Merryman, The Joke-Cracker (Rotterdam, 1803), p. 21.
Ibid., pp. 38-39.
Ibid., p. 57.
Splicem, Joke Upon Joke, p. 6.
Merryman, The Joke-Cracker, p. 13.
Ibid., p. 35.
Ibid., p. 58.
Ibid., p. 61.
Ibid., pp. 89-90.
Ibid., p. 6.
Ibid., p. 9.
Ibid., p. 10.
Ibid., p. 43.
The Sporting Magazine, Vol. 30 (London, 1808), p. 261.
Merryman, The Joke-Cracker, p. 10.
Ibid., p. 11.
Ibid., p. 19.
Ibid., pp. 19-20.
Ibid., p. 90.
Ibid., p. 14.
Ibid., p. 21.
Ibid., p. 46.
Ibid., p. 25.
Ibid., p. 40.
Ibid., p. 48.
Ibid., p. 62.
Splicem, Joke Upon Joke, p. 26.
Merryman, The Joke-Cracker, pp. 9-10.
Ibid., pp. 62-63.
Splicem, Joke Upon Joke, p. 33.
Merryman, The Joke-Cracker, pp. 8-9.
Ibid., p. 92.
Ibid., p. 92.

Below are some Napoleon quotes about family. Napoleon Bonaparte came from a large family, many of whom appear in Napoleon in America. Napoleon was generous towards his family, rewarding them with wealth and high positions. Although he tended to forgive them for their failings, he was highly critical of them when they didn’t do what he wanted them to. This happened frequently, as Napoleon was a busybody, commonly giving family members instructions on how to conduct themselves. Napoleon’s family was instrumental in his rise to power. Family also played a role in his downfall.

The Espousal of Jérôme Bonaparte and Catharina of Württemberg, by Jean-Baptiste Regnault, 1807. This painting depicts Napoleon and most of his family (Lucien is absent).

Our family is provided for

In 1796, Napoleon, who was then a general, and pulling strings for his relatives, wrote to his older brother, Joseph:

Lucien [another brother] starts tomorrow for the army of the North. He is made a Commissariat officer. Ramolino [a relative of Napoleon’s mother] is here, in the Commissariat. Ornano [another relative] is Lieutenant in the Legion of Police. Our family is provided for. I have sent to them everything that they can want. Fesch [Napoleon’s uncle] will be well placed here. … You will soon be a consul. Nothing can exceed my anxiety to make you happy in all respects. (1)

I can have no relations in obscurity

A decade later, Napoleon – who had become Emperor of the French – decided to make Joseph the King of Naples. He instructed Count Miot de Mélito to relay the news.

Impress upon [Joseph] that the least hesitation, the slightest wavering, will ruin him entirely. I have another person in mind who will replace him should he refuse…. At present all feelings of affection yield to state reasons. I recognize only those who serve me as relations. My fortune is not attached to the name of Bonaparte, but to that of Napoleon. … I can have no relations in obscurity. Those who do not rise with me shall no longer form part of my family. (2)

My family is a political family

Napoleon habitually invited members of the Imperial family to dine with him and his wife Josephine at the Tuileries Palace in Paris on Sundays. In the spring of 1807, when Napoleon was away on the Prussian campaign, he expected his family to continue to dine with Josephine. Napoleon’s mother, Letizia, who did not like Josephine and thought that the Bonapartes should instead gather at her residence, protested. Napoleon wrote in reply:

[S]o long as you remain in Paris, it is essential that you should dine every Sunday in the Empress’s apartments, where the family dinner is held. My family is a political family. When I am absent, the Empress is always the head of it; besides, it is an honour that I am conferring upon the members of my family. That does not prevent me, when I happen to be in Paris, and my occupations permit it, from dining with you. (3)

No man is more unfortunate in his family

In 1810, after a series of disappointments involving his siblings, Napoleon reportedly said:

I do not believe that any man in the world is more unfortunate in his family than I am. (4)

You will be useless to…our family

In December 1813, when Napoleon was losing the war in Spain, he wrote to Joseph, who had abdicated the Spanish throne:

France is invaded, all Europe is in arms against France, and above all against me. You are no longer King of Spain. … What will you do? Will you, as a French Prince, come to the support of my throne? … In this case you must act as I have done – announce the part you are about to play, write to me in simple terms a letter which I can print, receive the authorities, and show yourself zealous for me and for the King of Rome, and friendly to the regency of the Empress. Are you unable to do this? Have you not good sense enough for it? Then retire to the obscurity of some country-house 40 leagues from Paris. You will live there quietly if I live; you will be killed or arrested if I die. You will be useless to me, to our family, to your daughters, and to France; but you will do me no harm, and will not be in my way. Choose quickly the line which you will take. (5)

I only occupy myself with my family

When Napoleon was in exile on Elba in the fall of 1814, he told Colonel Neil Campbell, the British commissioner on the island:

I think of nothing outside my little island. I could have sustained the war for twenty years if I wanted to. I no longer exist for the world. I am a dead man. I only occupy myself with my family and my retreat, my house, my cows and my mules. (6)

The only members of the Bonaparte family who joined Napoleon on Elba were his mother and his sister Pauline. This was not enough to keep him busy. The following February, Napoleon escaped from Elba and returned to France.

I have derived little assistance from my own family

After Napoleon’s 1815 defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, he was exiled to the remote South Atlantic island of St. Helena. There he reflected more fully on his family, not in an appreciative way.

It is certain…that I have derived little assistance from my own family, and that they have greatly injured me and the great cause for which I fought. The energy of my disposition has often been extolled, but I have been a mere milksop, particularly with my family; this they knew; after the first moment of anger was over, they always carried their point by perseverance and obstinacy. I became tired of the contest, and they did with me just as they pleased. … They have all really been kings, thanks to my labours; all have enjoyed the advantages of royalty; I alone have known its cares. (7)

Where could I more naturally look for support than amongst my own relations?

On St. Helena, Napoleon also answered the question of why he put his family members on the thrones of Europe.

Why…did I indulge in the vanity of placing every member of my family on a throne? (For the generality of people must have thought me actuated by vanity alone) why did I not rather fix my choice upon some private individuals possessing greater abilities? To this I reply that it is not with thrones as with the functions of a prefect; talents and abilities are so common in the present age, among the multitude, that one must be cautious to avoid awakening the idea of competition. In the agitation of our situation, and with our modern institutions, it was proper to think rather of consolidating and concentrating the hereditary right of succession, in order to avoid innumerable feuds, factions, and misfortunes.

The principal defect in my person and my elevation…was that I had risen at once from the multitude. I felt that I stood insulated and alone, and I cast anchors around me on all sides. Where could I more naturally look for support than amongst my own relations? Could I expect more from strangers? And it must be admitted, that if the members of my family have had the folly to break through these sacred ties, the morality of the people, superior to their blind infatuation, fulfilled in part my object. With them their subjects thought themselves more quiet, more united as in one family. (8)

I could listen to the intelligence of the death…of all my family

Napoleon said on St. Helena:

I…could listen to the intelligence of the death of my wife, of my son, or of all my family, without change of features. Not the slightest sign of emotion, or alteration of countenance would be visible. Everything would appear indifferent and calm. But when alone in my chamber, then I suffer. Then the feelings of the man burst forth. (9)

I never received any cooperation from my family

Towards the end of his life, Napoleon told his companions on St Helena:

I never received any cooperation from my family. If I had not tried to obtain it, I would have been successful much more easily. (10)

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The Confidential Correspondence of Napoleon Bonaparte with His Brother Joseph, Sometime King of Spain, Vol. I (London, 1855), p. 27.
A. Bingham, ed., A Selection from the Letters and Dispatches of the First Napoleon, Vol. II (London, 1884), p. 207.
Noel Williams, The Women Bonapartes, Vol. II, (New York, 1909), p. 76.
F. Delderfield, The Golden Millstones: Napoleon’s Brothers and Sisters (New York, 1964), p. 151.
The Confidential Correspondence of Napoleon Bonaparte with His Brother Joseph, Sometime King of Spain, Vol. II (London, 1855), pp. 255-256.
Neil Campbell, Napoleon at Fontainebleau and Elba (London, 1869), p. 299.
Emmanuel-Auguste-Dieudonné Las Cases, Memorial de Sainte Hélène, Vol. III (London, 1823), pp. 220-222.
Ibid., pp. 222-223.
Barry O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile; or A Voice from St. Helena, Vol. II (London, 1822), p. 286.
Henri-Gratien Bertrand, Napoleon at St. Helena: The Journals of General Bertrand from January to May of 1821, deciphered and annotated by Paul Fleuriot de Langle, translated by Frances Hume (Garden City, NY, 1952), p. 41.

Are you stuck at home and wondering what to do? Here are some tips for dealing with boredom – or ennui, as it was commonly called – from the 1830s, when a cholera pandemic was raging around the world.

Dolce far niente (Pleasant Idleness), by Auguste Toulmouche, 1877

Find an honorable pursuit

One should never suffer himself to become a prey to ennui, or, to use the nearest phrase we have to it in English, the blue devils. These azure imps, if once they get the possession of a man – I don’t include woman, for she has a thousand charms to dispel – are a greater curse to him than were the plagues of Egypt to its royal master. He cannot walk, for he has no object in view – he cannot sit, or even lounge. His spirits are too restless, his nerves too irritable – he cannot converse, for that is a labour to him – to read he is unable, his attention cannot be fixed – to sleep with comfort is equally impossible with him; for his tormentors…move about him in dreams and fill them with inquietude.

If it was made the curse of man that in the sweat of the brow he should eat his bread, it is equally true…that in laboring for that bread, he should find his greatest blessing. I envy no man his carriage who rides abroad in it without occupation or object in view. I am sure of being happier trudging on foot, so long as I am intent on some honest and honorable pursuit. (1)

Watch an opera, or a mime

The cholera has spread such terror in Paris that the Theatres are menaced with total ruin if this panic should last much longer. It is a truly sad spectacle – the saloons empty – the banquets deserted – the rows of boxes without a single spectator, and the actors grimacing in gaiety or sentiment before a few idlers, who listen mechanically to the scenes of a comedy or the choruses of a vaudeville, and whose vague and uneasy attention discloses a grave pre-possession of mind and a sad anguish of the heart. All this passes in an atmosphere of chloride of lime, camphor, and vinegar, and in the midst of a continual buzzing of the words ‘cholera,’ ‘malades,’ ‘bulletins,’ ‘morts,’ and ‘hopitaux;’ sadness, loathing, fear, and ennui from one corner of the Theatre to the other. Such are the characteristics of the Theatres for the last eight days. It has, however, been made a subject of remark that the large Theatres and the minor ones are deserted, whilst the Opera and the Funambules are overflowing with spectators. The highest class and the lowest populace appear to required distraction in the same degree. The music of Meyerbeer and the graces of Taglioni, equally with the buffooneries of Debureau, can dissipate fear and diminish danger. At the Opera you could imagine yourself in the midst of the most prosperous days of the Restoration – at the Theatre Français, at the Gymnase, and others, one feels that he is in the very worst days of the Revolution. (2)

Get drunk

The New York Mercantile Advertiser says that it has been a subject of general remark that since the appearance of the cholera, intemperance has increased to an alarming extent. It observes, ‘Many people have not the inclination or the power to direct their attention to study, and having no places of amusement within their reach, seek to drown ennui in ardent spirits, which once tasted, many have not sufficient control over their appetite to pause, but rush onward madly to destruction. We suggest to those who have so laudably embarked in the suppression of our intemperance to think of some mode of innocently amusing the minds of the middling classes; let them…offer a premium for the best essay on the subject. Of one thing we feel convinced – while total abstinence is not only their aim, but also a rigid adherence to certain religious creeds, to the exclusion of amusement, we think that though temporary good may result, the benefit will not be enduring. Let any one dwell on the construction of the human mind, and think how many and various are its desires and appetites, and we are convinced he will think with us, that those desires and appetites may be changed to a more moral and healthy channel, but they never can be subdued. (3)

Insult the ladies

All who have been in the habit of resorting to this town [Margate, England] must had had frequent cause to regret the monotony and dullness which occasionally brood over it, as a cloud surcharged with cholera or plague. For some time past this hebetude, with its accompanying ennui, has exercised its undisturbed control, and turned the bright summer months to the dark gloom of throat-cutting November – until, on the 21st [August] the spell was broken – the ladies’ tongues were released from bondage, and the whole town became in commotion through the following adventure:

Two military sprigs from Canterbury, whose names I will forebear to disclose, but who are said to be attached to the 93rd Regiment, have been for some time displaying their puppyism at the various places of amusement here, in successful endeavours to emulate the dandyism of the notorious 10th [Regiment], and annoy all those whom they presume to be below their level. These new Damon and Pythias…with that consummate assurance and self-conceit which characterize the fop and, as often, the fool, amidst other displays of blackguardism… commenced their insulting operations on every female whom they approached, and among others, on ‘the dark-eyed’ daughters of Nathan, the intimate friend of Lord Byron, and celebrated composer of the ‘Hebrew Melodies.’ Those who know Nathan can well imagine how he would have acted on the receipt of this intelligence, communicated to him by his insulted daughters. He did act as his friends expected. He first demanded an explanation – on which the ‘gallant sons of Mars’ attempted to sheer off, and finally denied the fact; but as Nathan persisted in his demand, they tried to shuffle out of the disgraceful affair, by doubting his qualifications to receive the satisfaction of a gentleman. Upon this, he very properly knocked down these military soi-disant gentlemen on a dunghill, where, without attempting to crow, they only sought to arrange their white feathers. (4)

Read a newspaper

The editor of the New Orleans Herald says, ‘The theatres are closed; it is too hot to hunt; too tedious to fish; and most of us are almost too indolent to read. The only amusement in which our citizens can now indulge is to ride out in the dusk of the evening, or walk the streets and inhale the cool air after dark. In these times of dullness, the man who would invent any pleasant means of banishing ennui should be looked upon as a public benefactor.’

If the stupidity of the climate had not infected the editor, he might, could, would, or should have said, ‘We are the public benefactor – the pleasant means of banishing ennui.’ (5)

Or not

We certainly are plague-struck! Each way we turn – each object we meet – is spotted with the mark of the pestilence, ennui. Breakfast is joyless – we have no chuckle at the reminiscence of over-night’s row in the House – no dreamy blissful recollection of the look of love ‘our lady’ cast from her opera-box on us – no soft melody vibrating in our ears of the sweet singers of the season. We are plagued with the absence of all these. We take up a paper – it is ‘full of emptiness’…. Is it it not a plague to wade daily through six columns on the directors’ evidence on the Secret(!) Committee on the Affairs of the Bank, with the consolation of reading ‘to be continued’ at the termination? Is not this, we say, an inducement to commit suicide? …

We were…in Grosvenor-Square – soliloquizing ‘as we went, for want of thought’ of anything, save that of our manifold plagues – a sudden fit of sneezing, the interesting concomitant of woe, seized us; and…the reverberation actually roused three old housekeepers, who shut the windows in apprehension of heaven’s artillery.

Reader! – Is it not plaguy hard the times should be, when the noise of an honest man’s nose should be mistaken for a thunder-clap? (6)

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“Blue Devils,” Providence Patriot (Providence, Rhode Island), July 27, 1833.
“The Cholera in Paris,” Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle, Vol. XI, No. 356, April 29, 1832.
“Amusement Necessary to Sobriety,” Western Times (Exeter, UK), October 6, 1832.
“War of Mars and Apollo at Margate,” The Age (London, UK), August 24, 1834.
“Happiness in New Orleans,” Morning Post (London, UK), August 30, 1837.
“London, The City of the Plague,” The Age (London, UK), September 9, 1832.

Quarantine, or the practice of enforcing isolation upon people to prevent the spread of disease, goes back to at least the seventh century BC. The word quarantine comes from 14th-century Venice, where ships were required to lay at anchor for 40 (quaranta) days before landing, in an attempt to curb the outbreak of bubonic plague known as the Black Death.

quarantine 19th century

During Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign, bubonic plague spread among French soldiers and the local population when the French captured Jaffa in March 1799. Upon Napoleon’s return to France, he should have observed a quarantine of at least a month, which was mandated for all people arriving from the Middle East. However, Napoleon was so popular that when his ship anchored at Fréjus in October, the quarantine requirement was set aside. According to Napoleon’s secretary Bourrienne, citizens were eager to meet the arriving general.

In an instant the sea was covered with boats. In vain we begged them to keep at a distance: we were carried ashore, and when we told the crowd both of men and women who were pressing about us the risk they ran, they all exclaimed, ‘We prefer the plague to the Austrians!’ (1)

Quarantine was the main method of combatting the spread of transmissible disease in the 19th century, when there was no effective medical response. Here are some accounts of what quarantine was like in practice.

Quarantine in Odessa, 1824

John Moore, a British traveller who visited the Russian port of Odessa in 1824, described the local quarantine facilities. Most ships were obliged to pass through a two-week quarantine, whether there was illness on board or not.

I visited the quarantine establishment a few days ago. There is a long mole, or pier, to which the masters of vessels come, in their boats, to confer with their consignees. I accompanied my hospitable friend Mr.****, and thus had an opportunity of witnessing some of the formalities of the place. Two or three commanders of merchantmen that were consigned to his house were waiting for him: — a wooden paling separated us from the quay, and my friend had enough to do to answer the captains, who occasionally spoke all at the same moment, and on different matters of business; he contrived at length to satisfy all parties, and they shoved off.

In another part are the parloirs, where the persons who are performing quarantine speak to their friends through a grating. Adjoining this place is a long jetty, whereon they can take exercise, and their lodgings are at a short distance.

There were several melancholy groups — amongst them a few Turks — they all seemed ready to ejaculate, like Sterne’s starling, ‘I can’t get out — I can’t get out.’

’Tis annoying enough to be kept fifteen days, at least, cooped up in a cage; but the evil is a necessary one, and the best remedy is that of the philosophical Spaniards — paciencia. What strange beings we are! and how easily (and oftentimes ridiculously) we suffer ourselves to be affected by localities! Now, when you look at people through bars, and know that they are confined to a limited spot within those bars, and that you are free, a feeling of pity for them (mingled with one of self-complacency) takes possession of the mind; and although you are aware that the détenus are the most respectable individuals in the world, their long faces, and anxious glances, together with the guards and turnkey-looking attendants, almost make you regard your worthy friends as culprits: this is really very wrong; for, we ourselves may be in limbo tomorrow or next day, and we should feel extremely indignant if our acquaintance should look down upon us. It is not pleasant to feel that one is a suspected article, if only with reference to the plague. (2)

Quarantine in Upper Canada, 1832

Kingston from Fort Henry, by James Gray, 1828

In 1830, a cholera pandemic that began in India spread to Europe. In 1831, it reached Great Britain. In 1832, it crossed the Atlantic to North America. Irish surgeon Walter Henry was stationed with Britain’s 66th Foot Regiment in Kingston, Upper Canada (now Ontario), when the pandemic arrived.

On the 8th of June, the pestilence made its first appearance in Quebec, having been apparently imported with a ship full of emigrants from Ireland. It proceeded up the river to Montreal, where it burst like a volcano on the 11th. Its course was capricious and uncertain; some intermediate villages being ravaged, and others passed over altogether. At Prescott, two deaths occurred on the 15th, and on the 17th it reached Kingston. …

As soon as it was known that malignant cholera had really appeared in Quebec, it was plain enough that it would find its way to the shores of Lake Ontario. … We first had the barracks and hospitals most carefully cleaned and whitewashed; the duties and fatigues of the soldiers were lightened as much as possible, and they were daily inspected with great care by their medical officers. The canteen was placed under vigilant supervision, and preparations were made to isolate the barracks, and to remove the married soldiers resident in the town, with their families, to a camp on the other side of the bay.

On the morning of the 17th of June, a fatal case of undoubted cholera having occurred in the town, these precautions were carried into effect. A camp was formed on the hill near Fort Henry, and the barrack gates were shut.

Although the cholera raged in the town for the next fortnight, we had no case in the regiment till the 4th July, when two grenadiers were attacked with frightful spasms. I was sent for on the instant – bled them both largely, and they recovered. Ten other men of the regiment were taken ill, and treated in the same way; the agonizing cramps yielded to the early and copious bleeding, as to a charm, and they also all recovered.

Encouraged by the result of these, and several similar instances amongst the poor people of the town, I began vainly to imagine that this plan of treatment would be generally successful…but I was soon to be undeceived. Three men and a woman, of the 66th, were attacked the same night. I saw them immediately; and the symptoms being the same to all appearance, they were bled like the others, and all died within twelve hours of the first attack. The spot which their barrack at Point Frederick occupied, was a promontory near the dock-yard, the air of which was vitiated by the neighbourhood of the rotting ships. The company quartered there was removed to camp on the hill the next morning, and had no more cholera. …

We all heard wonderful accounts of the effects of transfusion of saline fluid into the veins, and Dr. Sampson, the principal practitioner in Kingston, and a man of talent, was determined, as well as myself, to give it a fair trial.

We used it in twenty bad cases, but unsuccessfully in all — though the first effect in every instance, was the apparent restoration of the powers of life; and in one remarkable case of a poor emigrant from Yorkshire, life was protracted seven days by constant pumping. Here the man almost instantaneously recovered voice, strength, colour, and appetite; and Sampson and myself, seeing this miraculous change, almost believed we had discovered the new elixir of life in the humble shape of salt and water.

The appearance of Kingston during the epidemic was most melancholy —

‘While the long funerals blacken all the way.’

Nothing was seen in the streets but these melancholy processions. No business was done, for the country people kept aloof from the infected town. The yellow flag was hoisted near the market place on the beach, and intercourse with the steamboats put under Quarantine regulations. The conduct of the inhabitants was admirable, and reflected great credit on this good little town. The Medical men and the Clergy of all persuasions vied with each other in the fearless discharge of their respective dangerous duties; and the exertions of all classes were judicious, manly and energetic: for the genuine English spirit shewed itself, as usual, undaunted in the midst of peril, and rising above it.

We had thirty-six cases of bad cholera — besides a host of choleroid complaints, in the regiment. Of these we lost five men and two women. No child suffered.

During the prevalence of the disease it seemed to me that a number of errors in diet were generally entertained and acted on in our little community. Because unripe fruit, or excess in its use does mischief, all fruit was now proscribed by common opinion; and vegetables of every description were placed under the same ban, so that the gardeners saw their finest productions rotting unsaleable. This was folly; for the stomach was more likely to suffer than to benefit from the want of its accustomed pabulum of mixed animal and vegetable substances. It was proper to live temperately — to avoid supper eating, or eating late in the day — as eight-tenths of the attacks came on in the night — to eschew excesses of all kinds — but, above all to be fearless and place confidence in Providence.

If, amidst so much distress, ludicrous ideas could be entertained, there was enough to excite them on this subject of abstinence from vegetables. Huge Irishmen who had sucked in the national root with their mother’s milk, and lived on it all their lives, now shrank from a potato as poison. I heard a respectable and intelligent gentleman confess that he was tempted by the attractive appearance of a dish of green peas, and ate one pea, but he felt uncomfortable afterwards, and was sure it had disagreed with him.

The disease ceased entirely, and the usual intercourse was restored between the Garrison and the Town in the middle of October. (3)

Dr. Henry, who served with the 66th Foot during the Peninsular War, had a direct connection to Napoleon. In 1817, his battalion was posted to the South Atlantic island of St. Helena, where Napoleon was imprisoned. It was Henry who kept the official notes made during Napoleon’s autopsy in 1821.

Quarantine in Italy, 1836

George Ticknor, a Boston-born professor of French and Spanish languages and literature, was on his way to Rome in 1836 when he had to undergo a mandatory quarantine for all travellers.

October 8 — Again I passed the morning in inquiries about the cholera and cordons, with the general conclusion which I came to at Turin, that Castel Franco, between Modena and Bologna, is the best place for us to undergo the quarantine, without which neither Florence nor Rome can be reached. The governor of Lombardy was very civil to me, and showed me all the documents relating to the subject, and from looking them over I have no doubt the cholera has nearly disappeared from every part of Italy. The Roman Consul — a great name for a very small personage — was also very good-natured, and showed me whatever I wanted to see. But neither of them gave me any hope that the cordons will be removed at present, and the governor talked of the Duke of Modena and of the Pope in a way that hardly became either a good neighbor or a good Catholic, and with a freedom which no man in the United States, holding a considerable office, would venture to use. …

October 19 – We have passed through the territories of the Duke of Modena, and are safely shut up for a fortnight’s quarantine in Castel Franco. The whole day’s work has been as ridiculous as anything of the sort, perhaps, can be. In less than an hour after leaving Parma we reached the frontier of Modena, and were stopped by the guard till horses could be sent for; as the Duke allows no foreigner to enter his territories, who does not come prepared to traverse them as fast as post-horses can carry him, and under an escort, to make it sure that no intercourse is held with the inhabitants on the way. The whole goes here, as elsewhere in Italy, on the absurd system that cholera is communicated mainly, and perhaps solely, by contact, like the plague. Our passport, therefore, was taken in a pair of tongs and fumigated; the money to pay for this graceful ceremony was dropped into vinegar, and then the passport was given to two carabineers, who rode in a caleche behind us, to see that we did not get out of the carriage or touch any of the subjects of the most gracious Duke. In this way we were handed on from post to post, changing the carabineers at each station, until about three o’clock, or about six hours after we entered Modena, we crossed its frontiers again and were delivered over to the Pope’s guards, who fumigated our passport anew, — though it had been in the hands of the carabineers the whole time, — and then sent us into our lazaretto, which is neither more nor less than a set of old brick barracks in a ruined fort, erected some time in the seventeenth century, and dismantled by the French. Our rooms are brick on all sides, and cheerless enough; but the food is quite decent.

In these barracks we are locked up and guarded with perhaps twenty or thirty other persons, we are not allowed to touch any person who came in on a different day from ourselves, nor to touch anything they have touched; but we may all walk and converse together in a large, well-sodded esplanade of about ten acres, surrounded completely with the buildings which prevent us from seeing anything of the external world. This is to be our fate for a fortnight; but we have a pleasant party and abundant occupations, and are not altogether sorry for a little real repose, after about five months of very busy travelling

October 30 — We have now gone through nearly the whole of this miserable farce of a quarantine, and next day after to-morrow are to be released, and pronounced free of infection. On the whole, it has not been worse than we anticipated, and we have all been so truly busy that I do not know when the same number of days have passed so quickly. Every morning I have risen at seven, and we have all met for breakfast about nine; after which we have occupied ourselves in reading and writing till twelve, when we have generally walked an hour in the most delightful weather. At five we have met again for dinner, after which we took a dish of tea together and finished the evening with a game of whist. Part of the time there have been fifty persons in the same condition with ourselves, and at this moment there are above twenty Americans here. Most of the parties complain much of the tediousness and vexation of the delay, and we have heartily pitied a poor Russian Countess who has heard here of the illness and death of a child at Florence, hardly twenty hours’ drive from here, which she yet could not be permitted to visit.

November 1 — This morning we were released. The population of the lazaretto has been much increased within the last two days, …. in such numbers that no suitable accommodations can be provided for them. This morning they crowded round the carriage as we entered it, looking like the poor souls in Virgil who are not permitted to pass over the Styx. However, we did not stop to think much of such things, but hastened on to Bologna, where we were glad indeed to find ourselves again amidst the somewhat cheerless comforts of a huge Italian palazzo, turned into an inn. As soon as we were established we went out to see the city, with an appetite for sights somewhat sharpened by an abstinence of a full fortnight. (4)

Quarantine in Greece, 1848

Aegina in 1845, by Carl Rottmann

Ida Pfeiffer was an Austrian explorer, travel writer and ethnographer. On her first trip around the world, she had to undergo a quarantine when arriving in Greece from Turkey in 1848.

I had been told in Constantinople that the quarantine was held in the Piraeus (six English miles from Athens), and lasted only four days, as the state of health in Turkey was perfectly satisfactory. Instead of this, I learned on the steamer that it was held at the island of Aegina (sixteen English miles from the Piraeus), and lasted twelve days, not on account of the plague but of the cholera. For the plague it lasts twenty days. …

It was already night when we arrived; a boat was quickly put out, and we were conveyed to the quay near the quarantine station. Neither the porters nor servants of this establishment were there to help us, and we were obliged to carry our own baggage to the building, where we were shown into empty rooms. We could not even get a light. I had fortunately a wax taper with me, which I cut into several pieces and gave to my fellow-passengers.

On the following morning I inquired about the regulations of the quarantine — they were very bad and very dear. A small room, quite empty, cost three drachmas (2s. 3d.) a day; board, five drachmas (3s. 9d.); very small separate portions, sixty or seventy leptas (6 d. or 7 d.); the attendance, that is, the superintendence of the guardian, two drachmas a day; the supply of water, fifteen leptas daily; the physician, a drachma; and another drachma on leaving, for which he inspects the whole party, and examines the state of their health. Several other things were to be had at a similar price, and every article of furniture has to be hired.

I cannot understand how it is that the Government pays so little attention to institutions which are established for sanitary purposes, and which the poor cannot avoid. They must suffer more privation here than at home; they cannot have any hot meals, for the landlord, who is not restricted in his prices, charges five or six times the value. Several artisans who had come by the vessel were put into the same room with a servant-girl. These people had no hot food the twelve days; they lived entirely upon bread, cheese, and dried figs. The girl, after a few days, begged me to let her come into my room, as the people had not behaved properly to her. In what a position the poor girl would have been placed if there had not happened to be a woman among the passengers, or if I had refused to receive her!

Are such arrangements worthy of a public institution? Why are there not a few rooms fitted up at the expense of Government for the poor? Why cannot they have a plain hot meal once in the day for a moderate price? The poor surely suffer enough by not being able to earn anything for so long a time, without being deprived of their hard earnings in such a shameful manner!

On the second day the courtyard was opened, and we were permitted to walk about in an enclosed space a hundred and fifty paces wide, on the sea-shore. The view was very beautiful: the whole of the Cyclades lay before us….

On the fourth day our range was extended: we were allowed to walk as far as the hills surrounding the lazaretto, under the care of a guard. …

21st October. This was the day we were set at liberty. We had ordered a small vessel the evening before which was to take us to Athens early in the morning. But my fellow-travellers would insist upon first celebrating their freedom at a tavern, and from this reason it was 11 o’clock before we started. …

Our passage to the Piraeus occupied a long time. There was not a breath of wind, and the sailors were obliged to row; we did not land at our destination until nearly eight in the evening. We were first visited by the health-officer, who read through the certificates which we brought from the quarantine very leisurely. There was unfortunately nobody among us who was inclined to make it more understandable to him by a few drachmas. (5)

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Weird Pictures of Napoleon

Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne, Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Vol. I (London, 1836), p. 223.
John Moore, A Journey from London to Odessa (Paris, 1833), pp. 183-185.
Walter Henry, Trifles from My Portfolio, Vol. II (Quebec, 1839), pp. 98-102.
George Ticknor, Life, Letters, and Journals of George Ticknor, Vol. II (London, 1876), pp. 43, 46-47.
Ida Pfeiffer, A Woman’s Journey Round the World, Second Edition (London, 1852), pp. 331-332.

Napoleon Bonaparte’s name and image have been used to advertise a huge number of products since the Emperor’s death in 1821. In many cases, the advertised item has no obvious connection with Napoleon. One critic noted of an ad that appeared in 1899:

This ad shows Napoleon on horseback, three pyramids, a few camels, and a sphinx. The text of the ad is: ‘Napoleon and the Sphinx were types, and represented the greatest development of the world in their times. Liebig Company’s Extract of Beef is a type of the world’s peaceful development; the scientists’ contribution to the health and comfort and mankind.’ … As a picture, the design is a success, but as advertising it is what the late lamented Bonaparte said was worse than a crime – it’s a blunder. (1)

Here are some examples of how Napoleon has appeared in advertising over the years.

Alcohol

Bicycles

Napoleon bicycle ad

Napoleon bicycle advertisement

Cigars

Napoleon cigar ad

Clothing

Napoleon coat ad

Coffee

napoleon coffee ad

Flour

Iowa

Medicine

Oysters

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Printers’ Ink, Vol. 26, No. 9 (New York, March 1, 1899), p. 44.

British naturalist and collector William Bullock travelled to Mexico for six months in 1823, around the same time that Napoleon fictionally visits Mexico in Napoleon in America. Prior to leaving England, Bullock sought the advice of Scottish physician James Copland, who had experience with tropical diseases. Copland provided Bullock with the following advice, to which Bullock attributed his “uninterrupted good health” during his travels. Note that an aperient is a drug used to relieve constipation.

View of the City and Valley of Mexico from Tacubaya, 1824

To preserve health

Clothing

Your clothing ought to be light, but not too cool…. You ought to wear flannel next to your skin, and your feet should be always kept dry and warm. A light, broad-brimmed hat will be the pleasantest to wear; but even with it you ought never to expose yourself to the sun. Wear always a light silk umbrella, as a shade from the sun’s rays. Exposure to the sun in an intertropical climate is always hurtful to an European. If, owing either to the effects of a warm climate, or to the warmth occasioned by the flannel, the prickly heat should appear on the surface of your body, use no means to cure it further than taking an aperient dose of salts; for as long as it remains out, you have little chance of being seized by any other complaint. Remember always to change your clothes after the least degree of wet. If this precaution should at any time be out of your power, instead of it, or even in addition to it, drink large quantities of hot diluents, made still hotter with the addition of cayenne pepper.

Sleep

You ought most carefully to avoid sleeping in low, damp, or marshy places. Sleep always, if you can, in the most elevated and dry situations and apartments; and never, if you can avoid it, in bedrooms, the windows of which are in a direction that admits the land wind, more especially if that wind blow over neighbouring marshes or swamps. During the rainy season you should have a fire at night in your room. Always take care that the bed on which you rest is dry and well aired. The quantity of clothes on your bed should neither be too few nor too many: if the latter, you will be restless and fatigued; if the former, you will be more liable to be invaded by the causes of disease….

Stomach and Bowels

Let your diet be light, but by no means low; never allow your stomach to be loaded. Continue your water-drinking system during your meals, with the occasional addition of a little white wine to the water, especially after dinner, when the weather is colder and wetter than usual. As you inform me that your visit will not be longer than a few months, I think you will run little risk of being attacked by any serious illness, if you take care of yourself. The enthusiasm with which you usually engage in any undertaking will most essentially contribute to your health: do not, however, let it lead you to excessive fatigue; for whatever lowers, even for a very short time, the energies of the system, disposes to the inroads of causes of disease which it would otherwise have successfully withstood. Never go out about your engagements before breakfast. If at any time you are obliged to sleep in a marshy or low situation, you ought to take a teaspoonful of bark, with a few grains of cayenne pepper, in a glass of water with a little white wine in it, before retiring to rest. Keep your bowels always comfortably open, either by means of some cooling salts, or of a few grains (four or five) of calomel at bedtime, and a gentle dose of salts in the morning. …

State of mind

The state of your mind ought to be cheerful, contented, and occupied with objects calculated to excite, but not to exhaust, its powers. Avoid all the depressing passions, and be not too anxious about any object. You have nothing to fear from an attack of illness in Mexico more than in this country, therefore never dread its approach, although it will be very proper to avoid it. The only complaints by which you may be invaded are fever, dysentery, and diarrhea, and, perhaps, cholera morbus. (1)

To recover if you become indisposed

Fever

If you should perceive the invading symptoms of fever commencing, as pain in the back, loins, and limbs; yawning, sluggishness, pale countenance, cold surface, megrims, and nausea, &c. — open your bowels very gently, and add to the aperient something warm and stimulating, as cayenne pepper. Immediately after having taken the aperient, drink plentifully of warm diluents, take a warm bath, and employ most assiduously, after coming out of it, frictions with a coarse towel, over the whole surface of the body. These means will bring about reaction or excitement of the system….

If you feel your head to ache violently, and your temples to throb ; your eyes and face flushed; your pulse hard and full; your skin hot and dry, or even perspiring, — you should then undergo one large blood-letting, which may be repeated in a smaller quantity if these symptoms remain or return. Your bowels ought to be fully opened by cathartics, and cold water continually applied to your head, so as to keep that organ constantly cool: the surface of your body may be sponged with cold water.

Vomiting

If vomiting should supervene, and be of a bad appearance, a large blister ought to be applied over the situation of the stomach, or the warm bath be frequently had recourse to; and frictions with the recently bruised pods of cayenne pepper ought to be applied over the surface of the body until some degree of eruption makes its appearance; this last means should be assiduously employed if the energy of the system be very much diminished by the disease. Thirst may be quenched with spruce beer, or with water made agreeable with lime-juice, and somewhat hot with cayenne pepper: both the lime-juice and the pepper may be taken in large quantities, if the vomiting assume a bad appearance, or if the strength sink; and the hot bath, with the frictions already described, ought to be rigidly employed.

Spruce beer is an excellent drink, in the same state of the system (when its energies are considerably exhausted), — as also is brisk bottled stout. When the matters discharged from the stomach become black, and the skin assumes a yellow tinge, doses of the oil of turpentine, varying from a quarter of an ounce to one ounce, taken occasionally but not frequently, furnish a reasonable prospect of relief.

Dysentery

If you should be attacked with dysentery, and if you should have violent pain and much fever, you ought to be bled freely, and a blister should be applied over the abdomen.

You ought also to take small doses of opium, (either solid or in tincture,) with lime-juice, every hour or two. The warm bath and frictions, as before recommended, will be also serviceable. Opium with lime-juice is an excellent remedy, but it should be employed without other medicines being taken by the mouth about the same time.

Cream of tartar, reduced to a fine powder, taken in the dose of three drachms in a consistent fluid, and repeated every six hours, is also an excellent medicine, but it ought to be taken uncombined with other remedies, unless with opium; opium, either in a solid or fluid form, is the best remedy that can be given with the cream of tartar, in this disease, when it is attempted to be combated under circumstances which preclude the special care and direction of a medical man capable of ascertaining the operation of compound remedies. Under proper medical care, it may be advantageously combined with small doses of rhubarb, or of ipecacuanha, in addition to the opium.

Diarrhea

Diarrhea ought not to be suddenly checked, unless it has exhausted the strength of the sufferer. If it have, or if it have become chronic, it may be then restrained by gentle means, such as small and repeated doses of rhubarb, combined with a grain of calomel, and, at bed-time, with half a grain or a grain of solid opium.

Cholera

Cholera must be differently dealt with. You ought to restrain it immediately by means of a very large dose of opium (about two or three grains); and after the violent vomiting and purging have subsided, take repeated but small doses of calomel and rhubarb until bilious evacuations are procured. If these means fail, and if your strength be very much exhausted, take Madeira wine, or brandy and water, with very large quantities of cayenne pepper.

If you are near an English medical man, take his advice, and show him these instructions — they will be more appropriately applied under his directions. (2)

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William Bullock, Six Months’ Residence and Travels in Mexico (London, 1824), pp. 512-517.
Ibid., pp. 517-523.

During the time in which Napoleon in America is set, Texas was part of Mexico. There were two major settlements: San Antonio de Béxar, the administrative center of the province; and La Bahía del Espíritu Santo, an outpost southeast of San Antonio. The entire non-Native-American population of Texas numbered no more than 4,000. In 1823, Stephen F. Austin received permission from the Mexican government to establish a colony in Texas between the Colorado and Brazos Rivers. By 1828, Austin’s colony contained about 8,000 inhabitants. In 1831, Austin’s widowed cousin, Mary Austin Holley, visited Texas with a view to settling there with her family. She was 47 years old, cultured, well-educated and adventurous. Austin described her as “this very superior woman.” (1)

Mary Austin Holley wrote a book about her experience, entitled Texas: Observations, Historical, Geographical and Descriptive, published in 1833.

Many persons, disposed to emigrate to this fair portion of the earth, needed assurance, that the natives do not kill and eat people there, nor always insult and rob them….in this beautiful and fertile country, where the greatest abundance of all valuable and substantial possessions, are the easy and certain reward of industry and perseverance…. (2)

Here is some of her advice to prospective Texas settlers.

How San Antonio looked to Texas settlers in 1849

San Antonio, Texas, by Seth Eastman, 1849. Source: Museum of Fine Arts Boston

When to arrive

The best month to arrive in is October. The first impression at that time is delightful, as well as just, and there is less inconvenience and trouble at that time, than at any other season. It is also the most favourable season on account of health. The change to the hot months of the succeeding year is then gradual. Those persons who come from the northern states, or from Europe, in the spring and summer experience too sudden a change, and are always more or less, affected by it. (3)

What to bring

I would advise all who take this [sea] voyage to carry a liberal supply of oranges with them. This fruit is most refreshing to the lips, and has a relish, when every other article of food seems insipid. (4)

No foreigner is admitted into the country [Mexico], without a passport. Careful attention must be given to these particulars, to prevent detention, and an examination by no means agreeable on arrival. It should be stated in the passport whether the person be really an emigrant or a trader, as the former is allowed some privileges over the latter. (5)

Unfortunately, cooks do not grow on trees. The epicure, therefore, who brings with him his morbid appetites, must also bring his cook. (6)

House-keepers should bring with them all indispensable articles for household use, together with as much common clothing (other clothing is not wanted) for themselves and their children as they conveniently can. Ladies, in particular, should remember that in a new country they cannot get things made at any moment, as in an old one, and that they will be sufficiently busy, the first two years, in arranging such things as they have, without occupying themselves in obtaining more. It should also be done as a matter of economy. (7)

Those who must have a feather-bed had better bring it, for it would take too long to make one; and though the air swarms with live geese, a feather-bed could not be got for love or money. Every body should bring pillows and bed linen. Mattresses, such as are used universally in Louisiana, and they are very comfortable, are made of the moss, which hangs on almost every tree. They cost nothing but the case and the trouble of preparing the moss. (8)

Every emigrant should bring [mosquito] bars…. They are indispensable in the summer season, and are made of a thin species of muslin, manufactured for the purpose. Furniture, such as chairs and bureaus, can be brought in separate pieces and put together, cheaper and better, after arrival, than they can be purchased here, if purchased at all. But it must be recollected that very few articles of this sort are required; where houses are small, and building expensive. … Tables are made by the house carpenter, which answer the purpose very well, where nobody has better and the chief concern is to get something to put upon them. The maxim here is; nothing for show, but all for use. A few well selected standard books must not be forgotten. (9)

What to expect

In Texas, most domestic business is transacted in the open air. There has not been time to attend to the supernumary wants of convenient kitchens. The most simple process is used for culinary purposes, and one is often reminded that hands were made before tongs, shovel and poker, as well as before knives and forks. … [P]ots, kettles, and frying-pans, in playful confusion, greet the eyes of visitors and enjoy the benefit of fresh air, as well as of severe scrutiny. (10)

[I]t is the common practice with settlers here to cut away every tree of a clearing and to substitute, for the noble giants of the forest, those of a diminutive size and ephemeral growth; whether with a view to shade or ornament, I know not; but it certainly is a very mistaken policy, as well as most wretched taste. … How would Europeans be astonished to be told that almost every settler in Texas hews or burns down the fine live oaks that grow about his door, and thus, in this sunny climate, leaves his roof without a shelter form the rays of the sun. (11)

The people of Texas, as yet, have little time for trade. Every body is occupied with his domestic arrangements and plans for supplying his immediate wants. It is found to be easier to raise or manufacture such articles as are needed in the family, or to do without, than to obtain them from abroad, or to employ an individual to scour the country in search of such as may be desired. People live too far apart to beg or borrow often, and few trouble themselves to send any thing to market, though they have ever so much to spare. They had rather give to you of their abundance, if you will send to their doors. The towns are too distant to obtain supplies from them; while some are too proud, some too lazy, and most too indifferent, to trouble themselves about the matter. If they want any article of first necessity, coffee, for instance, which is much used, they will send some of their chickens, butter, and eggs to a neighbouring family newly arrived, and propose an exchange as most new comers bring with them some store. There is much of this kind of barter, provisions being so much more plenty than money. Nobody, however, fares very sumptuously; the new comers have not the articles, and the older residents have grown indifferent to the use of them. (12)

In no country, with the usual attention to the arts of life, could more luxuries for the table be furnished. At present, vegetables, fruits, eggs, butter, and chickens, sell very high in Brazoria; though they are yielded in every season of the year, in a profusion unexampled in any part of the world. The new comer has but to plant his seeds in the ground, and collect a first supply of live stock to begin with. They need but little or no care afterwards, and the increase is astonishing.” (13)

Money is scarce, in Texas; but all that money can purchase, and much that it can never buy, is plenty. The poor man of industry should know that he can get along without it; or at least, with very little. Those who are so fortunate as to have it, loan it, at a very high interest, on real estate security. Fifteen and twenty per cent is the common rate of interest. (14)

The people are universally kind and hospitable, which are redeeming qualities. Every body’s house is open, and table spread, to accommodate the traveller. There are no poor people here, and none rich; that is, none who have much money. The poor and the rich, to use the correlatives, where distinction, there is none, get the same quantity of land on arrival, and if they do not continue equal, it is for want of good management on the one part, or superior industry and sagacity on the other. All are happy, because busy; and none meddle with the affairs of their neighbours, because they have enough to do to take care of their own. They are bound together by a common interest, by sameness of purpose and hopes. As far as I could learn, they have no envyings, no jealousies, no bickerings, through politics or fanaticism. There is neither masonry, anti-masonry, nullification nor court intrigues. (15)

The common concerns of life are sufficiently exciting to keep spirits buoyant, and prevent every thing like ennui. Artificial wants are entirely forgotten, in the view of real ones, and self, eternal self, does not alone fill up the round of life. Delicate ladies find they can be useful, and need not be in vain. Even privations become pleasures: people grow ingenious in overcoming difficulties. Many latent faculties are developed. They discover in themselves powers they did not suspect themselves of possessing. (16)

Who should come

Those persons…who are established in comfort and competency, with an ordinary portion of domestic happiness; who have never been far from home, and are excessively attached to personal ease; who shrink from hardship and danger, and those who, being accustomed to a regular routine of prescribed employment in a city, know not how to act on emergencies, or adapt themselves to all sorts of circumstances had better stay where they are….

He whose hopes of rising to independence in life by honorable exertion have been blasted by disappointment; whose ambition has been thwarted by untoward circumstances, whose spirit, though depressed, is not discouraged; who longs only for some ample field on which to lay out his strength; who does not hanker after society, nor sigh for the vanished illusions of life; who has a fund of resources within himself, and a heart to trust in God and his own exertions; who is not peculiarly sensitive to petty inconveniences, but can bear privations and make sacrifices of personal comfort – such a person will do well to settle accounts at home, and begin life anew in Texas. He will find, here, abundant exercise for all his faculties, both of body and mind, a new stimulus to his exertions, and a new current for his affections. (17)

Mary Austin Holley

Mary Austin Holley visited Texas four more times between 1835 and 1843. She continued to write about the province, including a history of Texas published in 1836. Her work persuaded many to move to Texas and aroused sympathy for the colonists during the Texas Revolution. Although Stephen Austin secured land for her on Galveston Bay, Mary could never afford to move there. She died of yellow fever in Louisiana on August 2, 1846, at the age of 61.

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Joe Holley, “Stephen F. Austin’s favorite cousin was accomplished in her own right,” Houston Chronicle, March 16, 2018, https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/columnists/native-texan/article/Stephen-F-Austin-s-favorite-cousin-was-12759997.php.
Mary Austin Holley, Texas: Observations, Historical, Geographical and Descriptive, In a Series of Letters, (Baltimore, 1833), p. 13.
Ibid., p. 123.
Ibid., p. 23.
Ibid., p. 126.
Ibid., p. 118.
Ibid., pp. 123-124.
Ibid., pp. 124-125.
Ibid., p. 125.
Ibid., p. 41-42.
Ibid., pp. 48-49.
Ibid., pp. 116-117.
Ibid., p. 117.
Ibid., p. 126.
Ibid., pp. 127-128.
Ibid., pp. 128-129.
Ibid., pp. 129-131.

A Turkish Soldier, by Octavien Dalvimart, 1802

When writing Napoleon in America, I considered making French officer Gaëtan-Octavien d’Alvimart one of the characters. Like Generals Lallemand and Humbert, d’Alvimart was a spirited adventurer who tried to make his way into Mexico when it was still a possession of Spain. D’Alvimart claimed to be acting on the direct orders of Napoleon, whom he had known since his youth. But was he really Napoleon’s emissary? Here is the curious tale of a self-styled general, who was also an artist and a poet.

Napoleon’s classmate

Gaëtan-Octavien Souchet d’Alvimart – also known as Octavien (or Octavian) Dalvimart, and Octaviano d’Alvimart (or d’Alvimar) – was born at Versailles on May 13, 1770. His father, Octavien, was an officer in the dragoons, who later became governor of King Louis XVI’s pages. D’Alvimart’s mother was Joséphine Geneviève Dupont. Her father, Gaëtan Lambert Dupont, was a lawyer and counsellor to the crown, and treasurer of the royal military school in Paris.

In September 1784, Gaëtan-Octavien d’Alvimart was admitted as a gentleman cadet to the military school where his grandfather had formerly worked. One month later, Napoleon Bonaparte became a fellow pupil. They were probably not close friends, but they certainly knew one another.

In 1785, d’Alvimart became a lieutenant, and in 1788 he was appointed to the Queen’s Dragoons. His time with the regiment was short-lived, as he had to flee to England after killing an officer in a duel. Meanwhile, the French Revolution was underway and, as royalists, d’Alvimart’s family did not fare well. In July 1794, d’Alvimart’s father was guillotined for having called the uniform of the National Guard a “monkey suit.” (1)

Turkey and Egypt

A Female Dancer at Constantinople, by Octavien Dalvimart

In 1795, d’Alvimart joined the Turkish army. He took part in a campaign against the Russians. He was then sent to Anapa, to supervise the building of a fortress. After difficulty in getting paid for his work, he left the service of the Turks and travelled around the region, visiting the ruins of Troy and Halicarnassus, among other things. D’Alvimart went as far as Persia. He then journeyed to Egypt. He was at Rosetta when the French army, under Napoleon, landed at Alexandria in 1798. This led the Egyptian authorities to question d’Alvimart’s motives and throw him in jail. He was liberated by the French seven harrowing days later. D’Alvimart asked for an interview with Napoleon. He was perhaps hoping to secure a high appointment from his former classmate, who was now the country’s most impressive general. Napoleon instead proposed that d’Alvimart join the scientific and artistic mission that would accompany the army sent to the Upper Nile. Preferring to be a soldier, d’Alvimart returned to France.

Back in France

D’Alvimart was allowed to join the Republican army. Napoleon may have pulled some strings, as it was then hard for a former émigré to serve. In early 1800, d’Alvimart was employed as a cartographer on the Swiss border. He then became a captain in a regiment of light cavalry and was present at the Battle of Marengo. Shortly thereafter General Masséna provisionally nominated d’Alvimart to the rank of chef de brigade (equivalent to colonel), “in consideration of his bravery and military talents.” (2) However, the French Ministry of War confirmed him only in the rank of chef d’escadron (major). D’Alvimart complained vigorously. Thanks to Napoleon’s intervention, he was sent, in 1801, on the expedition led by General Leclerc – the husband of Napoleon’s sister Pauline – to put down a rebellion in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti).

Saint-Domingue

The expedition failed. Leclerc died of yellow fever. The disease decimated the French troops, and Saint-Domingue gained its independence in 1804. However, d’Alvimart’s talents were put to good use. Since money for the expedition was scarce, he and some other officers were dispatched to nearby Spanish colonies to ask for material and financial help. D’Alvimart successfully negotiated some aid. He was also charged by Leclerc with recruiting a collection of native animals for the menagerie at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris. The governor of Cartagena responded favourably to this appeal and sent a collection of lions, tigers, panthers, monkeys, parrots, etc., to Saint-Domingue. Baron de Norvins wrote:

Dalvimart was a diplomat with a sword at his side; a penetrating spirit and pleasant form were combined with a character armed from head to toe. He did what he could to continue to make us like and respect him, and to arouse benevolence if necessary. (3)

General Rochambeau, who replaced Leclerc as head of the expedition, wrote to his superiors that “the missions [d’Alvimart] filled in Caracas, Havana and the Kingdom of Santa Fe make his opinion very useful on all questions concerning these countries.” (4)

Rochambeau requested that d’Alvimart be promoted to chef de brigade. The Ministry responded that he did not yet have the four years of requisite service as chef d’escadron. Furious, d’Alvimart wrote to Napoleon that he led a deplorable existence and had experienced nothing but misfortune.

At the time when you landed in Egypt, you cannot have forgotten the lowness I sunk to in order to tie my fate to your fortune at a time when nobody else was doing so. They seek to bring your name closer to that of Henri IV; but never would the victor of the League have behaved in this way towards those he had known when he was still only the poor Béarnais. (5)

Holland & Prussia

Napoleon sent d’Alvimart to Holland. Any hope that he might be satisfied there was soon dashed. General Marmont wrote a crushing letter to the Ministry regarding the new arrival.

This officer, full of pretensions and devoid of zeal and willingness to serve, intensely expresses regret at being employed in an active army and the desire to be inactive; this opinion is a scandal here. (6)

In letters, d’Alvimart alluded to having some difficulties with his superiors. He admitted that he had been sent to jail because he was suspected of having embezzled some money. In June 1804, Marmont asked d’Alvimart to leave the army. When Napoleon passed through Mons later that year, d’Alvimart gave him a letter full of excuses and protests of repentance. He said that he was completely disappointed in his hopes of advancement, that his manner of expressing himself was to blame, and implored the Emperor’s clemency.

In September 1805, d’Alvimart was appointed officer attached to the headquarters of the French army in Strasbourg. He never filled this position, because he had already left France again, probably for Spanish America. By June 1806, he was back in Nantes. That fall, d’Alvimart followed the French army in the Prussian campaign. He later claimed he had been wounded at the Battle of Jena, a claim supported by his mother, who tried to present him “as an able officer afflicted with a bad temper.” (7)

Napoleon’s emissary?

A Greek Woman of the Island of Marmora, by Octavien Dalvimart

By September 1807, d’Alvimart was in Madrid, asking his government, through the French ambassador, for permission to return to the Spanish colonies.

His letter to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs mentions that he had brought back from his previous trips ‘several objects of interest for the Institute,’ and that he was responsible for the sending to France of the llamas ‘that are now at the Museum of Natural Sciences, after living I do not know for how long in the gardens of Saint Cloud or Malmaison.’ As a motive for this new voyage, he asserted that he was ‘ashamed of his family,’ and that he wanted to visit his brother who for many years had been in the service of the King of Spain. (8)

D’Alvimart received permission and was soon on his way to New Spain (Mexico) via the United States. He later claimed that Napoleon had sent him on an important mission, namely to reconcile Mexico to Joseph Bonaparte’s rule. In letters to the French Minister of War in 1825 and 1829, d’Alvimart wrote:

After the Peace of Tilsit, I went to Venice, where Napoleon was when he transferred Joseph from the throne of Naples to that of Spain. The matter was urgent. In view of the political crisis that might ensue it was feared that New Spain might separate from the mother-country. Joseph did not understand anything about his new kingdom. He was helped by his minister of colonies, the famous Azanza, whom I had already met on a previous mission. (9)

There are no records to confirm d’Alvimart’s statements. In fact, Napoleon did not transfer Joseph to the Spanish throne until 1808, many months after d’Alvimart had left for Mexico. Historian Jacques Houdaille, who carefully examined the primary sources, concluded that d’Alvimart was not Napoleon’s emissary.

“General” d’Alvimart in Mexico

D’Alvimart – calling himself a general, though he had never attained the rank – arrived in Philadelphia at the beginning of 1808. He met General Moreau, Napoleon’s rival. He then went to Louisiana, where, in July 1808 he was received by Don Carlos de Granpré, the Spanish governor of Baton Rouge. Louisiana had become part of the United States in 1803, but Baton Rouge remained a Spanish possession until 1810. Granpré treated d’Alvimart as the representative of a friendly country and put a boat at his disposal so he could travel on the Red River. D’Alvimart left his trunk with Granpré, who promised to keep it safe until his return. Meanwhile, William Claiborne, the American governor of Louisiana, alerted the Spanish consul in New Orleans to d’Alvimart’s presence. The consul wrote to the Viceroy of New Spain, describing d’Alvimart as “a man of talent, high enterprise, capable of insinuating himself into the hearts of the most imperturbable and of playing upon the ignorant at will.” (10)

Dr. John Sibley observed d’Alvimart’s passage through Orleans Territory.

When he passed through this neighbourhood he wore a plain dress, but put on the uniform of a French dragoon as soon as he crossed the Sabine and immediately assumed some authority. There are I believe a large majority of the old French inhabitants of this territory whose spirits are much exhilarated with what they believe so fair a prospect of being united to the French government. (11)

On August 5, 1808, d’Alvimart arrived at Nacogdoches, a town just across the Mexican border from Louisiana (Texas was then part of Mexico). When he was asked to show his passport, he declared that he had received orders from Napoleon to go directly to Mexico City. He produced a permit to leave France, delivered in Bordeaux on November 25, 1807. He also boasted of being a relative of Napoleon.

D’Alvimart was arrested and taken under military guard to San Antonio, where he arrived on September 8. José Antonio Navarro witnessed the scene.

We saw him enter the plaza of San Antonio with his flamboyant uniform. Covered with insignia and brilliant crosses it challenged the genial sun – which nevertheless continued to illuminate the plaza of San Antonio until its decline in the west. (12)

D’Almivart was sent to Monclova. He was paroled and at night tried to escape. Soldiers captured him two miles from the city and brought him back. Meanwhile, Granpré was getting worried about what might be in d’Alvimart’s trunk. A letter d’Alvimart had written to the Spanish viceroy, asking for help in sending his baggage back to France, had been published by a New Orleans newspaper. Granpré had the trunk opened in the presence of witnesses. “It contained a few books such as the works of Machiavelli and a treatise on the art of war, which were judged quite compromising, as well as a few French uniforms, which made matters worse.” (13) However, among the papers seized from d’Alvimart, there was nothing to prove he had been sent by Napoleon.

From Monclova, d’Alvimart was taken to Veracruz where, in January 1809, he was imprisoned in the fort of San Juan de Ulúa. When d’Alvimart was passing through Dolores, he met Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, who, in 1810, led the first rebellion against Spanish rule in Mexico. A pro-Spanish newspaper in Mexico City claimed that d’Alvimart had promised Hidalgo the rank of general (probably in the French army) and the ribbon of the Legion of Honour.

D’Alvimart spent eight months in San Juan de Ulúa, where he was poorly treated. No Spanish captain was willing to take him to Spain because it was feared the crew might kill him. The viceroy thus sent him in September 1809 on a British brigantine. Mexican authorities also seized d’Alvimart’s property, which amounted to 294 gold louis (2940 pesos, a sizable sum), and a casket containing some jewels. Houdaille concluded:

We may…surmise that d’Alvimart, who had already travelled in Spanish America and knew how weak was the power of the viceroys, had taken advantage of information he had concerning Napoleon’s intentions against the Spanish crown to venture his wealth on a private expedition that might have brought him profit and honors. In the following years, many other foreign adventurers were to indulge in such chimerical dreams. (14)

D’Alvimart was taken as a prisoner to England, where he spent a few months at a place he called “Odiham” in his letters. He protested to the British government and was shipped back to Cádiz. The Spanish junta (a government set up in opposition to Joseph Bonaparte’s rule) sent d’Alvimart to Ceuta in Spanish Morocco. He remained there as a prisoner even after Napoleon’s army was defeated in Spain. When Napoleon abdicated the French throne in 1814, d’Alvimart wrote to the French ambassador in Madrid asking to be released. He also requested 500,000 pesos to compensate him for the jewels he had lost in Mexico. He did not gain his liberty until 1820.

After d’Alvimart’s release

A Tartar, by Octavien Dalvimart

Upon his return to France, d’Alvimart represented himself as a victim of Napoleon. He claimed that Napoleon had been his enemy since adolescence and had always persecuted him; had admitted him to his general staff to cause him inconvenience; had offered him a place as governor of pages instead of a command, and, irritated by his refusal, had sent him to Holland to humiliate him, to Saint-Domingue to destroy him, and to Mexico to keep him away. He probably hoped that, in thus distancing himself from Napoleon, he would find favour with the Restoration government. Amid his diatribes, he threw in some more thoughtful reflections.

All I had to do was seize the moment; I was always sure to find favour with Bonaparte. At every moment, I was free to remind him that we had come from the same benches, that we had sucked the same milk, and a thousand other things that seem crazy today under the reign of the Bourbons….

Bonaparte put in his hand on a report of the ministry that he was aware that I had more talent than it takes to make a good general, but that I knew it too well, that patience and submission should be my motto, and that then I would not lack rights with the government. (15)

D’Alvimart asked the Ministry of War for 20,000 francs to cover his expenses. He presented a statement to the effect that, in April 1819, a military court had absolved him of all the crimes of which he had been accused.

While he was in Paris, D’Alvimart wrote a book called Mentor des Rois in which he expounded his ideas about the education of princes. He sent a copy of one its chapters to the Minister of War soon after the birth of the Duke of Bordeaux, the Bourbon heir.

Return to Mexico

D’Alvimart continued to write letters trying to get reinstated in the French army. When this didn’t happen, he returned to Spanish America to try to reclaim the property that had been seized from him. He might have hoped to play a part in the rebellions then underway in newly-independent Mexico. D’Alvimart arrived in 1822 and presented himself to President-turned-Emperor Agustín de Iturbide. He asked to be named a general in the Mexican army.

But once more d’Alvimart seems to have acted in a rather tactless way. He published a short pamphlet in which he quoted his own work, the Mentor des Rois, to show that freedom of press was a very dangerous weapon in the hands of demagogues. (16)

In 1823 d’Alvimart took part in a plot try to replace Iturbide. He was arrested and put in jail, from which he tried in vain to escape. He was shipped back to Europe by the end of the year. “His description was furnished to all port captains in Mexico, in order to prevent the return of this undesirable alien.” (17)

Artist and writer

A Hamal or Common Porter, by Octavien Dalvimart

D’Alvimart sent numerous letters to various French ministers of war asking to be reinstated to his army rank. In 1832 he asked the new King, Louis Philippe, to be sent to Portugal as a military counselor in the army of King Pedro. Most of his letters appear to have been filed without being read.

D’Alvimart had pursued a hobby as an artist since at least his time in Turkey. In 1802, a volume of coloured engravings taken from his drawings, entitled The Costume of Turkey, was published in England under the name of Octavien Dalvimart. A later edition is available for free on the Internet Archive.

D’Alvimart did some paintings based on his sketches, including a watercolour of the mosque of Santa Sophia in Constantinople and a tempura painting of the Plaza Mayor in Mexico City.

D’Almivart also wrote and published poetry, including an “erotic epic” of Hero and Leander. In addition, he wrote fragments of memoirs, which remained unpublished. He was less than complimentary about some of the people he had encountered.

The Americans of the Western states remind me of the Russians, that is to say that however civilized they may be, there is something wild and savage in them, like the bears, even when this animal has been well licked by its mother….

[The Mexicans] are fickle and unsettled people, for a long time accustomed to changes of government. They never go out of their homes, and as they always see the same society without ever leaving that monotonous life, they are usually ill-bred and do not have any frankness or openness in their behaviour…. They do not care at all for fame, although they have more vanity than any other people I ever saw….

When I returned from New York to Paris…what struck me most in this capital of France was the filthiness of the people, their miserable looks and the Cossack type that I saw in so many faces – which gave doubts as to the faithfulness of French women to their husbands during the invasions of the allies in 1814 and 1815. (18)

Gaëtan-Octavien Souchet d’Alvimart died in 1854, at the age of 84. He never married and had no children.

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Arthur Chuquet, La Jeunesse de Napoléon: Brienne (Paris, 1897), p. 444.
Jacques Houdaille, “Gaetan Souchet D’Alvimart, the Alleged Envoy of Napoleon to Mexico, 1807-1809,” The Americas, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Oct. 1959), p. 115.
de Lanzac de Laborie, ed., Souvenirs d’un Historien de Napoléon, Mémorial de J. de Norvins, Vol. III, 1800-1810 (Paris), 1897, pp. 23-24.
Houdaille, “Gaetan Souchet D’Alvimart,” p. 116.
Chuquet, La Jeunesse de Napoléon, p. 257.
Ibid., p. 257.
Houdaille, “Gaetan Souchet D’Alvimart,” p. 117.
Ibid., p. 118.
Ibid., p. 118.
Ibid., p. 120.
Julia Kathryn Garret, “Dr. John Sibley and the Louisiana-Texas Frontier, 1803-1814,” The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 46, No. 3 (Jan. 1943), p. 272.
David McDonald, José Antonio Navarro: In Search of the American Dream in Nineteenth-Century Texas (Denton, 2010), p. 20.
Houdaille, “Gaetan Souchet D’Alvimart,” p. 121.
Ibid., p. 125.
Chuquet, La Jeunesse de Napoléon, p. 258.
Houdaille, “Gaetan Souchet D’Alvimart,” p. 128.
Ibid., p. 129.
Ibid., pp. 129-130.

Violettes du 20 mars 1815, by Jean-Dominique-Étienne Canu. Source: Bibilothèque nationale de France

In Napoleon in America, as General Piat leaves his house to command an uprising in favour of Napoleon, his mother twists a violet around her son’s button. How did the violet become a symbol of Napoleon?

The violets of spring

The association began in April 1814, with Napoleon’s first abdication of the French throne. He was exiled to Elba, a small Mediterranean island 260 km south of France. Before leaving France, Napoleon supposedly told his friends and supporters that he would return with the violets, which bloomed in the spring. Thus his followers began to wear violets, or violet-coloured ribbons, silks, or watch-strings, as a way of signalling to the like-minded that they were Bonapartists.

Not only in the villages around Paris, but throughout the whole of France, and even on the banks of the Lake of Geneva, the violet was, immediately after his exile, known to be a secret symbol by which the partisans of Bonaparte denoted their chief, and recognized each other. They wore rings of a violet colour, with the device, ‘Elle reparaitra au printemps’ [It will re-appear in spring]. When they asked, ‘Aimez vous le violette!’ [Are you fond of the violet?], if the answer was ‘Oui,’ [Yes] they inferred that the answerer was not a confederate. But if the answer was ‘Eh bien’ [Ah! Well], they recognized a brother, initiated in the secrets of the conspiracy; and they completed his sentence, ‘Elle reparaitra au printemps.’

Similar secret symptoms, less important for their professed purposes of secrecy, than as a romantic garniture of conspiracy, calculated to excite the imagination, and peculiarly adapted in that respect to the character of Frenchmen, had been employed a twelvemonth before by the partisans of the House of Bourbon. A royalist then sounded any man, of whom he entertained hopes, by saying Deli: if the answer was vrance, the recognition of the principle was reciprocal and satisfactory. (1)

Violets and Napoleon’s return to France

When Napoleon escaped from Elba and returned to France in 1815, the violet became an open symbol of support. Helen Maria Williams, a British writer and admirer of the French Revolution who spent much of her adult life in Paris, was in the city when Napoleon arrived on March 20.

Tumult and disorder prevailed in the streets, which were soon filled with newly arrived troops, and the soldiers and populace were alike decorated with a bunch of violets.

That lovely and earliest flower of spring, the symbol of timid beauty, and the soft harbinger of summer, had been transformed into the badge of a sanguinary faction. The military, who were initiated in the secret of Bonaparte’s intended return in the spring, had applied to him the nick-name of Le Père la Violette. Rings of a violet colour had been worn by his party, and the name of the violet was pronounced with other words of mysterious import, and veiled, like the modest flower itself, from general observation. But on the morning of the 21st March, the guilty, the triumphant violet appeared glaring in the button-hole of every Bonapartist’s coat, or stuck into his hat, with all the ostentation of an order, or a cockade. (2)

Another commentator observed:

Early in the morning of the 21st, the shop-keepers of Paris were busily employed in changing their signs. Every where the crested lily disappeared, and the victorious eagle again stretched over the portals his terrific wings. The newspapers, bearing the stamp of the eagle, proclaimed the entry of the Emperor Napoleon on the preceding evening into his capital. The streets were filled with newly arrived troops, who, with the populace, were decorated with a bunch of violets, the badge of fidelity to Bonaparte. (3)

Corporal Violet

When Napoleon was in exile, the restored Bourbon monarchy censored pictures of him. Artists and print-makers evaded the restrictions by using Napoleonic symbols such as the violet. After Napoleon’s return, Jean-Dominique-Étienne Canu published a popular engraving entitled “Violettes du 20 mars 1815.” Also known as “Corporal Violet,” or “Le Secret du Caporal La Violette,” the print appears at first glance to consist simply of violets. It is, however, an optical illusion. It contains the profiles of Napoleon (under the green leaf on the right, which resembles Napoleon’s bicorne hat), his wife Marie Louise (facing Napoleon, on the far left, under the second violet), and their son, the King of Rome (on the right of the central stems, next to the lower violet). Around the time of Napoleon’s final defeat and abdication in June 1815, British caricaturist George Cruikshank produced a print entitled “The Peddigree of Corporal Violet,” in which a Canu-like bunch of violets appears at the top of dung-fed Napoleonic growth.

The Peddigree of Corporal Violet, by George Cruikshank, June 1815. Source: Bodleian Library

Violets during Napoleon’s second exile

Violets continued to be regarded as a symbol of Napoleon during his exile on St. Helena. However, they also appeared in caricatures, ballads, pamphlets and plays that ridiculed Napoleon. A group of British visitors to France in 1815 noted a brochure that included an allusion to a certain “Odeur des Violettes, that prevails in Paris, and which the writer asserts the soldiers had mistaken for laurels.” (4)

Lady Morgan, visiting France in 1816, went to a performance of a vaudeville piece called “Flora.” The characters were composed of flowers, presided over by the goddess Flora. Flora crowns the lily – a symbol of the reigning Bourbons – queen of the garden. Flora then takes note of a member of her train covered in purple and cobalt blue.

She inquires who is that sulky flower that stands in a ‘morne silence’ [sulky silence], pouting in the corner, and, after some delicate hesitation, the sister blossoms reply that is the guilty, proscribed, usurping violet, who alone, of all the flowers, had refused obedience to the ‘crowned lily’ in the absence of the goddess. The violet is instantly called into court, reprobated, and condemned; but, as clemency is the order of the day, the violet is to be ‘amnestifié,’ and by this term I thought we should have seen her pretty head cut off. But her dark veil was only removed, and she was permitted to take her place in the parterre of loyalty, which surrounded the goddess, and who all sung a finale, in praise of Flora, and Louis XVIII. (5)

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Chester Chronicle (Chester, UK), May 12, 1815.
Helen Maria Williams, A Narrative of the Events Which Events Which Have Taken Place in France, from the Landing of Napoleon Bonaparte on the 1st of March, 1815, till the Restoration of Louis XVIII, with an Account of the Present State of Society and Public Opinion (London, 1815), pp. 53-54.
J.W. Robertson, The Life and Campaigns of Napoleon Bonaparte (Newcastle upon Tyne, 1815), pp. 21-22.
John Scott, Journal of a Tour to Waterloo and Paris, in Company with Sir Walter Scott in 1815 (London, 1842), pp. 105-106.
Sydney, Lady Morgan, France (Philadelphia, 1817), pp. 294-295.

Visiting friends and sharing food were features of New Year’s Day in early 19th-century America. James Stuart, a visitor from Scotland, described a New Year’s Day in New York in 1830.

Study for “The Drawing Room,” or “New Year’s Call,” by James Goodwyn Clonney, 1842. Source: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

New Year’s Day in New York in 1830

New Year’s day, 1830, took place while we were at Hoboken. It was a fine clear day. We therefore passed over to Long Island to the Brooklyn Heights, to see the packets for England and other ports, which depart on the first day of each month, making sail in the Bay. I never witnessed a more animated scene. On our return through New York we were surprised to observe the streets more crowded than at any former period; and afterwards found, that it is usual for people of all descriptions to call at each other’s houses, were it but for a moment, on the first day of the year. Cold meat, cake, confectionery, and wines, are laid out upon a table, that all who call may partake; and it seems the general understanding that such a one’s friends who do not call upon him on the first day of the year are not very anxious to continue his acquaintance. There must be limitations to the rule, but I never could get them well explained; there is no doubt that the practice, as I have stated it, is very general. (1)

A Holiday Seed Cake

Stuart also observed the following.

The confectioners make great seed-cakes at Christmas and New Year. They are thought such curiosities that advertisements are issued, and people go to see them on the day before they are cut. One of them at Palmer’s, a confectioner in Broadway, weighed 1500 pounds. (2)

Seed cakes were sweet cakes flavoured with caraway or other aromatic seeds. Below are some seed cake recipes from the 1820s.

A Fine Seed Cake Recipe

Take a pound and a half of flour, and sixteen eggs well whisked. Mix with them a pound and a half of finely beaten sugar, and whisk them well together. Throw in half a pound of cut candied citron, lemon and orange-peel, and four ounces of almonds blanched and cut. Mix this with the pound and a half of dried flour, and twelve ounces of butter beaten to a cream. Season with cinnamon and cloves, and throw in a few caraway seeds. Smooth the top of this (and every sort of cake) when put into the hoop, and throw sugared caraways over it. (3)

A Common Seed Cake Recipe

Mix half a pound of best white sugar with two pounds of flour in a large bowl or pan. Make a hole in the centre, and pour into it half a pint of lukewarm milk, and two spoonfuls of yeast. Mix a little of the surrounding flour with this, and throwing a cloth over the vessel, set it in a warm place for an hour or two. Add to this half a pound of melted butter, an ounce of caraway seeds, and a little allspice, ginger and nutmeg, and milk sufficient to make the whole of a proper stiffness. Butter a hoop and pour in the mixture. Let it stand half an hour at the mouth of the oven, to rise, and then bake it. (4)

To Make a Good Seed Cake

Take two pounds of butter beaten to a cream, a quarter of a peck of flour, a pound and three quarters of fine sugar, three ounces of candied orange-peel and citron, one ounce of caraway seeds, ten eggs, but only five white; a little rosewater, a few cloves, mace and nutmeg; a little new yeast, and half a pint of cream; then bake it in a hoop, and butter your paper; when it is baked, ice it over with the whites of eggs and sugar, and set it in again to harden. (5)

Happy New Year and happy baking!

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James Stuart, Three Years in North America, Vol. I (New York, 1833), p. 333.
Ibid., p. 333.
The New London Cookery and Complete Domestic Guide by a Lady (London, 1827), p. 580.
Ibid., p. 580.
Ibid., p. 580.

In 1829, Caroline Cushing, a resident of Newburyport, Massachusetts, travelled to Europe with her husband Caleb Cushing, a lawyer and member of the Massachusetts Senate. While Caleb employed himself in studying the laws and institutions of the countries they visited, Caroline wrote a fascinating account of their journey through France and Spain. She provided the following description of a Spanish Christmas in Madrid in 1829.

Fin de Noche-Buena, by Francisco Ortego and Bernardo Rico, 1858

Christmas week in Madrid

Christmas week is a season of great festivity at Madrid. Although it was intensely cold, I did not abstain from my accustomed visits to interesting objects in the city; and on the day before Christmas, I made another unsuccessful attempt to see the Armory. But my walk was not wholly lost, for the Calle Mayor and the Plaza Real exhibited a very amusing scene, well worthy the trouble of even a longer walk to witness it. Little booths and stalls were all around the Plaza, and on both sides of the street, filled with every variety of fruits, cakes, and confectionary, together with children’s toys of all descriptions, which were held up, successively, by their respective proprietors, and declared to be the cheapest and finest toys, the sweetest and richest fruits, the most delicious cakes and confectionary, which could possibly be purchased; and this the happy looking groups, which thronged the place, seemed to take for granted, as I saw a multitude of children hurrying backward and forward, loaded with fruits and toys, almost too many for their little hands to contain; and chattering and laughing with each other, full of happiness and hilarity.

The toys, which were here displayed, are peculiar to the season of the year, and are not generally sold at Madrid, except at Christmas. A great part of the collection is composed of…porcelain toys from Malaga, …which were bought up with much eagerness, by the old as well as the young, and appeared to interest the adult quite as much as the child. This will not seem very singular, when you take into consideration that the dress of these little images represents almost every variety of Spanish costume, in the most perfect manner; which of course renders them more valuable than they would otherwise be.

In addition to these there were other toys for children alone, consisting of various instruments of music, of the most peculiar construction, and producing sounds little in consonance with the rules of harmony. Many of them were a similar species of tamborine to those used by the manolas when dancing before the Queen. They were very gaudily trimmed and painted; and instead of bells upon the edge of them, there were little pieces of tin strung upon wire. But the most curious of these instruments was called the zambomba. It is precisely in form of a small drum, with parchment at one end only. Through the centre of the parchment is inserted a small reed; and the music, if so it may be called, is produced by rubbing this reed with the fingers.

I amused myself, for a long time, in examining all these different toys; and in listening to the din of voices around me, pitched upon every possible key, from the deep toned cry of agua, agua, uttered by the watermen, to the soft and persuasive voice of the pretty toy girl, as she held up her attractive wares before the longing eyes of the little urchins around her.

A Spanish Christmas Eve

In Spain, the night preceding Christmas is called noche buena; and is spent by a great portion of the inhabitants of Madrid in meeting together in parties of friends, to feast upon fish, fruits and sweetmeats, although they religiously abstain from eating meats; and after this they attend mass, which commences at a late hour, and in some of the churches is celebrated with much pomp and ceremony. The streets are filled, at almost every hour through the night, with a concourse of people, walking about, and singing hymns appropriate to the occasion, accompanied with a plentiful quantity of the anti-harmonic melody, elicited from the zambombas and other equally fine toned instruments, which are so inappropriately used to usher in one of the most solemn festivals of the Catholic church. I was much disappointed, however, in the manner of celebrating this festival. I had anticipated something unusually grand and novel in the ceremonies of the day, but found, in reality, little to distinguish it from any other, except that mass was constantly performing from morning till night; and every shop in Madrid was closed, with the penalty of a heavy fine to any one who should dare to sell, even to the value of a real, either on that day or the following one. There were no processions or other great religious ceremonies, to denote the difference between Christmas day and any other festival of the church.

Christmas plays

In the evening I attended the Theatre del Principe for the first time since my arrival in Madrid. There had been no actor of any particular note performing for the time; and I found, while in France, so little gratification in attending the theatre, unless to see some celebrated performer, that I put off going in Madrid, from time to time, until the period for leaving it had nearly arrived, and I had not yet seen the interior of a Spanish play-house. But as several interesting pieces were announced for Christmas evening, I determined to attend, and was exceedingly entertained by the performances.

The plays were not remarkable as pieces of composition, but were highly amusing nevertheless. The actors and actresses exchanged characters, through each of the plays, the men acting the part of females, and vice versa. This whimsical custom, confined, I believe, wholly to the time of Christmas and Carnival, gives rise to scenes the most fantastic, and irresistibly laughable. For instance, you see a gentle shepherdess, with her straw gipsey upon her head, and her crook in hand, reclining asleep upon a bank of flowers, in the midst of a shady grove. While you are investing her, in fancy, with all the simple but attractive charms, which belong to her peaceful life and romantic occupation, she suddenly starts from her slumbers, and the lovely shepherdess is at once transformed into an amazon of six feet in height, whose coarse, masculine voice, as she utters a yawning exclamation, banishes, most effectually, all those pleasing dreams of the imagination, to which her first appearance had given rise. Hearing a rustling sound near her, she conceals herself behind a tree, when her love-lorn swain, a mere lady’s page in stature, makes his appearance, and commences a sorrowful ditty in the softest and sweetest accents possible, humorously contrasting with the rough-toned voice of his lady-love. Their meeting was amusing to the highest degree; and the uncontrollable bursts of laughter, heard in every part of the theatre, sufficiently proved the whimsical character of the entertainment.

This was but one, among a multitude of scenes of the same kind, which were pleasantly diversified by dances of the most animated and beautiful description. They were generally performed by very young girls, whose graceful movements and wonderful skill elicited the constant admiration and applause of the audience. One of the dances was French, but all the others were Spanish dances of different kinds. Of these the bolero was to me far more pleasing than any of the others.

Aftermath

Caroline Cushing, who was said to have possessed “rare intellectual endowments,” died on August 28, 1832, at the age of 30. (2) She had no children. Caleb Cushing, who never remarried, went on to have a distinguished career as a politician and diplomat. Among other things, he served as Attorney General of the United States under President Franklin Pierce (1853-1857) and as the American Minister to Spain (1874 to 1877). He died on January 2, 1879, at the age of 78. Caroline’s father was Samuel Sumner Wilde, an associate justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court from 1815 to 1850.

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas.

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Caroline W. Cushing, Letters Descriptive of Public Monuments, Scenery, and Manners in France and Spain, Vol. II (Newburyport, 1832), 131-136.
The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. IV (New York, 1897), p. 151.

If you think of a particular European nationality, what stereotype comes to mind? For one British writer in 1822, it was “the mercurial Frenchman, the ignorant and sluggish Spaniard, the profligate Italian, and, perhaps, the enthusiastic and imagination-led German.” (1) Even relatively well-travelled statesmen held preconceptions about specific nationalities. Austrian Foreign Minister Clemens von Metternich wrote in 1824:

In Paris…they take everything lightly as if nothing were of importance; the wind blows everything away. In England things and people are under another moral law, and matters which have no value and no importance in Paris, have it in London. Italy possesses few men; there are, indeed, some literary men who are dull and heavy there, as everywhere else, in spite of the innate frivolity of their national character. In Germany everything tends to ideology, and a deep sleep lies on everything else. (2)

Below are some of the national stereotypes found in the writings of early 19th-century travellers.

A medley of satirical prints showing national stereotypes

A medley of satirical prints caricaturing different national types and traits in Europe, by Louis François Charon, 1817

Americans

[In Austria] a surly-looking fellow demanded our passports, which, having read, he said, ‘You cannot be Americans; they are all black, and cannot speak German.’ (3)

Austrians

The Austrians have no great capacity for thinking and a very great capacity for immorality and superstition, much of both must be ascribed to that total prostration of intellect which their government inflicts upon them. (4)

Englishmen

The Englishman is certainly not the most sociable being among strangers, whose conversation he rather shuns than provokes. He feels it almost an insult to become the butt of conjecture to those around, and to be subjected to their awkward attempts to satisfy ill-concealed or more open curiosity; while he considers it little worth his while to inquire about the professions, business, persons and opinions of others. Hence a general remark on the state of the weather or the latest news, and he is at the end of his tether. (5)

Frenchmen

I will not say, as I have frequently heard it remarked by others, that the love of pleasure and amusement is the engrossing, all-absorbing passion of the French, that the pure principles of religion exercise no influence over their actions, or that the tranquil enjoyments of domestic life are totally unknown to them; for this I do not believe, having myself met with instances sufficient to prove the contrary to my own satisfaction; but it is evident to the slightest observation that the love of pleasure is carried to far greater excess in France, that religion exercises less influence there, and that the marriage tie is much more frequently a mere matter of expediency between parents, without reference to the wishes or feelings of the parties most interested, than in America.

That the French surpass every other people in point of politeness, is an opinion very generally entertained by all the world. … [T]he superiority of politeness is rather in manners, than in feeling. A Frenchman will be more obsequious, more polite, undoubtedly, in manner; but I have not found that he is particularly ready to make a sacrifice of his own personal convenience to that of his neighbour. (6)

Germans

The German…has a kind of restless curiosity and desire to communicate and to learn, and such a droll kind of half-cunning simplicity all the while, in managing his advances, that I have often been at a loss to know whether it would be proper to show solemn indignation or undisguised glee at the singular compound of impudence and simplicity, assurance and politeness, which distinguishes the thorough-bred German, in pursuance of his wish to satisfy curiosity. (7)

Italians

In Italy they are licentious and irreligious…. Any one might be king of the Italians who would supply them plentifully with puppet-shows and quack doctors. (8)

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Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 15, Feb. 1824, p. 136.
Richard Metternich, ed., Memoirs of Prince Metternich, 1773-1815, Vol. IV (London, 1880), p. 97.
Seacome Ellison, Prison Scenes’ and Narrative of Escape from France, During the Late War (London, 1838), p. 176.
John Russell, A Tour in Germany, and Some of the Southern Provinces of the Austrian Empire, in the Years 1820, 1821, 1822 (Boston, 1825), pp. 405-406.
Charles Joseph Latrobe, The Pedestrian: A Summer’s Ramble in the Tyrol (London, 1832), p. 112.
Caroline Elizabeth Wilde Cushing, Letters, Descriptive of Public Monuments, Scenery, and Manners in France and Spain, Vol. I (Newburyport, 1832) pp. 339-340.
Latrobe, The Pedestrian, p. 113.
A Young English Merchant, A Tour Through Some Parts of Istria, Carniola, Styria, Austria, the Tyrol, Italy, and Sicily, in the Spring of 1814 (London, 1815), pp. 112, 183.

The Imperial Crypt of the Habsburg family, known in German as the Kaisergruft, or Kapuzinergruft (Capuchin Crypt), lies beneath the Capuchin Church and monastery in Vienna, Austria. The crypt contains the remains of 150 people. The oldest tombs are those of Empress Anna (1585-1618) and Emperor Matthias (1557-1619). The most recent are those of Otto von Habsburg (1912-2011) and his wife Regina (1925-2010). In style, the tombs range from simple caskets to elaborate Baroque sarcophagi. The largest is that of Empress Maria Theresa (1717-1780) and her husband, Francis Stephen (1708-1765). The only non-Habsburg in the crypt is Maria Theresa’s governess, Countess Karoline von Fuchs-Mollard.

The Habsburg Imperial Crypt in Vienna

Visiting the Imperial Crypt in 1837

Today the tomb that receives the most visitor attention is that of Empress Elisabeth, also known as Sisi, the wife of Emperor Franz Joseph (1830-1916). She was assassinated in Geneva in 1898. In 1837, the year that Sisi was born, English writer Frances Milton Trollope paid a visit to the Imperial Crypt. At that time, Emperor Francis I (1768-1835) was the star exhibit. He was the father of Napoleon’s second wife, Marie Louise, who is also buried in the crypt.

This day is the one known in the Romish calendar as that of ‘La fête des Morts,’ or, as the Germans call it, ‘Poor Souls’ Day.’ The churches are all hung with black; no music is heard within them, but masses for the dead are solemnly murmured before every altar throughout the city. It is in vain that innumerable waxen tapers, of all sizes, colours, and shapes, expend their votive light around a hundred shrines; the gloomy hangings seem too mighty for them, and the air of dark and solemn sadness is universal. Every shop is shut, and the entire population appear to have given up their spirits to mourning. The churches in all parts of the city have been crowded during the whole day; yet, nevertheless, multitudes have wandered to the cemeteries without the town, to visit the graves of friends recently lost.

The great point of general interest, however, is the crypt of the church belonging to the convent of the Capuchins, for there lie interred the imperial family of Austria. The vaults are on this day open to the public; and we have spent a considerable time within their gloomy recesses, both for the purpose of looking ourselves at this receptacle of the royal dead, and for that of watching the use made of this annual pilgrimage by the people.

Seventy-three bronze coffins are ranged in solemn array around the walls. Some of these are extremely simple, and others in the highest style of magnificence. That of the Emperor Francis the First of Germany, and his consort, Maria Theresa, (for one sarcophagus contains them both,) was erected by the illustrious woman whose bones rest within it, and is, I think, the most splendid of the collection. But the crowd of pilgrims who came, upon this day, to gaze upon the coffin that contains their idol the late Emperor, Francis the First of Austria, was too numerous to permit any very accurate examination of them.

Were I simply and fully to describe to you the strong emotion manifested by the throng, still passing on, but still renewed, when at length they had won their way across the imperial sepulchre to the grating which gave them a sight of the Emperor Francis’ coffin, you would hardly give credence to the truth of my tale. You would not think it false, but you would suspect that it was exaggerated; and as, on the other hand, I feel sure of falling short of the truth from mere want of power to do justice to a scene so singular and so affecting, I think I must leave you without any description of it at all.

And yet, perhaps, of all the spectacles I have ever witnessed it was the most striking! . . . . The old and the young, the rich and the poor, pressed on together to the tomb of their common father; neither sex, age, nor condition were observed in this unparalleled mêlée of general emotion; and I believe truly, that of all the multitude who thronged that dismal vault, we alone profited by the light of the torches which made its gloom visible, for the purpose of looking on as mere spectators of the scene. We watched tears stealing down many a manly cheek from eyes that seemed little used to weeping, and listened to sobs that spoke of hearts bursting with sorrow and remembered love, beside the tomb of one who had already lain there above two years – and that one an Emperor! . . . . Between him and the people that thus freshly weep for him, there must have been a tie more closely drawn than we, in our land of freedom, can easily understand. Does not all this seem to you like something more than the simple truth? Yet, so far from having painted the scene too strongly, I am quite sure that what I have said can convey to you no adequate idea of its solemn interest, its deep pathos, and its strange sublimity.

We have passed this evening at a party, where I mentioned to several persons how greatly the strong emotion we witnessed in the royal catacombs surprised me. The answer was the same from all: ‘Had you known the Emperor, it would have caused you no astonishment.’ . . . ‘Would it surprise you,’ said a lady of the party, ‘to see children weeping upon the grave of their father? . . . . Our Emperor was more than a father to us.’

All this is so new, and so strange to me, that I feel as if I had got into a new planet. The only sentiment with which I have been hitherto acquainted (and this has been only by tradition) that at all approaches to that which I hear expressed by the people of this country for their sovereign, is the feeling of love and devotion borne by the brave Scottish clans of yore to their chieftains. I have often lamented that the changes which time has wrought in the ancient framework of our social relations should have swept away a sentiment so generous, so useful, and, as I think, so natural. But here I find it again in perfection, only upon a far nobler scale; and the indications of it are so genuine, and its influence so evidently tending to ennoble the nature of the social compact which binds men together for their common safety and advantage, that . . . .

But I must not go on. If I pursue this theme I shall run a risk of uttering treason, even against the beautiful constitution of our glorious England as it stood before those stabs and thrusts were made which have of late so grievously disfigured it; but all that has happened to us since, has so mystified and obscured the features of this once worshipped but mouldering idol of all English hearts, that it is no great wonder if, seeing elsewhere what is good, we should almost forget that the time has been when we possessed what was better still. (1)

The Imperial Crypt is open to visitors every day. See the Kapuzinergruft website for details.

The tomb of Emperor Francis I of Austria

Habsburg hearts & innards

As part of the burial procedure of the Habsburgs, the heart and inner organs were removed from the body and interred separately. Fifty-four Habsburg hearts sit in silver urns in the Hapsburg Heart Crypt (Herzgruft), which is a vault within the Loreto chapel of the Augustinian church, next to the Hofburg Palace in Vienna. The oldest heart in the vault is that of Empress Anna; the most recent is that of Archduke Franz Karl (1802-1878). He was the son of Emperor Francis I and the father of Emperor Franz Joseph. The heart of Napoleon’s son, the Duke of Reichstadt (Napoleon II, 1811-1832), is also interred in the vault. The Loreto chapel is open to the public only once a week, after mass on Sundays (about 12:45 pm). After listening to a talk in German, visitors can peer through a grate at the two rows of urns.

The Habsburg Heart Crypt. The urn containing the heart of Napoleon’s son is encircled by a red, white and blue ribbon, in the middle of the second shelf.

Additional bodies, hearts, and internal organs of the Habsburgs are interred in the Ducal Crypt below St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna. For details on visiting the crypt, see the St. Stephen’s website.

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Frances Milton Trollope, Vienna and the Austrians, Vol. I (London, 1838), pp. 380-384.

In Napoleon in America, when Marie Laveau casts her healing spell on Napoleon, he says, “She has let me dream at ease.” Though some might say that Napoleon dreamed of European conquest, the French Emperor’s actual dreams, as reported by his companions, were less grandiose.

The Interview at Erfurt, which inspired one of Napoleon's dreams

The Interview at Erfurt, by Nicolas Grosse. Tsar Alexander (in black jacket and white pants) is standing on the right.

Napoleon’s dream at Erfurt

Napoleon’s valet Constant recounted the following episode, which he says happened after Napoleon and Russian Tsar Alexander I watched a presentation of Voltaire’s play Oedipus in the German city of Erfurt in October 1808. During the performance, Alexander presented his hand in friendship to Napoleon.

That evening I assisted the Emperor to bed as usual. All the doors leading into his chamber were carefully closed, as well as the shutters and windows. Hence no one could approach His Majesty except through the salon where I slept with Roustan. A sentry was stationed at the foot of the staircase. I always went to sleep very tranquilly, sure that nothing could happen to Napoleon without awakening me.

About two o’clock that morning, when I was sleeping very profoundly, a strange noise suddenly awakened me. I rubbed my eyes, listened with the closest attention, and hearing absolutely nothing, I concluded that I had been dreaming, and was getting ready to go asleep again, when my ears caught the sound of muffled and plaintive cries such as might be uttered by a man who was being strangled. I heard them twice. I was sitting up, motionless, my hair standing up on my head, and my limbs bathed in a cold perspiration. Suddenly it occurred to me that they were assassinating the Emperor. I sprang out of bed and woke Roustan. . . .

The cries began anew with alarming force. Thereupon I opened the door with all the precautions that my trouble permitted me to take, and entered the bedchamber. A hasty glance convinced me that no one had come in.

Advancing toward the bed, I perceived His Majesty stretched across it in a convulsive attitude, his sheets and coverlets tossed to one side, and his entire person in a frightful state of nervous contraction. Inarticulate cries were escaping from his half-open mouth, his chest seemed greatly oppressed, and one of his tightly closed hands lay on the pit of his stomach. It frightened me to look at him. I called him and he did not answer; I called him again, and yet again . . . the same silence. At last I gave him a gentle push. This roused the Emperor and he awoke with a loud cry, and saying: ‘What is it? What is it?’ Then he sat up and opened his eyes wide.

I made haste to tell him that, seeing him tormented by a horrible nightmare, I had ventured to waken him. ‘And you did well, my dear Constant,’ interrupted His Majesty. ‘Ah! my friend, what a frightful dream! A bear tore open my breast and was devouring my heart!’ Thereupon the Emperor got up, and while I was remaking his bed, he walked about the room. He was obliged to change his shirt, for that he had on was all wet with perspiration. At last he lay down again.

He told me the next morning on awaking, that he had had all the trouble in the world to go to sleep again, so vivid and terrible had been the impression he had experienced. He was haunted for a long time by the memory of this dream. He often spoke of it, trying each time to draw different conclusions from it, to compare its circumstances. I was struck, for my own part, by the coincidence between Alexander’s compliment at the play and this frightful nightmare, all the more because the Emperor was by no means subject to nocturnal disturbances of this sort. I do not know whether His Majesty related his dream to the Emperor of Russia. (1)

Napoleon’s dreams on St. Helena

Count de Las Cases left the following account of a dream Napoleon had in October 1816, during his exile on St. Helena.

After dinner [Napoleon] mentioned a dream which he had had during the night. A lady with whom he had been but little acquainted (Madame Clarke, Duchess de Feltre appeared to him in his dream, and told him she was dead, at the same time adding several observations which were expressed in language perfectly connected and intelligible. ‘Every thing was so clear and distinct,’ said the Emperor, ‘that it has made a forcible impression on me; so much so that if I were really to hear of the death of the Duchess de Feltre, I must confess that my established ideas would be shaken; and perhaps,’ said he, smiling and looking at one of the company,’ I too should become a believer in dreams and apparitions.’ (2)

There was no danger of that, since the Duchess de Feltre did not die until 1842, 21 years after Napoleon expired.

While he was in exile, Napoleon also reportedly had a vivid dream of his second wife, Marie Louise.

She looked as young as she was when I saw her at Compiegne. I took her in my arms but try as hard as I could to hold her tight, I felt her slipping away from me, and when I tried to embrace her again, everything had disappeared and I woke up. (3)

Interpreting dreams in the 19th century

The ancients regarded dreams as flights of the soul, or messages sent by gods or demons. By the late 18th century, people were starting to attribute dreams to more earthly circumstances, including disturbances of the body. In 1786, Benjamin Franklin wrote that “the art of procuring pleasant dreams” lay in preserving good health, having a supply of fresh air in the bedroom, and maintaining a good conscience, “for when the body is uneasy, the mind will be disturbed by it, and disagreeable ideas of various kinds will, in sleep, be the natural consequences.” (4)

In the first half of the 19th century, scientific explanations of dreams competed with theological accounts and everyday superstitions. Newspapers regularly presented reports of dreams that accurately foretold disasters, such as drownings and murders. Dream books, which provided an A to Z guide to dream interpretation, were popular. Here is a sample from the “C”s.

COAL-PIT – To dream you are in a coal-pit foretells that you will shortly lead a widow to the hymeneal altar – to a maid it denotes a speedy marriage with her sweetheart who will become rich and rise to honors in the state – to the trader, it indicates that he will shortly be tricked out of a quantity of goods.

COMETS – To dream you see one of these extraordinary, aethereal substances is ominous of war, plague, famine, and death – to the lover, it forebodes an entire frustration of his hopes – to the farmer, failure of crops and to the seamen, storms and shipwrecks – after such a dream, change, if possible, your present place of residence.

CORN – To dream you see fields of corn, or that you are among unthrashed corn, is a very favourable omen it denotes success in business – to the lover it announces that your sweetheart is kind, of an amiable disposition, that you will marry, have many children, and become rich and happy.

CRANES – To dream you see [a] flock of these birds is very ominous, it foretells misfortune and disputes – expect thieves to attack your house – your servants to rob you – your friends to turn against you – and your enemies to gain advantage over you – if you are in love, your sweetheart will betray you: in short, such a dream is the fore-runner of evil, and I would advise the dreamer to change his quarters as soon as possible, for depend no good will attend him in his present situation. (5)

A more helpful guide to dream interpretation appeared in an Indiana newspaper.

To dream, and to remember your dream, is a forerunner that you were not awake, nor very sound asleep, when you dreamed.

To tell your dreams prognosticates that you might be better employed.

For a young lady to dream very particularly of any certain young gentleman foretells that she purchased her last hat to attract his attention.

To dream of happiness shows that you will probably be disappointed when you awake. (6)

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Louis Constant Wairy, Memoirs of Constant, First Valet de Chamber of the Emperor, on the Private Life of Napoleon, His Family and His Court, translated by Elizabeth Gilbert Martin, Vol. II (New York, 1895), pp. 307-309.
Emmanuel de Las Cases, Memorial de Sainte Hélène: Journal of the Private Life and Conversations of the Emperor Napoleon at Saint Helena, Vol. III (London, 1823), p. 310.
Christopher Hibbert, Napoleon: His Wives and Women (London, 2002), p. 296.
Benjamin Franklin, Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (Dublin, 1793), pp. 182-187.
Mother Bridget, The Universal Dream Book (London, 1816), p. 21.
“Dreams,” Indiana Journal (Indianapolis, Indiana), June 26, 1827.

In 1805, British writer Robert Semple travelled across Spain. His observations on the journey, published in London in 1807, provide a sense of what Spain was like before the Peninsular War (1807-1814), and before Napoleon placed his elder brother, Joseph Bonaparte, on the Spanish throne. At the time of Semple’s visit, Charles IV – a member of the Bourbon family – was the king of Spain. Charles took little interest in matters of government, leaving them in the hands of his wife, Queen Maria Luisa, and the Spanish prime minister, Manuel de Godoy, who was thought to be the queen’s lover. Spain was in a forced alliance with France. Here are some of Semple’s thoughts about Spain.

Madrid Fair in Plaza de la Cebada, by Manuel de la Cruz Vázquez, circa 1770-1780

Spanish roads

The roads in Portugal are in a most neglected state, whilst in Spain, no sooner have we passed the frontiers than we see them excellent from Badajoz to Madrid. The Portuguese do not scruple to avow their reason for thus not merely abandoning their roads toward Spain, but absolutely leading them over the most difficult and rocky ground: ‘We do not wish,’ say they, ‘to make a road to Lisbon for the Spaniards.’ The Spaniards, on the contrary, construct excellent roads, in all directions from their metropolis to the frontiers, and even toward France…. In the same spirit the Spaniards affect no concealment with respect to their fortifications and harbours. Any person may obtain at Madrid excellent plans of Cadiz, Ferrol, Barcelona, &c. published by the government, and greatly superior in accuracy to those executed in other countries. The French, on the contrary, are exceedingly jealous on these points. (1)

Impressions of Madrid

[Madrid] presents houses being lofty and built of stone; the streets well paved and clean, and the public edifices not being blacked with smoke, as in London, look as if they were newly erected. The great ornaments of Madrid, exclusive of its palaces and churches, are its gates, resembling so many triumphal arches, and the prado or public walk. The erection of these gates was the glory or the weakness of Charles the Third, who has taken due care to record his name upon them in long inscriptions; but he forgot to add walls to them, which, in my opinion, would have greatly increased the effect. Beautiful gates are placed here and there in a miserable wall, which a few three pounders would batter down in an hour; so strangely are magnificence and poverty here blended together. The prado, on the contrary, is admirable in all its parts, being a broad walk, adorned with handsome fountains, and divided into avenues by rows of trees…. (2)

[O]n Sundays, the King, Queen, and royal family, ride up and down the carriage road, and salute the people constantly as they pass. It is on the prado that the stranger may study with advantage the dress, the air, and the gait of the Spaniards; for then all pass in review before him, from the prince to the beggar. The nobleman alights from his carriage, and saunters among the throng, seemingly careless about his fine dress, and the ornaments at his button-hole, although nobody glances at them so often as himself; the citizen dresses in the mode general throughout Europe thirty years ago; whilst the lower classes that venture on the prado, still wear their clothes thrown over the shoulder, and thus preserve the last reliques of the ancient toga.

All the men wear large cocked hats, and all smoke cigars; for this latter purpose boys run up and down the prado with a kind of slow torch, which burns without flaming, and serves to light the cigars. In opposition to them, water carriers, with their porous, earthen vases and goblets vend the cool water of the neighbouring fountains; and the various cries of fire, fire, and fresh water, water, are heard above the buzz of the mingled crowd. But the women principally attract the eyes of the stranger. Their simple and elegant dress, their veils, which serve any purpose but that of concealing their faces, the freedom of their walk, and their looks attractive, but not immodest, tend to make an Englishman forget for a moment that they are greatly inferior in point of real beauty to the women of his own country. (3)

Outside Madrid

The towns and villages of Spain may be compared almost universally to islands in the midst of the ocean, where you travel from one to the other, without seeing any intermediate object that recalls the idea of human habitation. From Lisbon to Madrid, excepting two or three gloomy castles, there is not a single gentleman’s seat visible on the road. The ancient periods of internal war and rapine seem to have left so strong an impression on the minds and customs of the people, that they are afraid to inhabit except near to each other, and in clusters for mutual protection. (4)

The Spanish court

The whole population of Madrid, consisting of about two hundred and fifty thousand souls, may be said to be merely an appendage to the court, the absence of which is immediately and sensibly felt. In order to break, or rather to prevent the reviving of, the ancient feudal spirit, the crown insists upon the whole of the Spanish nobility residing in the capital and what was at first a political institution has now become so much a fashion, that a banishment to the country is considered as a most grievous punishment. From this great concourse of nobility, the manners even of the lower classes partake of much urbanity, yet in some points mixed with an attention to punctilios. If two porters meet, they do not fail to salute each other with the title of senor and cavallero, but all ranks are jealous of giving the wall in walking the streets, and duels have not unfrequently taken place on this account. Assassinations are however less frequent, considering the population, than in most of the great towns in Spain. (5)

Spanish food

In their diet the citizens are temperate and uniform. The universal and regular dish for all ranks, is the Poteheiro, a kind of stew of meat and an excellent species of large pea which grows in the utmost perfection near San Ildefonso; with by far the greater part, this forms the whole of the dinner, and is truly a national dish, being regularly served every day at the king’s table, as well as at that of the poorest mechanic. In most of the other articles of their cookery oil is greatly used, and that in general of a very indifferent quality; indeed they use the same for their kitchens as for burning in their lamps. The oil of Valencia is excellent, but that is never met with on the roads, and an Englishman is astonished to find that, except at Madrid, he cannot obtain, at any price, such good oil as is commonly used in London. There are some landlords that draw their wine and their vinegar from the same cask; but all of them draw the oil for their lamps and their ragouts from the same jar; with such oil, water, vinegar, garlic and bread, cut small and mixed up cold together, a Spaniard forms a mess, with which he appeases his hunger for the whole day. …

Two other great ingredients in Spanish cookery are, the tomata or love apple, and the green pepper pod. The former stewed, and the latter boiled, and eaten with bread, form in their seasons very material articles of the food of the lower classes. (6)

[T]he markets of Madrid are scantily enough supplied with meat, but plentifully with vegetables and fruits; of the latter, the grapes, melons, peaches and cherries are delicious. In their great entertainments, they are fond of bringing in one dish after another; reserving what they esteem the best to the last, as if they delighted in taking their guests by surprise, enticing, and in a manner forcing them to eat more, after being already satisfied. During dinner they drink plentifully enough of wine diluted with water, and a few bottles of French wine terminate the repast. After rising from table, coffee is served round, and the party breaks up. Most of the guests retire to their siesta or afternoon’s nap, universal throughout Spain; and in the evening fresh parties are again formed, either for cards, the prado, or the theatre.

As the poteheiro is the general dinner, so a single cup of chocolate, with a little bread, is the universal breakfast of the Spaniards; after which they drink a glass or two of cold water. Whenever they travel they carry chocolate with them, and when they can procure nothing else, with a little warm water and some bread, they make a kind of meal with which they are contented. Yet I have had many occasions to remark, that their temperance is perhaps, in general, more constrained, than constitutional or voluntary. At all public tables I have seen that a Spaniard eats full as much as the foreigner alongside of him. In the use of wine they are certainly temperate, and a drunken Spaniard, even of the lowest class, is scarcely ever seen in the streets of Madrid. (7)

Smoking

[Spaniards] smoke immoderately, and at all hours, from their first rising to their hour of going to bed. They do not use pipes, but smoke the tobacco leaf itself rolled up, or cut small and wrapped in a slight covering, such as paper, or the thin leaves of maize. Great quantities of tobacco thus prepared are imported from the Havannah, under the name of cigars, in slight cedar or mahogany boxes, containing a thousand each. Those wrapt in the leaf of maize are called padhillos, or little straws, and are chiefly smoked by the women, for whose use also others are formed of white paper, ornamented with a kind of gold wire. I have seen women of some rank playing at cards, and smoking these padhillos. (8)

Amusements

Dance of the Majos at the Banks of Manzanares, by Francisco Goya, 1777

The amusements are now much the same as in other parts of Europe, and contain little that is national, since the suppression of the bull-fights by the present king. Humanity was the motive alleged for this suppression; but it is said to have been occasioned by the people’s loudly expressing their dissatisfaction at some orders given by him relative to the management of a fight where he was present. The murmur was called mutiny: despotism was alarmed; and either to show his power or his fears, the king at once forbade this favourite diversion of a great people. The heat of the climate discourages athletic exercises; walking on the prado, riding in carriages, cards, smoking, and billiards, are therefore the principal amusements of the inhabitants of Madrid. Their theatres are seldom thronged but on the representation of a new piece; and the public taste is certainly here not very correct, and often applauds not merely buffooneries but indecency. …

The play is generally followed by a dance of one or two persons, and is either the Fandango or Bolera. The former is not very decent, but the latter, in which the dancers keep time with their castanets, is pleasing. The people are astonishingly fond of both, and although the dance lasts but a very short time, appear often to derive more pleasure from it than the whole of the play. The dress of the female dancers is that of the Andalusian women, carried to excess in ornaments, spangles, and fringes, but producing a rich and seductive effect. (9)

Museums

[T]here is scarcely a church or a convent that does not contain some peculiarity of architecture, some picture, statue, or column worthy of being seen. The palace of the Retiro, and still more the new palace, contains many curiosities and valuable paintings. The latter, like many great Spanish undertakings, remains unfinished; if completed it would certainly be the most significant palace in Europe….

Above all, the royal museum must not pass unnoticed. Here there is no need of tickets or money to gain admission. It is open on certain days in the week, and at stated hours, during which every person of a tolerably decent appearance is admitted. The collection of animals, birds, ores, spars, and other articles of natural history, is not perhaps superior to those of many other countries; but the curiosities from South America, and which are shown apart, are such as can no where else be found. Not only the skins of animals and birds, peculiar to that Continent, are there preserved, but the arms, dress, and utensils of the ancient Peruvians. … The sight of these trophies, purchased at the expense of so much innocent blood, awakens deep reflections in the mind. (10)

Holy bones

The religious processions are managed here with great magnificence, and may indeed be termed one of the principal amusements of the people. Sometimes it is the relique of a martyr, sometimes of a female saint, and even of an apostle, or a primitive father of the church. The invaluable skull, or arm, or finger is carried through the streets encased in gold, and covered with a canopy, and the people throw themselves on their knees as it approaches them. But great is the joy when the entire body of a saint, or a whole bag of holy bones is the subject of the piece. Notice is publicly give of the streets through which the procession is to pass, and the inhabitants hang over their balconies rich carpets and velvet curtains, at the same time that they are crowded with women dressed in their finest clothes. First marches a band of music playing solemn tunes; then choristers who chant anthems, and they are followed by a long double row of monks, with lighted tapers, and generally clothed in white.

At length appears the holy relic, carried by six or eight sturdy priests, on a shrine of massy silver, and shaded from the night air by a rich canopy of silk. A priest precedes it, swinging a silver censer, which throws out clouds of perfume, and walking backwards, that he may not seem to show any disrespect to the sacred bones. A company of soldiers with fixed bayonets closes the procession; and happy are they who are chosen for this service, not only on account of the holiness of the office, but also because they are paid a quarter of a dollar each. A vast crowd of both sexes, and of every age and condition, follow the whole with heads uncovered. I saw the reliques of Santa Barbara thus carried and thus attended. … I held up a little girl in my arms, that she might see over the heads of the crowd, and during this time some pious Spaniard took an opportunity of picking my pocket. (11)

Spies

I sufficiently esteem the manners of the inhabitants [of Madrid]; but I regret to find their most private conversations cramped by the fear of speaking any thing which might come to the ears of a jealous government. I feel myself like all the rest, merely an appendage, and one of the slaves of the court. Spies wrapped up in large cloaks stand at the corners of all the streets. Men converse here in whispers and shrugs, and I am tired of being constantly reminded by my friends, that I must not speak with so much freedom. (12)

The Spanish character

[T]he Spaniards are generally grave, with something of a stately walk and air, yet they do not preserve their character throughout, being excessively fond of risible objects and sayings; nor is there any language in Europe, which so much abounds in daily expressions, calculated to excite a smile, as the Spanish. They seem to me greatly mistaken who suppose the Spaniards to be merely a grave and serious people. They preserve a forced gravity, especially with strangers; because the dignity and ancient glory of his country, are ever present to the mind of a true Spaniard; but they give themselves up to every amusement and pleasure, within their reach, with a kind of fury, which shows their seriousness to be more habitual than constitutional. I conceive greatness of soul to be the character which they affect above all others; yet in this they content themselves with empty sounds, and a vain name, instead of aiming at the reality. Hence a Spaniard may sit tamely down, and see his king insulted, his country sold and tributary to France, and his own personal privileges and liberties abridged; and although he may not make a single struggle, or even vent an unavailing sigh for the fallen greatness of Spain, he may yet preserve his greatness of soul.

In what then does it consist? In boasting that the sun never sets on the Spanish dominions; in informing you that Spain was the seat of learning, civilization, and philosophy, when when England, France, and Germany were covered with forests, and partially inhabited by barbarians; in assuring you that the Spaniards are the most honourable and most noble minded of all nations; in building stone bridges over rivulets; joining triumphal arches to mud-walls; in planning the most magnificent schemes for uniting the Duero; the Ebro; and the Tagus; the Niger and the Nile; the South-sea and the Caribbean; but never executing them. (13)

The Spanish Royal family

Charles IV of Spain and His Family, by Francisco Goya, 1800

The King is a man of good intentions, but of confined understanding, and a mere slave to the pleasures of the chase, which forms not only his sole diversion, but his principal occupation. His thoughts are constantly engaged by partridges, hares, and wild boars; and his greatest exploit is to have fired so many guns in the course of a day. These are constantly present to him ready loaded by his huntsmen, as fast as he can discharge them, and hence the slaughter which he sometimes makes is almost incredible. It must be owned that he is an excellent marksman; but what is more to his credit, he seems to be aware of the fatal effects of this blind passion in the monarch of a great kingdom, and has given strict orders that his sons should not be allowed to acquire similar propensities. In his person he is very tall and stout, and is generally healthy, owing no doubt to the constant exercise which he takes, and his temperance in drinking, water being his sole beverage. Such is the present King of Spain. His consort forms the reverse to his insensible character, being intriguing, revengeful, and a slave to far other passions than those of the chase. ‘It is through her,’ say the Spaniards secretly, ‘that royalty is degraded, and the Spanish name dishonoured. To gratify her unworthy passions, a wretch has been raised from the ranks, to domineer over our nobility, and sell our country to France.’ (14)

Manuel de Godoy

[Godoy] is universally hated; but that is in private: before him even the Grandees of Spain must wear a smile, and Madrid is full of his spies. He is however sagely aware of the uncertainties of revolutions, and is said to have deposited large sums of money in foreign banks, besides having great quantities of specie secretly hoarded in his own possession…. [H]is own regiment of dragoons always near him, mount guard at his gate and send detachments to attend him wherever he goes. I have witnessed the secret curses that attended this progress, but the sabres of his dragoons are sharp and woe betide the Spaniard who is heard to murmur. (15)

Spaniards’ view of France

[T]he real government is that of France, and whatever French General may be the ambassador at Madrid, is in effect king of Spain. … The inhabitants of all this immense tract are generally bold with the knife in the hour of darkness; but they tremble at the bayonet in the face of day. Yet, strange as it may appear, the hatred of France and Frenchmen is universal throughout the whole of this district. In talking of Frenchmen there is a mixture of hatred, contempt, and yet of dread, not to be conceived by those who have not witnessed it. If every Spaniard or Portuguese had a single Frenchman within reach of his long knife, the contest would be short. But other nations must meet their discipline, their bayonets, and their artillery. (16)

In 1808, Godoy lost power and Charles IV was forced to abdicate in favour of his son, Ferdinand VII. When Charles appealed to Napoleon for help, Napoleon compelled both Charles and Ferdinand to give up the Spanish throne. Instead he installed his brother Joseph as King of Spain. The citizens of Spain rebelled against Joseph and the French occupation of their country. A combination of guerrilla warfare and British armed assistance (led by the Duke of Wellington) eventually drove the French out of Spain and Portugal, contributing greatly to Napoleon’s fall from power in 1814.

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Robert Semple, Observations on a Journey Through Spain and Italy to Naples, Vol. I (London, 1807), pp. 55-57.
Ibid., pp. 58-59.
Ibid., pp. 60-61.
Ibid., p. 65.
Ibid., pp. 69-70.
Ibid., pp. 70-71.
Ibid., pp. 72-73.
Ibid., pp. 73-74.
Ibid., pp. 74-76.
Ibi, pp. 77-78.
Ibid., pp. 78-81.
Ibid., p. 83.
Ibid., pp. 207-209.
Ibid., pp. 214-215.
Ibid., pp. 216-217.
Ibid., pp. 217, 218-219.

In the Battle of Jena, fought on October 14, 1806, in what is today Germany, the French army led by Napoleon Bonaparte defeated the Prussian army led by the Prince of Hohenloe in a quick and decisive engagement. Further north, near Auerstädt, French marshal Louis Nicolas Davout dealt a similar blow to the Prussians under the Duke of Brunswick and King Frederick William III. As a result of these victories, Prussia found itself under Napoleon’s control.

Napoleon at the Battle of Jena, by Horace Vernet, 1836

Several of the characters in Napoleon in America were present at the Battle of Jena, including Henri-Gatien Bertrand, Charles Lallemand and Charles de Montholon. Here are two French accounts of the battle.

Captain Coignet on the Battle of Jena

Jean-Roch Coignet, a grenadier in Napoleon’s Imperial Guard, wrote the following.

Very early in the year 1806 we set out for Würzburg, where the Emperor was awaiting us. This is a beautiful city, and there is a magnificent castle; the princes gave Napoleon a grand reception. From there the army corps were sent on to Jena, by forced marches; we reached that city the 13th of October, at ten o’clock in the evening. We passed through the town without being able to see anything of it; there was not a light anywhere; the inhabitants had all deserted it. Absolute silence reigned. On the other side of the city we found ourselves at the foot of a mountain as steep as the roof of a house; this we had to climb, and immediately form battalions on the plateau. We were obliged to grope our way along the edge of the precipice; not one of us could see the other. It was necessary to keep perfect silence, for the enemy was near us. We immediately formed a square, with the Emperor in the middle of the guard. Our artillery came to the foot of this terrible mountain, and not being able to pass over it, the road had to be enlarged and the rocks cut away. The Emperor was there, directing the engineers; he did not leave till the road was finished, and the first piece of cannon, drawn by twelve horses, had passed on in front of him, in absolute silence.

Four pieces at a time were carried up and immediately placed in battery in front of our line. Then the same horses went back to the foot of the mountain to be hitched to others. A good part of the night was employed in this terrible task, and the enemy did not perceive us. The Emperor placed himself in the middle of his square, and allowed them to kindle two or three fires for each company. There were a hundred and twenty of us in each company. Twenty from each company were sent off in search of provisions. We did not have far to go, for from the eminence we could throw a stone into the village. All the houses were deserted, the wretched inhabitants had abandoned their homes. We found everything we needed, especially wine and sugar. There were officers with us to keep order, and in three-quarters of an hour we were on our way back up the mountain, loaded with wine, sugar, copper boilers, and all sorts of provisions. We carried torches to give us light in the cellars, and we found a great deal of sealed wine in the large hotels.

Wood was brought and fires lighted, and wine and sugar put into the boilers. We drank to the health of the King of Prussia all night long, and all the sealed wine was divided among us. There was any amount of it; every grenadier had three bottles, two in his bearskin cap, and one in his pocket. All night long we had warm wine; we carried some to our brave gunners, who were half dead with fatigue, and they were very thankful for it. Their officers were invited to come and drink the warm wine with ours; our moustaches were thoroughly wetted, but we were forbidden to make any noise. Imagine what a punishment it was not to be able to speak or sing! Every one of us had something witty ready to say.

Seeing us all so happy put the Emperor in good spirits. He mounted his horse before day and went the rounds. The darkness was so profound that he was obliged to have a light in order to see his way, and the Prussians, seeing this light moving along their lines, fired on Napoleon. But he went on his way, and returned to his headquarters to order the men to arms.

Day had scarcely broken when the Prussians greeted us (October the 14th) with cannon shots, which passed over our heads. An old Egyptian campaigner said, ‘The Prussians have bad colds, hear them cough. We must send them some sweetened wine.’ The whole army now moved forward without being able to see one step ahead of them. We had to feel our way like blind men, constantly falling up against each other. At the sound of the movement which was going on in front of us, it was considered necessary to call a halt and form up for the attack. Our brave Lannes opened on our left; this was the signal for the whole line, and we could only see each other by the light of our firing. The Emperor ordered us to advance rapidly on their centre. He found it necessary to order us first to moderate our pace and finally to halt. Their line had been pierced, as was that of the Russians at Austerlitz. The accursed fog was a great drawback to us, but our columns continued to advance, and we had room to look around. About ten o’clock the sun came out and lighted up the beautiful plateau. Then we could see in front of us. On our right we saw a handsome carriage drawn by white horses; we were told that it was the Queen of Prussia, who was trying to escape. Napoleon ordered us to halt for an hour, and we heard a terrible firing on our left. The Emperor immediately sent an officer to learn what was going on; he seemed angry, and took snuff frequently as he stamped up and down in front of us. The officer returned and said, ‘Sire, it is Marshal Ney who is fighting desperately, with his grenadiers and light horse, against a body of cavalry.’ He immediately sent forward his cavalry, and the whole army advanced. Lannes and Ney were victorious on the left; the Emperor joined them and recovered his good humour.

Prince Murat came up with his dragoons and cuirassiers; his horses’ tongues were hanging out of their mouths. They brought with them a whole division of Saxons, and it was pitiful to see them, for more than half of these unfortunate fellows were streaming with blood. The Emperor reviewed them, and we gave them all wine, particularly to the wounded, and also to our brave cuirassiers and dragoons. We had a least a thousand bottles of sealed wine still left, and we saved their lives. The Emperor gave them their choice, either to remain with us or to be prisoners, telling them that he was not at war with their sovereign.

After winning this battle, the Emperor left us at Jena; he went on to see the corps of Davout and Bernadotte. (1)

French dragoon with captured Prussian flag at the Battle of Jena-Auerstädt, by Edouard Detaille, 1898

Baron Lejeune’s account of the Battle of Jena

Louis-François Lejeune, an aide-de-camp to Napoleon’s Chief of Staff Marshal Berthier, provided this description of the Battle of Jena.

On the 13th the armies continued to approach each other in order of battle at right angles, and in the evening the plain of Jena appeared to be perfectly encircled with the watchfires of the two or three hundred thousand Prussians who rested in security, confident in their vast numbers. The fires of the French army, on the other hand, hidden by the irregularities of the ground, were scarcely visible, and the apparent distance of the enemy still further encouraged the confidence of the Prussians. The night was fine and calm, and from the heights we occupied on the plateau above the plain of Jena the view of the illuminated camp below was magnificent. We felt as if we were preparing for a brilliant fête on the morrow, and the sentinels on either side chatted together at their outposts without any inclination to fight, as if in time of peace.

On October 14, 1806, just before sunrise a thick fog came on and wrapped the whole district in gloom for several hours. The Emperor wished to turn the darkness to account by delaying the action long enough to allow our reserves and cavalry to come up, but the impatience of our troops led to the outposts opening fire on the enemy about nine o’clock. The whole line followed the movement, emerging through wide openings cleared and tested beforehand under Marshal Lannes.

The Prussians were also anxious to wait till the fog cleared away, but our attack roused them from their inaction, and their whole line also began to manoeuvre, changing front and marching upon Jena on their left. About eleven o.clock we could see their infantry advancing and deploying with precision, whilst their artillery arrived at a gallop at the head of an immense body of cavalry. When the two armies, marching towards each other, were nearly within musket shot, the 800 Prussian and French cannon simultaneously opened fire and exchanged salvoes. The thunder of the terrible discharge dispersed the fog, and soon nothing intercepted the rays of the sun but the smoke, which reproduced above the heads of the combatants the ranks in which they stood.

The whole army then engaged, and for some time the struggle was indecisive ; but the Emperor, hearing that Marshal Ney and a portion of Murat’s cavalry had come up, ordered a general attack. The shock was terrible. The Prussian cavalry in their furious charge shattered themselves upon our bayonets, and our grape shot and cavalry completed their destruction. The Prussian divisions were mingled in a confused mass, in which every ball from our guns struck down some hundred victims, whilst the forces of the enemy were divided.

General Rüchel fled towards our left wing, and the King of Prussia turned towards Magdeburg.

The fall of night put an end to the fighting, but not to the pursuit of fugitives, and the victories of Jena and of Auerstädt, which Marshal Davout won the same day, left in our hands 200 flags with the black eagle, more than 40,000 prisoners, 500 pieces of artillery, with the baggage, pontoon trains, and stores of the Prussians, who left 30,000 dead upon the field, with an immense number of wounded. (2)

Napoleon’s greatest victory

The Battle of Jena is sometimes called Napoleon’s greatest victory. The German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, a professor at the University of Jena, saw Napoleon riding out to inspect the French positions the day before the battle and wrote to a friend:

It is indeed a wonderful sensation to see such an individual, who, concentrated here at a single point, astride a horse, reaches out over the world and masters it. (3)

Austrian foreign minister Clemens von Metternich thought that Napoleon reached the peak of his power at Jena.

If, instead of the destruction of Prussia, he had limited his ambition to the weakening of that power, and had then annexed it to the Confederation of the Rhine, the enormous edifice which he had succeeded in erecting would have gained a foundation of strength and solidity which the Peace of Tilsit did not gain for it. (4)

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Jean-Roch Coignet, The Note-Books of Captain Coignet, Soldier of the Empire, edited by Jean Fortescue (New York, 1929), pp. 131-134.
Louis-François Lejeune, Memoirs of Baron Lejeune, translated by Mrs. Arthur Bell, Vol. I (London, 1897), pp. 36-37.
Joseph McCarney, Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Hegel on History (London, 2000), p. 2.
Clemens von Metternich, The Autobiography, 1773-1815 (Welwyn Garden City, 2004), pp. 68-69.

James Monroe by Samuel Morse, circa 1819

James Monroe, president of the United States from 1817 to 1825, was hardly a barrel of laughs. His speeches and correspondence exhibit little playfulness. Yet Monroe was said to be warm and good-natured in person, with a sense of humour that could surprise his acquaintances. Judge E.R. Watson of Charlottesville, Virginia, recalled:

I have several times seen [Monroe and James Madison] together at Montpelier, and, as it seemed to me, it was only in Mr. Madison’s society that Mr. Monroe could lay aside his usual seriousness and indulge in the humorous jest and merry laugh, as if he were young again. (1)

Here are some quotes and anecdotes that illustrate the gentle humour of James Monroe.

On heading west

About to embark on a hazardous journey from New York to Detroit in 1784, 26-year-old Monroe wrote to Thomas Jefferson:

It is possible I may lose my scalp from the temper of the Indians, but if either a little fighting or a great deal of running will save it, I shall escape safe. (2)

On the birth of his daughter

James Monroe and his wife Elizabeth had three children: Eliza (1787-1840), James (1799-1800), and Maria (1802-1850). Upon Eliza’s birth, Monroe wrote to Thomas Jefferson:

Mrs. Monroe hath added a daughter to our society who, tho’ noisy, contributes greatly to its amusement. (3)

On the age of a friend

In 1811, Monroe wrote to his friend William Short, who had recently returned to the United States from Europe:

You expressed a desire to sell your land near me. Cannot you come & reside on it? If you cannot prevail on a Lady from one of our great cities to bury herself there with you, one might be found in the neighborhood, of merit and worth, to whom the solitude would not be irksome. If you ever intend to make such an arrangement, you ought not to postpone it much longer. I am now 51 years of age; you are I presume not more than 10 years younger. In 1795, when we were in Paris together you were about 5 years younger. In 1779, when we were at College, the difference between us was still less. I hope you will take this affair into consideration, & decide in favor of my council, & come and establish yourself near me ere long. (4)

On flattery

In 1817, Monroe undertook a “good-will” tour of the northern and eastern states. Abigail Adams, the wife of second president John Adams and mother of Monroe’s successor, John Quincy Adams, observed:

When President Monroe was upon his tour surrounded by the military, encompassed by citizens, harassed by invitations to parties and applications innumerable for office, some gentleman asked him if he was not completely worn out – to which he replied, ‘Oh no, a little flattery will support a man through great fatigue.’ (5)

On a political rival

After he retired from the presidency, Monroe was asked for his opinion of John Randolph, a fiery congressman from Roanoke, Virginia, who headed the “Old Republicans,” a group often at odds with others in Monroe’s Democratic-Republican party. Monroe reportedly replied:

Well, Mr. Randolph is, I think, a capital hand to pull down, but I am not aware that he has ever exhibited much skill as a builder. (6)

A pun by President Monroe

This anecdote regarding the humour of James Monroe appeared in the 1860s. It may be apocryphal.

A Scotch servant, employed about the executive mansion, who had a broad accent and a good fund of cold humor, had been charged, by certain persons who had projected a monument in honor of something or somebody, with a message to an appropriate official, who, it seems, was not the President. But old Sandy sought the Chief Magistrate, in whose personal service he was, and conveyed the communication to him. Mr. Monroe instructed him to address the message elsewhere, and thereupon Sandy, persisting like a Scotchman, said:

‘Your honor, it is about the monument.’

‘Well, Sandy,’ said Mr. Monroe, drawing himself up erect and symmetrical, ‘don’t you see I am not the mon you ment.’ (7)

President James Monroe appears as a character in Napoleon in America.

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Daniel C. Gilman, American Statesman: James Monroe (Boston, 1883) p. 194.
“To Thomas Jefferson from James Monroe, 9 August 1784,” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed April 11, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-07-02-0293. This source notes that the word “running” is almost illegible in the original document, and is perhaps better deciphered as “rusing” – an obsolete word meaning retreating, dodging or detouring.
“To Thomas Jefferson from James Monroe, 27 July 1787,” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed April 11, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-11-02-0556.
Daniel Preston, ed., The Papers of James Monroe, Vol. 5 (Santa Barbara, 2014), p. 793.
“From Abigail Smith Adams to François Adriaan Van der Kemp, 24 January 1818,” Founders Online, National Archives, accessed April 11, 2019, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-03-02-3442.
Gilman, American Statesman: James Monroe, p. 190.
W. Wiley, ed., The Ladies Repository: A Monthly Periodical Devoted to Literature and Religion, Vol. 27 (Cincinatti, 1867), p. 53.

Napoleon Bonaparte wasn’t the first or the last leader to steal art from conquered territories, and he wasn’t the largest wartime looter (that was Adolf Hitler), but he and his troops pillaged art on a vast scale. What did they take and what happened to Napoleon’s looted art?

The Wedding Feast at Cana by Paolo Veronese, 1563, plundered by Napoleon’s troops from the church of San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice in 1797, remains in the Louvre in Paris.

Liberty deserves art

Even before Napoleon commanded an army, representatives of Revolutionary France were seizing valuable works of art from occupied territories in Germany and the Austrian Netherlands. In August 1794, the French National Convention was told that “Rubens, Van Dyck and Crayer are en route to Paris, and the whole Flemish school rises en masse to come and adorn our museums.” (1) Antwerp, Brussels, Liège, Aix-la-Chapelle, Cologne and other cities were robbed of their treasures. Among other masterpieces, the convoys to Paris included Rubens’ The Raising of the Cross and The Descent from the Cross, the Madonna of Bruges by Michelangelo, the central panels of the Ghent altarpiece (Adoration of the Mystic Lamb by Hubert and Jan van Eyck), and the marble columns and Proserpina sarcophagus – thought to be the tomb of Charlemagne – from the cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle.

The French tried to justify art theft not only with the idea that the spoils of war belonged to the victor, but also with the notion that France was the best place for such works. As the French army pillaged Belgian churches, Bertrand Barère, President of the National Convention, told Belgian delegates, “Do you not have immense treasures that religion has, for centuries, held on deposit for liberty?” (2) Jacques-Luc Barbier-Walbonne, the officer and portrait painter in charge of art confiscations in Belgium, said:

[T]he fruits of genius are the heritage of liberty…. The immortal works [of] Rubens, Van Dyck and other founders of the Flemish school are no longer in a foreign land…. They are today deposited in the homeland of arts and genius, in the homeland of liberty and holy equality, in the French republic. (3)

In October 1796, French artists sent a petition to the Directory arguing that:

The more our climate seems unfavorable to the arts, the more do we require models here in order to overcome the obstacles to the progress thereof…. The Romans, once an uncultivated people, became civilized by transplanting to Rome the works of conquered Greece…. Thus…the French people…naturally endowed with exquisite sensitivity, will…by seeing the models from antiquity, train its feeling and its critical sense…. The French Republic, by its strength and superiority of its enlightenment and its artists, is the only country in the world which can give a safe home to these masterpieces. All other nations must come to borrow from our art, as they once imitated our frivolity. (4)

By then, Napoleon had already joined in the pillage.

Art looted by Napoleon from Italy

The Madonna of Saint Jerome by Antonio da Correggio, 1525-28, was one of the first pieces of art looted by Napoleon from Italy. It is now in the National Gallery of Parma.

In March 1796, Napoleon was put in charge of France’s Army of Italy. As he swept across Italy, he asked the Directory to send him “three or four well-known artists to choose what should be seized and sent to Paris.” (5) Writing from Piacenza on May 9, Napoleon advised the Directory that he was sending “twenty pictures by the greatest masters, by Correggio and Michelangelo.” (6) These belonged to the Duchy of Parma. In Milan on May 18, Napoleon promised to send another twenty pictures. A list of “works of art and science selected by General Bonaparte to be transported to Paris” included paintings from Milan, Parma and Piacenza by Raphael, Rubens, Luini, Giorgione, da Vinci, Titian, Correggio, and others. (7)

As he had done with the Dukes of Parma and Modena, Napoleon inserted demands for art into his truce with the Pope. The Armistice of Bologna (June 1796) gave France “a hundred pictures, busts, vases, and statues,” to be chosen by French commissioners sent to Rome. These objects were specifically to include “the busts in bronze of Junius Brutus, and that in marble of Marcus Brutus, both placed in the capitol.” (8) The Vatican was similarly required to relinquish 500 valuable manuscripts, and to pay for the transportation of the confiscated treasures to Paris.

These terms were formalized in the Treaty of Tolentino (February 1797). French commissioners could enter any building – public, private, or religious – to confiscate artistic works. Among the ancient statues, busts and sculptures surrendered were the Apollo Belvedere, Laocoön and His Sons, the Zeus of Otricoli, the Dying Gaul, the Capitoline Venus, the Nile, the Tiber, and almost 300 antiquities from the private collection of Cardinal Alessandro Albani. Seized paintings included Raphael’s Transfiguration, Cavaraggio’s Deposition, Andrea Sacchi’s Vision of Saint Romuald, Reni’s Crucifixion of Saint Peter, Domenichino’s Last Communion of Saint Jerome, Poussin’s The Martyrdom of Saint Erasmus, and Guercino’s The Burial of Saint Petronilla.

Napoleon wrote to the Directory from Tolentino on February 19, the day the treaty was signed:

The committee of scholars has reaped a good harvest at Ravenna, Rimini, Pesaro, Ancona, Loreto and Perugia. Joined to what we shall be sending from Rome, that will give us everything of beauty in Italy except for a few things at Turin and Naples. (9)

As Verona and other cities fell to the French, they too were compelled to give up art. By May 1797, Napoleon’s troops were in Venice. They removed the winged lion from St. Mark’s Square and the famous four bronze (actually copper) horses from St. Mark’s Basilica. When Napoleon had the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel built in Paris, the horses were placed on top. Additional art plundered from Venice included The Wedding Feast at Cana and other canvases by Veronese, and paintings by Titian and Tintoretto. The Treaty of Campo Formio (1797) required Italian cities to contribute pieces of art to France.

A general who served under Napoleon wrote:

The enemies of the arts, and of the republic, affect to lament the removal of the monuments of Italy. They…forget that they have never charged the Romans with committing a crime in taking from the vanquished Greeks the statues, with which they decorated the Capitol, the temples and the squares of Rome; these very statues which the French have taken from the degenerate Roman Catholics to adorn the museum of Paris, and to distinguish by the most noble of trophies, the triumph of liberty over tyranny, and of philosophy over superstition. Real conquests are those made in behalf of the arts, the sciences and taste, and they are the only ones capable of consoling for the misfortune of being compelled to undertake them from other motives. (10)

The Italian war booty was paraded through the streets of Paris in a “Festival of Liberty” on July 27-28, 1798. A banner on the cart carrying the Apollo Belevedere proclaimed: “Greece ceded them, Rome lost them. Their fate has changed twice; it will not change again.” (11)

The art was destined for the new national museum at the Louvre.

A military review during the Empire, showing the horses of Saint Mark (looted from Venice) on top of the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel in Paris, by Joseph-Louis-Hippolyte Bellangé and Adrien Dauzatz, 1862

Antiquities looted from Egypt

In 1798, Napoleon embarked with an expeditionary force to Egypt. He was accompanied by artists and scientists whose aim, among other things, was to find artifacts worthy of being shipped back to France. These scholars collected a number of precious objects, the most important of which was the Rosetta Stone. When the French were defeated by the British, the French hoard was handed over to the British army. The Capitulation of Alexandria (August 1801) stipulated that larger antiquities, including the Rosetta Stone, were to be sent to Britain for presentation to King George III. He passed them on to the British Museum. Smaller items were allowed to remain in the possession of the French. Some of them wound up in the Louvre.

Art looted from Germany and Austria

One of Napoleon’s advisors on the Egyptian expedition was the artist and diplomat Dominique-Vivant Denon, a friend of Napoleon’s wife Josephine. In 1802, Napoleon appointed Denon director of the Louvre. In 1803, the museum was renamed the Musée Napoleon. Denon travelled with the Grande Armée to superintend art confiscations in conquered territories. These continued on a grand scale, as Napoleon – crowned Emperor in 1804 – wanted to make Paris the grandest and most beautiful city that ever existed.

In 1806-07, Napoleon defeated the Prussians and advanced all the way to the Russian frontier. Berlin had to give up 54 paintings; Küstrin 56; Potsdam 6; Cassel 299; Schwerin 209; Warsaw 6. The Duke of Brunswick lost 278 paintings, as well as 9 busts, 74 small bronzes, 83 ivories, and 70 objects sculpted in wood. Vienna lost at least 250 paintings from the Belvedere Gallery alone. Salzburg, Munich, Nuremberg, Düsseldorf and Zweibrücken were similarly looted. Artworks by Veronese, Raphael, Rembrandt, Titian, Rubens, Van Dyck, Dürer, Holbein, Cranach, Claude Lorrain, and Poussin trundled into France. They couldn’t all fit in the Louvre. They adorned Fontainebleau, Compiègne and other royal residences, and the homes of Imperial dignitaries. Many were dispersed to provincial museums.

A number of stolen items wound up at Josephine’s residence of Malmaison. Beginning with the pillage in Italy, Josephine’s demands were not infrequently responsible for the confiscation of jewels and other charming objects. Entire collections were brought for her to pick over. She would keep some of the pieces, distribute others to her favourites, and send the rest on to the Louvre.

In addition to Napoleon’s organized pillage of the great artworks of Europe, there was plundering by French officers, soldiers, and officials. The Louvre continued to receive masterpieces whose origin would be difficult to conceal, but many works of art disappeared into private collections or were sold for personal gain.

Art looted from Spain

The Immaculate Conception of the Venerables by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, circa 1678, looted from Seville by Marshal Soult in 1810. Returned to Spain in 1941, it resides in the Prado Museum in Madrid.

In 1808, Napoleon invaded Spain and put his brother Joseph on the Spanish throne. Joseph founded a museum to house the best paintings of Spain. Spanish nobles who remained loyal to the deposed king, Ferdinand VII, had their art collections confiscated. In 1810, Seville was plundered. The French seized approximately 1,000 paintings from the city’s churches, convents and monasteries. Marshal Soult personally amassed over 180 Spanish paintings, most notably valuable works by Murillo. Hundreds of crates of precious artworks were removed from the Escorial, the historical royal residence near Madrid.

In June 1813, when Joseph’s troops were defeated by the Duke of Wellington’s army at the Battle of Vitoria, Joseph abandoned his baggage train, which contained some 200 paintings from the Spanish royal collection. King Ferdinand later gave these to the Duke of Wellington. Eighty-three of the paintings hang at Wellington’s residence of Apsley House in London. (As is evident in Napoleon in America, Joseph Bonaparte still retained a sizable art collection.)

Returning the looted art

Napoleon was compelled to abdicate in April 1814. Shortly thereafter, owners of stolen art tried to get their property back. Some – including Pope Pius VII – appealed directly to the new king of France. On May 8, Louis XVIII announced that he intended to return any artworks that had not yet been displayed in the Louvre or the Tuileries. However on June 4, he made a speech that gave the impression that the absence of provisions for art restitution in the Treaty of Paris (May 30, 1814), which formally ended the war between France and the Sixth Coalition, confirmed the French right of possession.

The glory of the French armies has not been tarnished; the monuments to their bravery remain, and the masterpieces of the arts henceforth belong to us by more stable and more sacred rights than those of victory. (12)

Although some objects were returned, the French were generally reluctant to give up their trophies. A London paper commented:

They clamour loudly [to be allowed to keep] the articles of Art. And why? By what right? The right of conquest? Then have they not twice lost them? Do they persist in enforcing that right? Then why do not now the Allies plunder France of every article worth removing which she possessed before Buonaparte’s time? They are entitled to do this by the example of Buonaparte’s practice, now so eagerly sanctioned by the Parisians. (13)

The Allies didn’t want to press Louis XVIII too strongly on the issue, because they didn’t want to make him unpopular with his subjects. By January 1815, the Louvre and the Royal Library had relinquished very little – only 6 paintings, 46 marble and 52 bronze statues, 461 carved gems, and a few manuscripts.

The process of returning stolen art was interrupted by Napoleon’s escape from Elba and return to the French throne in March 1815. Negotiations resumed after Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo and his final abdication. This time the Allies were in a less generous mood. The French tried to get a clause inserted in the new Treaty of Paris to guarantee the integrity of their museums and libraries. The Allies refused to accept the provision and insisted that all works of art should be restored to their original owners.

The Prussians sent soldiers to seize Prussian paintings and statues from the Louvre and French palaces. The Prussians also assisted the North German states in retrieving their artworks. In September, the newly created state of the Netherlands sent its emissaries to reclaim Dutch and Belgian art. When Dutch workmen were refused admission to the Louvre, the Allied army of occupation provided them with protection. The Austrians and agents for some of the Italian cities also removed their treasures while the Allies provided sentry duty at the Louvre. They tried to work at night, to avoid arousing the Parisian mob. The horses of St. Mark were removed from Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel under strong protection. An observer wrote:

I just now find that the Austrians are taking down the bronze horses from the Arch. The whole court of the Tuileries, and the Place de Carousel are filled with Austrian infantry and cavalry under arms; no person is allowed to approach; the troops on guard amount to several thousands; there are crowds of French in all the avenues leading to it who give vent to their feelings by shouts and execrations. (14)

The Pope sent Italian sculptor Antonio Canova to retrieve the treasures of the Papal States. On October 5, Canova wrote to a friend:

We are at last beginning to drag forth from this great cavern of stolen goods the precious objects of art taken from Rome. (15)

Many items had been damaged, lost, sold, or hidden in private collections. The Wedding Feast at Cana had been torn into two pieces on the journey from Venice to Paris, and restored in a way that made it even harder to move, so a painting by the French artist Charles Le Brun was accepted as a substitute. Canova agreed to give up the Tiber, the Melpomene, and some other sculptures that were considered too large and expensive to transport. Ten of the marble pillars that had been removed from the cathedral at Aix-la-Chapelle had been incorporated into one of the galleries of the Louvre. It was feared that their removal could cause the vaulted roof to collapse, so they were allowed to stay there. When the Hessians went to Malmaison to collect 48 paintings from Cassel that had been given to Josephine, they were told that the finest pieces in the collection had been sold to Tsar Alexander of Russia. He refused to give them up.

The Tiber, part of the Papal collection confiscated by Napoleon in 1797, was considered too big to move in 1815, and thus remains in the Louvre

Despite such difficulties, an initial list compiled by Louis-Antoine Lavallée, the general secretary of the Louvre, showed that the Allies managed to reclaim 5,233 works of art, of which at least 2,000 were paintings and sculptures “of the highest order.” He later completed a more comprehensive inventory that showed the Louvre had lost 2,065 paintings, 130 statues, 150 bas-reliefs and busts, 289 bronzes, 281 sketches, 105 ivory vases, 75 vases in precious metals, 16 Etruscan vases, 37 wooden sculptures, 471 cameos, and 1,199 enamels. (16)

Touring the Louvre to see what remained, Louis XVIII reportedly remarked, “We are still rich.” (17) That view was not generally shared by his subjects.

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Pierre de Decker, “Oeuvres d’art enlevées et détruites en Belgique par la Révolution Française (1793-1798), Révue Générale, Vol. 37 (Brussels, 1883), p. 23.
Ibid., p. 21.
Ibid., p. 25.
Dorothy Mackay Quynn, “The Art Confiscations of the Napoleonic Wars,” The American Historical Review, Vol. 50, No. 3 (April, 1945), pp. 438-439.
John Eldred Howard, Letters and Documents of Napoleon, Vol. I (New York, 1961), p. 107.
Ibid., p. 110.
Ibid., p. 128.
A Collection of State Papers Relative to the War Against France, Vol. V (London, 1797), p. xxii. Napoleon wasn’t the only French general making such demands. The September 1796 armistice between Bavaria and General Jean-Victor Moreau, commander of the Army of the Rhine and Moselle, allowed French representatives to make off with twenty pictures from the galleries of Munich and Dusseldorf.
Howard, Letters and Documents of Napoleon, Vol. I, p. 173.
François René Jean de Pommereul, Campaign of General Buonaparte in Italy, in 1796-97, translated by T.E. Ritchie (Edinburgh, 1799), pp. 52-53.
Réimpression de L’Ancien Moniteur Depuis la Réunion des États-Généraux jusqu’au Consulat (Mai 1789-Novembre 1799), Vol. 29 (Paris, 1843), p. 323.
Charte Constitutionnelle Présentée par Louis XVIII, au Sénat et au Corps Législatif, Discours du Roi et du Chancelier (Paris, 1814), p. 2.
Quynn, “The Art Confiscations of the Napoleonic Wars,” p. 446.
Ibid., p. 453.
The North American Review and Miscellaneous Journal, Vol. II (Boston, 1816), p. 180.
Christine Haynes, Our Friends The Enemies: The Occupation of France after Napoleon (Cambridge, Mass., 2018), p. 100.
Gregory Curtis, Disarmed: The Story of the Venus de Milo (New York, 2003), p. 61.

A snake tail in use. Illustration by Peter Newell from <em>Mr. Munchausen</em> by John Kendrick Bangs, 1901.

A snake tail in use. Illustration by Peter Newell from Mr. Munchausen by John Kendrick Bangs, 1901.

In 1818, while living in New Jersey, Napoleon’s brother Joseph Bonaparte told his American friends: “It is sought now a days to frighten my wife and my children by stories of Serpents [snakes] and all sorts of things to prevent their coming over here. I have written them that never have I seen fewer serpents than since my arrival in America, that during a residence of almost two years I have seen but one.” (1)

Joseph was fortunate. Large parts of the United States were covered with snakes. Snakes both repelled and fascinated early Americans. In 1751, Benjamin Franklin suggested that the American colonists should send rattlesnakes – which are found naturally only in the Americas – to England as payback for the convicts the British were shipping to the colonies. Three years later, Franklin used a snake as a symbol of America in a cartoon aimed at encouraging colonial unity. The snake was cut into eight pieces, each labeled with the initials of an American colony or region, above the motto “Join or Die.” In 1775, a coiled rattlesnake appeared above the words “Don’t Tread on Me” in a flag designed by American general and politician Christopher Gadsden.

As a threat to life and as a spectacle, the snake was a staple of stories about young America. Here are some examples from the early 1800s.

Strange encounters with snakes

The following singular occurrence was communicated to us by a gentleman in Greenwich [Massachusetts], which he says may be relied on as a fact: Eleanor Smith, of Hardwick, fifteen years of age, on the 10th inst. puked up a live green snake, nine or ten inches in length, which she had probably taken in three years since, while drinking at a brook. Our informant adds that during that time she had been confined to her bed, and had become much emaciated. To sit or stand put her in the greatest pain, as would the smell or taste of meat. The snake was perfectly lively, running about the house, up on to chairs, tables, &c. She is now free from pain, and is apparently on the recovery. (2)

A strange circumstance is said to have taken place a few days since in the neighborhood of this city [Natchez, Mississippi]. A woman passing along a path through a rye field sat down on the side of the path when immediately she was seized round the waist by a huge black snake, which raised its frightful head in a threatening attitude, mouth open, on a level with her face, with its eyes fixed upon her countenance. The screams of the woman brought a black man to her assistance, who resolutely grasped the monster by the neck with one hand, and with the other seized its tail, and while unwinding its coils, the woman, by his directions, took a knife from his pocket and off went the reptile’s head. The relations we have heard of this wonder differ from each other, but in no considerable degree – from one source we are informed that the snake weighed upwards of 50 lbs. (3)

A young man while walking on the bank of the Brandywine creek [Delaware/Pennsylvania] had a black snake creep up his leg under his pantaloons and twist himself three or four times round his leg; this was done in an instant. He grasped it with both his hands and held it nearly an hour, till a young man came to his relief, who cut a hole in his pantaloons and cut the head off the snake. It is assured five feet long. If he had not got assistance, he declares he could not have survived much longer. (4)

Prince Carl Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach noted this snake encounter when travelling on the Mississippi River from New Orleans to St. Louis in 1826.

The country was…very monotonous, low banks, partly covered with water, covered thickly with trees, of which the fresh green leaves were very much hidden by the disagreeable Spanish moss: some inconsiderable plantations, where cotton and Indian corn were raised, and the dwelling-houses, miserable little log-cabins, which are built on a sort of grate, on account of the overflowing water. We stopped at one of these places for wood, on the left bank. The labourers discovered among the wood prepared for them, a snake two feet long, green and yellow striped, with a white belly. They considered it poisonous, and killed it; I believe, however, that it was not, for at a dinner in the habitation of Mr. Andry, the sons of our host brought a similar snake, which he had found in the garden, into the chamber, and I permitted it, (to the terror of the ladies,) to creep into my sleeve upon the naked skin. Although the head of this snake had been cut off, yet the body still had life, and wound itself so fast upon my finger with the tail that I could carry it a considerable distance. (5)

American political cartoon featuring a snake, attributed to Benjamin Franklin, 1754

A snake tamer

The exhibition of Mr. Neal’s rattle snakes at the Eagle [in Richmond, Virginia] is too great a curiosity to be passed over. It is one of the most singular sights which we have ever witnessed.

Mr. Neal is a Frenchman; while in North Carolina he attempted to procure some rattle snakes for the purpose of making out a collection. But some of the observations and experiments he made induced him to believe the possibility of taming this poisonous reptile; he finally made the trial, and has succeeded in a manner which is calculated to astonish every beholder. What is the process he employed is unknown to us. He probably availed himself of the power which a control over the appetite of the animal gives him. He dwells very much, too, on the charms of music; while inflamed by hunger, and irritated by the application of hot iron, the creature is soothed and softened by a slow and plaintive strain.

Mr. N. has two rattle snakes – the male, which is four feet eight inches long, has eight rattles to his tail, thus proving him to be nine years old. He has had this snake four years. The female is much smaller and has five rattles. She has been with him 33 months. So great is their docility that he will take them up, after speaking a sort of jargon to them, and stroking down their backs, as if they were so many strings. He will make them crawl up his breast and face, caress and kiss him, coil round his neck, and while one of them is thus hanging around him, he will take up and exhibit the other. The perfect harmlessness of the reptile, and even attachment to his keeper, is astonishing. Meanwhile Mr. N. is himself thoroughly at his ease – completely self-possessed, diverting the spectator with the exhibition of his snakes, or instructing them by his explanations. He says he has no fears himself; for, independently of his command over the animal, he is satisfied he can cure the bite of it. Of the remedy he makes no secret. Wash your mouth first with warm sweet oil, and then suck the wound. Next drink most copiously of the decoction of the snake root, until it operates as a strong emetic. This is the regimen he recommends, and which he believes to be infallible. (6)

A snake eater

A man in Underhill, Vt. A few days since, for the sum of twenty-five cents, swallowed the head, and a considerable portion of the neck of a large striped snake. Having disposed of the head, for a more liberal compensation, he offered to swallow the remaining part of the serpent; but the spectators were already satisfied with his performance. The unsavory meal proved rather difficult of digestion, but the stomach of this snake eater was less affected that those of the astonished spectators. The man afterwards stated that the snake’s head operated as a powerful cathartic, and did him two dollars service. (7)

A cat playing with a garter snake, by Karl Bodmer, 1860. Source: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Elisha Whittelsey Collection, The Elisha Whittelsey Fund, 1959

The cock and the snake

A few days since, a farmer in the town of Jefferson [Ohio] observed his dung-hill cock, who is a great pugilist, and in the enjoyment of all his physical strength, engaged in mortal combat with a striped snake of about eighteen or twenty inches in length – the cock, to all appearance, having the decided advantage over his more willy, though less nervous adversary, dealing his blows in quick succession, employing alternately his bill and spurs, with true pugilistic skill and science. But the cunning serpent, well aware that victory must declare against him by fair combat, seizing his antagonist by the thigh, in the rear, completed secured himself from any further damage by him. Thus situated, the cock very naturally thought his only ‘safety was in flight,’ he accordingly ‘cleaved the air majestically with his wing,’ the snake keeping fast hold, and dangling like a tag-lock underneath, alighted on a neighboring apple tree. The snake immediately coiled his tail round a branch of the tree; the cock again attempted flight, but he could scarcely clear the limb, from which he hung with his head downwards, making every effort to escape, but all in vain, until the farmer came to his assistance, killed the snake, and set him at liberty. (8)

A snake hunt

The following extraordinary circumstance is said to have occurred at or near Hillsborough, in Fountain County, in the State of Indiana. For some years past this place has been infested with snakes so numerous that people were not safe even in their beds at night. So great was the terror of the citizens that few dared to venture out after dark for fear of them. Last fall, a person living in the neighborhood discovered a cave in the bank of a creek, where it was supposed they had taken up their abode for the winter. Upon the information obtaining circulation, the citizens turned out en masse to destroy them. They commenced by digging and removing the earth and rocks from the mouth of the den, until they came to them. They lay in coils in crevices of the rocks. Wooden hooks were thrust in, and frequently three or four were drawn out. The two first days they caught one hundred and forty-two – about one hundred were Rattle Snakes; and the remainder were Copper-headed Snakes. They were, in general, of the largest size.

Digging and killing have since continued, but to what extent we are not informed. (9)

Snakes and children

While Americans were killing snakes whenever they felt threatened, venomous snakes were killing or seriously injuring people and their animals. Children in rural areas were particularly vulnerable, as these sad tales indicate.

A gentleman of great respectability informs us of a very singular event which happened a few days since in Hanover county [Virginia] – on the plantation of Mrs. Hawes, within a few miles of this city. A negro woman left her sucking child asleep in her cabin to bring water from a spring. On returning to the door of her humble dwelling, what was her astonishment and horror at seeing a black snake coiled around the neck of her infant, with its mouth applied to and apparently introduced into the mouth of the child! Words are too faint to give an adequate idea of the feelings of the mother. With the wild shriek of horror, she rushed from the cabin, crying aloud for assistance, and flew into the presence of her mistress. There was not a man near them. They returned with the utmost precipitation to the cabin, whence they saw the snake departing, who gliding through the weeds effected his escape. On examining the poor infant, it was found dead. It is known that black snakes are fond of milk, and that to satiate their appetite, they will sometimes twine themselves around the legs of the cow, or order to suck its teats. It is supposed that allured by the smell of milk in the mouth of the child, the snake coiled around its neck, and applied its own mouth to that of the infant. Its grip is known to be very strong – and by this as well as by introducing its head into the mouth, completely strangled the baby. It had no marks of a bit about it. Few modes of death can be conceived more horrible than this. (10)

About three weeks since, a son of Jonathan Carpenter, Esq. of North-Moreland [Pennsylvania], aged about six years, strayed a short distance from his father’s residence into the woods, in company with another boy, and was most shockingly bitten by a Rattlesnake. It is thought that the child did not observe the reptile, and he supposed that there were briars about his feet, as he did not move from the place until it had bitten him several times. The snake was discovered by his little companion, who warned the unfortunate child of his danger. He attempted to escape, but so furious had the snake become, that it continued to thrust its fangs into him until he fell. Being unable to walk, the child crawled on his hands and knees to the road, a few yards distant, when the snake let go his hold (by which he had been dragged through the brush) and retreated. By the time assistance was offered him, the child was senseless, and so badly swollen that he could not open his eyes. Medical aid was immediately called, and every exertion made to relieve him – but of no avail. He lived about thirty-six hours, senseless, when the vital spark fled. (11)

Remedies for snake bites

It was not until 1901, when Brazilian physician Vital Brazil developed an antivenom for snakes native to the Americas, that a reliable remedy for snakebite became available to Americans. In the meantime, various folk cures were recommended.

As the public in the western country are much interested in knowing whatever may be a good remedy for the poison injected into the human flesh by the bite of a snake, I think it my duty to state a fact within my own knowledge. About the year 1815 or 1816, one of my children was bitten by a copperhead, on the inside of both ankles, nearly at the same instant. I instantly produced pulverized charcoal and mixed it with as much hog’s lard as made it adhere. I then made a plaster of it, and applied it to the wounds, renewing the plaster every twenty or thirty minutes, for ten or twelve hours, at the same time giving the child fresh milk to drink. This remedy had the desired effect, and very little pain was endured after the first application. Not more than five minutes elapsed from the time the child was bitten till the cure was applied, and in this short time, so violent was the action of the poison, being near a blood vessel, that its tongue was much swollen, and green matter was vomited by the child, but the effect of the antidote was nearly as instantaneous as the poison. Several of my neighbors, in the vicinity of Newport [Indiana], can attest to the above facts. – James M’Cormick. (12)

Dr. Barry, in England, has discovered an excellent and immediate cure for the bite of a snake or mad dog, viz. by applying a cupping glass over the wounded part. (13)

Poke root, boiled soft, and applied as a poultice to the wound, is said to be a certain remedy for the bite of a snake. (14)

Give to a grown person a teaspoonful of the volatile spirit of sal ammoniac, or what is commonly called spirits of hartshorn, in half a wine glass of water every half hour until the symptoms disappear, binding at the same time a linen cloth of three or four thicknesses, wet with the spirits unmixed with water, to the wound; the cloth to be wetted in the spirits every five minutes. If the wound has been given some hours before the application can be applied, it should be scarified freely round the bite with a sharp knife or lancet, before the wet cloth is laid on. The most severe and obstinate cases have been known to yield to this remedy in a few hours. (15)

The Bonaparte connection

Though Joseph Bonaparte’s wife, Julie, never joined him in America, “stories of serpents” did not prevent Joseph’s children from visiting him in the United States. Charlotte – who appears in Napoleon in America – arrived in 1821. Zénaïde arrived in 1823 with her husband, Charles Lucien Bonaparte, the son of Napoleon’s brother Lucien. Charles was an ornithologist. In addition to birds, Charles studied amphibians and reptiles. In 1835, he was the first person to identify and name the Vipera ursinii, otherwise known as Orsini’s meadow viper. Charles was also – in 1843 – the first person to establish that snake venom consists largely of proteins.

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Nicholas and Edward Biddle, “Joseph Bonaparte as Recorded in the Private Journal of Nicholas Biddle,” The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 55, No. 3 (1931), p. 215.
“A Snake!” Niles’ Weekly Register (Baltimore), August 3, 1822.
“Another Big Snake!” Natchez Gazette, August 14, 1819.
New York Spectator, October 2, 1826.
Carl Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar Eisenach, Travels Through North America, During the Years 1825 and 1826, Vol. I (Philadelphia, 1828), Vol. I, pp. 88-89.
“Tame Rattle Snakes,” Niles’ Weekly Register, September 14, 1822.
“A Snake Eater,” New York Spectator, June 27, 1826.
“The Cock and the Snake,” Ohio Observer, August 10, 1827.
“Remarkable Snake Hunt,” National Intelligencer (Washington, D.C.), April 25, 1829.
“Strange Incident,” Niles’ Weekly Register, August 8, 1818.
“Bite of a Rattle Snake,” Ohio Observer, July 26, 1828.
Boston Medical Intelligencer, April 3, 1827.
Maryland Gazette, June 28, 1827.
“Cure for a Snake Bite,” Arkansas Gazette, September 2, 1829.
“Snake Bites,” Louisville Public Advertiser, June 10, 1829.

Despite his skill as a military commander, Arthur Wellesley, the 1st Duke of Wellington, was not particularly adept at handling a gun. This led to some noteworthy incidents after he retired from the battlefield.

The duel between the Duke of Wellington and the Earl of Winchilsea, 1829

When the Duke of Wellington shot an old woman

In October 1819, the Duke of Wellington went on a shooting party at Maresfield Park in Sussex with his host, Sir John Shelley, and others. Lady Frances Shelley joined the shooters in the afternoon.

They told me that after I came the Duke shot far better than he had done in the morning. Bad was the best, however; for he had contrived to empty two powder horns and a half, with very little to show for it.

If truth be told, the hero of Waterloo was a very wild shot. After wounding a retriever early in the day, and, later on, peppering the keeper’s gaiters, he inadvertently sprinkled the bare arms of an old woman who chanced to be washing clothes at her cottage window! I was attracted by her screams, and the fearful ejaculations caused by pain and fear. I took in the situation at a glance, and went to the cottage door.

‘I’m wounded, Milady!’ she cried.

‘My good woman!’ said I, ‘this ought to be the proudest moment of your life. You have had the distinction of being shot by the great Duke of Wellington!’

‘Oh! La!’ exclaimed the old woman, as she glanced towards the Duke with eyes full of tears, not knowing whether to be proud or angry. Then suddenly her face was wreathed in smiles, as the contrite Duke slipped a golden coin into her trembling hand! (1)

After watching the Duke shoot for a while, the Shelleys’ young daughter, Fanny, became so frightened that she burst into tears.

‘What’s this, Fanny?’ exclaimed Lady Shelley. ‘Fear, in the presence of the hero of Waterloo! Fie! Stand close behind the Duke of Wellington: he will protect you.’

Fanny “was then too young to realise that it was probably the only safe place.” (2)

When the Duke of Wellington shot Lord Granville

In January 1823, at Wherstead Park in Suffolk, the Duke of Wellington had another shooting accident. This time the victim was his host, Lord Granville Leveson-Gower.

The Noble Lord had a large party of friends, to enjoy the sports of the field. …[T]hey were out scouring a wood. The morning was hazy, and the Duke of Wellington was so intent on his game, that he lost sight of the party, and in firing his double-barrelled gun, his Grace unfortunately lodged a part of the contents in the face of his Noble Host; seven swan shot entered the cheeks, and one the nose. His Grace, hearing an exclamation of ‘I am shot,’ threw down his piece and hurried to the spot, where he found his friend leaning against a tree, the face streaming with blood. One of the party galloped off to Ipswich for medical aid, whilst the others carried the wounded Nobleman to the lodge. A surgeon in less than an hour attended, extracted the shot, and pronounced the Noble patient to be not in any danger. (3)

According to Lord Granville’s son, who was then seven years old:

Our pretty nurserymaid burst into the nursery, ‘The Duke of Wellington has shot Lord Granville.’ It was true, and after the Duke had shot two dogs, my father received the full charge at a short distance in his face, one shot passing through his nose without touching the eye. Some were extracted, but many remained in his body during his life. (4)

Foster Barham Zincke, a later vicar of Wherstead, knew a beater who was present at the accident, as well as the surgeon who extracted the shots.

The Duke was in the meadow; Lord Granville was in the wood. The wood rises rather sharply from the meadow. The Duke fired at a pheasant as it rose above the underwood. The elevation, however, was not sufficient to carry the charge above Lord Granville, who was on much higher ground than the Duke. Fortunately he was struck on the side of the head, one shot even passing through his nose. Had he been struck in the full face his sight might have been totally destroyed. Eleven shots were extracted. It is evident that Lord Granville was where he ought not to have been. The tradition is that this was the only point in the mishap which the iron disciplinarian regarded as material, and so he could not refrain from saying to his bleeding host: ‘If you had not been where you had no business to have been, it could not have happened.’ (5)

It is shortly after this episode that the Duke of Wellington (fictionally) attends Dorothea Lieven’s dinner party in Napoleon in America.

The Wellington-Winchilsea Duel

The Field of Battersea, caricature of the duel between the Duke of Wellington and the Earl of Winchilsea (drawing by W. Heath, published by Thomas McLean, 1829)

Wellington took his most famous peacetime shot in March 1829 at Battersea Fields – now Battersea Park in London. He was 59 years old and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. His gun was pointed in the direction of 37-year-old George Finch-Hatton, 10th Earl of Winchilsea (or Winchelsea) and 5th Earl of Nottingham.

Winchilsea was a notably right-wing member of Wellington’s party in the House of Lords. He and other “Ultra-Tories” strongly opposed the decision of Wellington’s government to pass a bill that would allow Catholics to sit in Parliament. On March 14, 1829, Winchilsea wrote a letter – published two days later in the Standard newspaper – in which he accused Wellington of having secretly been a convert to the policy of Catholic emancipation for some time. Winchilsea questioned Wellington’s motives and accused him of deceiving his party, so that he “might the more effectually, under the cloak of some outward show of zeal for the Protestant religion, carry on his insidious designs for the infringement of our liberties, and the introduction of Popery into every department of the State.” (6)

In a letter to Winchilsea dated March 19, Wellington wrote:

No man has a right, whether in public or in private, by speech or in writing, or in print, to insult another by attributing to him motives for his conduct, public or private, which disgrace or criminate him. (7)

He sought a written expression of regret from Winchilsea. When the latter refused to provide one, Wellington challenged him to a duel.

They met at Battersea Fields at 8 o’clock in the morning on March 21. Wellington’s second was Sir Henry Hardinge, Secretary at War. Winchilsea’s was Edward Boscawen, 1st Earl of Falmouth, another Ultra-Tory. Wellington’s physician, John Robert Hume, was the attending doctor. Neither Wellington nor Hardinge owned a set of duelling pistols, so Hardinge requested some from Dr. Hume. The latter didn’t realize that it was Wellington who was going to duel until the Duke appeared on horseback at Battersea.

Since Hardinge had lost his left hand at the Battle of Waterloo, Dr. Hume prepared and loaded the pistols for him. Falmouth “seemed a good deal agitated” – likely from the thought that he might be party to the death of England’s great hero and Prime Minister – so Hume offered to load for him too, but Falmouth managed to complete the task on his own. (8)

When Hardinge gave the command to fire, Winchilsea kept his pistol arm down at his side. Wellington fired at Winchilsea, who remained “steady and fearless…without making the slightest movement or betraying any emotion.” (9) The shot missed him. Winchilsea then lifted his pistol above his head and fired into the air. Falmouth afterwards took from his pocket a letter in which Winchilsea expressed regret at having published an opinion that had given offence to the Duke. Wellington insisted on the word “apology” being added. When – after some discussion – this was finally done, Wellington “touched the brim of his hat with two fingers, saying, ‘Good morning, my Lord Winchilsea; good morning my Lord Falmouth,’ and mounted his horse.” (10)

Did Wellington intend to hit Winchilsea, or did he deliberately miss him? According to Wellington’s cabinet colleague Lord Ellenborough:

The Duke said he considered all the morning whether he should fire at [Winchilsea] or no. He thought if he killed him he should be tried, and confined until he was tried, which he did not like, so he determined to fire at his legs. He did hit his coat. (11)

Hume – who wrote a detailed account of the event – said nothing about hitting a coat. Rather:

The Duke raised his pistol and presented it instantly on the word fire being given; but, as I suppose, observing that Lord Winchilsea did not immediately present at him, he seemed to hesitate for a moment, and then fired without effect. (12)

Winchilsea told an acquaintance that “he felt the wind of the Duke’s bullet…unpleasantly close to the curls of his hair.” (13) Wellington told his biographer that, upon seeing that Winchilsea did not intend to fire at him, “I turned my pistol aside and fired wide of him.” (14) Given the Duke’s poor shooting record and the fact he had no practice with the duelling pistols, Winchilsea was lucky in either case.

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Richard Edgcumbe, ed., The Diary of Frances Lady Shelley, Vol. II (London, 1913), pp. 73-74.
Ibid., p. 74.
“Alarming Accident at the Seat of Lord Viscount Granville,” Morning Post (London, England), January 21, 1823.
Edmund Fitzmaurice, The Life of Granville George Leveson Gower, Second Earl Granville, 1815-1891, Vol. I (London, 1905), p. 7.
Foster Barham Zincke, Some Materials for the History of Wherstead (Ipswich, 1887), pp. 93-94.
“Duel Between the Duke of Wellington and the Earl of Winchilsea,” Morning Post (London, England), March 23, 1829.
Ibid.
Arthur Wellesley, Despatches, Correspondence, and Memoranda of Field Marshal Arthur Duke of Wellington, Vol. 5 (London, 1873), p. 541.
Ibid., p. 549.
Ibid., p. 543.
Edward Law, A Political Diary, 1828-1830, Vol. I (London, 1881), p. 403.
Despatches, Correspondence, and Memoranda of Field Marshal Arthur Duke of Wellington, Vol. 5, p. 542.
Roundell Palmer, Memorials: Part I. Family and Personal, 1766-1865, Vol. I (London, 1896), p. 155.
George Robert Gleig, The Life of Arthur, Duke of Wellington (London, 1865), p. 349.

Although Napoleon Bonaparte respected his mother and put two of his sisters in charge of small territories, he believed that women were generally inferior to men. In Napoleon’s view, women were destined to play a domestic role, inside the family, rather than a public one. This was reflected in how Napoleon treated women, both on the personal level and in his policies.

Napoleon and Josephine. Napoleon's view of women was less charitable than this image suggests. Source: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library

Napoleon and Josephine. Source: The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Print Collection, The New York Public Library

What Napoleon said about women

Napoleon held a traditional view of women’s capabilities and the role of women in society. He acknowledged that women could be strong, and he regarded them as powerful insofar as they were capable of seducing men, but he did not believe that women were as intelligent as men. Women were not suited to be soldiers, or to play a role in the public sphere. A woman’s place was in the home, as a wife and as a mother. She was expected to defer to her husband, and to be modest and pleasing in her dress and in her conduct. Her main purpose in life was to produce children. When the writer Germaine de Staël asked Napoleon who was the greatest woman in the world, he replied, “she who has borne the greatest number of children.” (1)

Napoleon told his first wife, Josephine, that “the wife was made for the husband, the husband for his country, his family, and glory.” (2) He instructed his sister Pauline to “make yourself loved; be affable with everybody; try to be even-tempered, and to make [your husband] happy.” (3) To Marie Louise, his second wife, he wrote, “Women are lighter and less serious than we [men] are.” (4) In 1813, when Napoleon – off to command his army in Germany – established a regency under Marie Louise, he insisted that she not be shown police reports, on the grounds that “[o]ne should not defile the mind of a young woman.” (5)

One of Napoleon’s companions in exile on St. Helena recounted an 1816 conversation in which Napoleon engaged in “playful warfare with one of the ladies present” by “affecting to declaim against women.”

‘We men of the west,’ said he, winking sideways to us at the same time, to let us know that he was jesting, ‘… have acted most unwisely in treating women too well; we have imprudently allowed them to rank almost as our equals. In the East they have more sense and judgment; there women are pronounced to be the actual property of man; and so indeed they are, nature has made them our slaves, and it is only by presuming upon our folly that they can aspire to govern us, and by abusing the advantages which they possess, that they succeed in fascinating us and establishing their dominion over us. For one woman that inspires us with proper sentiments, there are a hundred who lead us into errors.’ He then went on to express his approbation of the maxims of the oriental nations, highly commended the practice of polygamy, which he considered to be that pointed out by nature, and displayed considerable ingenuity and fertility of invention in the choice and number of arguments which he adduced in support of his opinion. ‘Woman,’ said he, ‘is given to man to bear children to him; but one woman cannot suffice to one man for that purpose, for a woman cannot fulfil the duties of a wife during the period of her gestation, whilst she suckles her child, or when she is ill: and she ceases altogether to be a wife when she is no longer able to bear children. To man, on the contrary, nature has opposed no such obstacles at any period of his existence; a man should therefore have several wives.

‘After all,’ continued he, smiling significantly, ‘what have you to complain of, ladies? Have we not acknowledged that you possess a soul? … You aim at equality, but that is madness: woman is our property, we are not hers; for it is she that gives us children, and not we to her: she is therefore the property of man in the same manner as the fruit-tree is the property of the gardener. If the husband be unfaithful to his wife, and he confess his fault and repent of it, there is an end of the matter; no trace of it is left, the wife is angry, forgives, or becomes reconciled; and not unfrequently is a gainer on the occasion. But the case is widely different when the wife is unmindful of the marriage vow; it is of no avail for her to repent, the consequences of her guilt are incalculable, the mischief irreparable, she must never, she can never confess it. You will therefore agree with me, Ladies, that it can only be an error of judgment, the want of education, or the preponderance of vulgar notions, that can prompt a wife to believe herself the equal, in every respect, of her husband. There is, however, nothing disparaging in the inequality; each sex has its attributes and its duties; your attributes, Ladies, are beauty, grace, fascination; your duties submission and dependence.’ (6)

Although Napoleon was joking about his support for polygamy, some of these remarks reflected his own sentiments. General Armand de Caulaincourt, an aide to Napoleon, wrote:

The Emperor, though an accurate judge of men, knew nothing of women. He had mixed but little in female society. His feelings in reference to women were wholly material, and he did not admit the fascinating power of intelligence and talent in the female sex. He did not like learned or celebrated women, or those who in any way stepped out of the quiet sphere of domestic life. He assigned to women a very low grade in the social order, and thought they ought not to exercise power or influence over the minds of men. A woman was in his eyes merely a graceful being, and nothing more. (7)

Napoleon told Caulaincourt, “A husband who suffers himself to be led by his wife always ranks very low in my estimation.” (8) He said to Irish surgeon Barry O’Meara, “Women, when they are bad, are worse than men, and more ready to commit crimes. The soft sex, when degraded, falls lower than the other.” (9)

Although Napoleon tolerated Josephine’s infidelity, he divorced her because she could not bear him children. He regarded himself as free to bed other men’s wives, including Albine de Montholon – one of the women to whom he was presumably speaking in his jest about polygamy. When Fanny Bertrand – the other woman likely present at that conversation – resisted Napoleon’s advances, he described her as “a whore, a fallen woman who slept with all the English officers who passed her house…the most degraded of women,” and told her husband, General Henri Bertrand, that he should put her on the streets as a prostitute. (10)

Napoleon’s opinion of women who defied expectations

Napoleon with Queen Louise of Prussia at Tilsit, July 6, 1807. Napoleon's view of women who defied his expectations was dim. Detail of painting by Nicolas Louis Gosse

Napoleon with Queen Louise of Prussia at Tilsit, July 6, 1807. Detail of painting by Nicolas Louis Gosse

Napoleon was rude and bossy toward women who did not conform to his expectations, something I tried to capture in his treatment of Emily Hopkinson and Jane Biddle in Napoleon in America. According to Napoleon’s secretary, Louis Bourrienne:

Gallantry to women was by no means a trait in Bonaparte’s character. He seldom said anything agreeable to females, and he frequently addressed to them the rudest and most extraordinary remarks. To one he would say, ‘Heavens, how red your elbows are!’ – to another, ‘What an ugly head-dress you have got!’ At another time he would say, ‘Your dress is none of the cleanest – Do you never change your gown? I have seen you in that twenty times!’ He showed no mercy to those who displeased him on these points. (11)

Napoleon was particularly vexed by women who stepped into what he considered to be men’s roles. “I like women,” he observed, “that make men of themselves as little as I like effeminate men. There is a proper part for every one to play in the world.” (12)

To Maria Carolina, Queen of Naples, who was the real power behind the throne of her husband, King Ferdinand IV, he wrote: “Cannot your Majesty, who is distinguished among women for your wit, divest yourself of the prejudices of your sex? How can you treat the affairs of your kingdom as love affairs?” (13) When Napoleon sent an army into Naples in 1806, he said it was “in order to punish the treason of the queen, and to hurl from the throne that criminal woman, who in such a shameless manner has violated all that is sacred among men.” (14)

Later that year, Napoleon issued a bulletin in which he spoke disparagingly of Queen Louise of Prussia for “[giving] up the care of her domestic concerns and the serious occupation of the toilette to meddle with state affairs.” (15) When Josephine protested, Napoleon wrote to her, “You seem annoyed at the ill I said about women. It is true that I dislike intriguing women above everything. I am accustomed to good-hearted, gentle, and conciliating women; those are the women I love.” (16)

Napoleon had a host of sexist epithets for Madame de Staël, an articulate and assertive woman who disagreed with him: “intriguer [and] veritable plague,” “regular crow,” “mad woman,” “worthless woman,” “scheming woman.” (17) He banished her from France.

In the handful of instances in which Napoleon admired a woman who stepped out of a traditional gender role, he credited her with exhibiting manly qualities. Happily, he found such gems within his own family. “My excellent mother,” he said, “is a woman of courage and of great talent, more of a masculine than a feminine nature, proud, and high minded.” (18) He considered his sister Caroline to be “possessed of a strong, masculine understanding, and talents superior to the generality of her sex.” (19) Napoleon gave Caroline and her husband the throne of Naples. He spoke in similar terms of his sister Elisa, who he made ruler of Lucca, Piombino and Tuscany.

When Napoleon wanted to insult a man, he would accuse him of having womanly qualities. In 1806, he expressed his anger with his uncle, Cardinal Joseph Fesch, by telling him: “You behave like a woman at Rome… You meddle with things which you do not understand.” (20) In 1813, when Napoleon was dissatisfied with the performance of his generals in Spain, he denounced them for “behaving like cowardly women.” (21)

Napoleon’s thoughts on the education of girls

For a fuller picture of Napoleon’s view of women, consider his instructions on what they should be taught. Écouen was one of several boarding schools established by Napoleon for the daughters of members of the Légion d’Honneur. In 1807, he wrote a long note regarding its curriculum, which he thought should be heavy on religion and domestic skills.

What we ask of education is not that girls should think, but that they should believe. The weakness of women’s brains, the instability of their ideas, the place they will fill in society, their need for perpetual resignation, and for an easy and generous type of charity – all this can only be met by religion and by religion of a gentle and charitable kind. I did not lay special stress on religious observances at Fontainebleau; and in the lycées [schools for boys] I only prescribed the necessary minimum. At Écouen matters must be entirely different. Nearly all the exact knowledge taught there must be that of the Gospel. I want the place to produce, not women of charm, but women of virtue: they must be attractive because they have high principles and warm hearts, not because they are witty or amusing. We must therefore have, as headmaster at Écouen, a man of ability, good character, and a sufficient age; and every day the pupils must have regular prayers, hear mass, and learn the catechism. This is the part of their education with which most care must be taken.

In addition the girls must be taught writing, arithmetic, and elementary French, so that they may know how to spell; and they ought to learn a little history and geography; but care must be taken not to let them see any Latin or other foreign languages. The elder girls can be taught a little botany, and be taken through an easy course of physics or natural history. But that too has certain embarrassments. The teaching of physics must be limited to what is necessary to prevent gross ignorance and silly superstition, and must confine itself to the facts, and not indulge in reasoning which directly or indirectly touches on first causes. …

But the main thing is to keep them all occupied, for three-quarters of the year, working with their hands. They must learn to make stockings, shirts, and embroidery, and to do all kinds of women’s work. …

I don’t know whether it is possible to give them some idea of medicine and pharmacology, at any rate that kind of medical knowledge commonly required for nursing invalids. It would be a good thing, too, if they knew something about the work done in the Housekeeper’s room. I should like every girl who leaves Écouen, and finds herself at the head of a small household, to know how to make her own frocks, mend her husband’s things, make clothes for her babies, provide her little family with such occasional delicacies as can be afforded by a provincial housekeeper, nurse her husband and children when they are ill, and know what invalids have learnt by experience. All this is so simple and obvious that it does not require much consideration. …

I want to make these young persons into useful women, and I am sure that in that way I shall make them attractive wives. …

[I]n my opinion the best education of all is that which a mother gives her daughters; and my principal object is to do something for those girls who have lost their mothers, and whose people are too poor to bring them up properly. …

[N]othing is worse, or more open to censure, than the idea of letting young girls appear on the stage, or stimulating rivalry among them by allowing them to take places in form. It is good for men, who may have to make speeches, and who, having to master so many subjects, need the support and stimulus of competition. But in the case of young girls, competition should be banned: we don’t want to rouse their passions, or to give play to the vanity which is one of the liveliest instincts of their sex. (22)

Napoleon’s view of women compared to the prevailing view at the time

Napoleon’s view of women could perhaps be defended on the basis that it was consistent with the general view of women held by men of his time. However, there were many men who did not hold such a low opinion of women. The French Revolution had resulted in steps toward the liberty and equality of women, as well as men. Although women were unable to vote or to stand for public office, they were given the right to inherit property, to marry without parental consent at a younger age, to enter into marriage as a civil contract, to divorce their husbands, and to be given custody of young children. These measures would not have happened without the support and action of men.

By the time Napoleon came to power, women’s gains were already being eroded, but Napoleon put the nail in the coffin with his new French civil code (1804), otherwise known as the Napoleonic Code. This placed legal control over women’s lives and property firmly in the hands of fathers or husbands. Wives had to obey their husbands and live where they were told; they could not enter into contracts without the consent of their husband; husbands could have their wives imprisoned for adultery, but not vice versa; divorce became harder for women to obtain; fathers determined what happened to children.

When it came to views of women, Napoleon represented the conservative end of the spectrum. A number of Frenchmen held more enlightened ideas, and treated the females in their lives accordingly.

You might also enjoy:

Caroline Bonaparte Murat, Napoleon’s Treasonous Sister

Elisa Bonaparte Baciochhi, Napoleon’s Capable Sister

Giuseppina Grassini, Mistress of Napoleon & Wellington

The Josephine Delusion: A Woman Who Thought She Was Napoleon’s Wife

Virginie Ghesquière: A Female Napoleonic Soldier

Barry E. O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. II (London, 1822), p. 67.
John S.C. Abbott, Confidential Correspondence of the Emperor Napoleon and the Empress Josephine (New York, 1856), p. 130.
Lady Mary Loyd, New Letters of Napoleon I (New York, 1897), p. 90.
Charles de la Roncière, The Letters of Napoleon to Marie Louise (London, 1935), p. 85.
Ibid., p. 138.
Emmanuel-August-Dieudonné de Las Cases, Journal of the Private Life and Conversations of the Emperor Napoleon at Saint Helena, Vol. II (London, 1825), pp. 108-111.
Armand Augustin Louis de Caulaincourt, Recollections of Caulincourt, Duke of Vicenza, Vol. I (London, 1838), p. 135.
Ibid., pp. 136-137.
Barry E. O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. II (London, 1822), p. 50.
Frank McLynn, Napoleon: A Biography (London, 1997), p. 659.
Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne, Private Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, During the Periods of the Directory, the Consulate, and the Empire, Vol. I (Philadelphia, 1831), p. 277.
Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne, Private Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, During the Periods of the Directory, the Consulate, and the Empire, Vol. III (London, 1830), p. 155.
D.A. Bingham, A Selection from the Letters and Despatches of the First Napoleon, Vol. II (London, 1884), p. 114.
Ibid., p. 192.
Ibid., p. 265.
Ibid., p. 269.
Bingham, A Selection from the Letters and Despatches of the First Napoleon, Vol. II, pp. 302, 307. Loyd, New Letters of Napoleon I, pp. 82, 211, 227.
Barry E. O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. II (London, 1822), p. 100.
Ibid., p. 181.
Bingham, A Selection from the Letters and Despatches of the First Napoleon, Vol. II, p. 208.
Loyd, New Letters of Napoleon I, p. 301.
M. Thompson, Letters of Napoleon (Oxford, 1954), pp. 194-198.

When Napoleon was in exile on St. Helena, he told one of his companions that the happiest days of his life were when he was between the ages of 16 and 20 and “used to go about from one restaurateur to another, living moderately and having a lodging for which I paid three louis a month.” (1) A restaurateur is a person who owns or runs a restaurant. In Napoleon’s time, the word was synonymous with restaurant.

Restaurant du Boeuf à la Mode, Le Goût du jour, 1825. Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France

Restaurant du Boeuf à la Mode, 1825. Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France

Although public eateries have been around for over two thousand years, the modern restaurant – in which patrons are seated at their own tables, can dine whenever the establishment is open, and select their food from a menu that offers a choice of dishes – originated in Paris in the mid-1700s. Prior to this, travellers were dependent on taverns and inns, which tended to offer communal meals at a fixed time. Patrons ate whatever the cook served up, usually something simple. Cooked meals could also be bought at food shops or ordered from caterers (traiteurs). Cafés, which date from the 1600s, served beverages and light fare, typically desserts.

Dining options in France increased dramatically after the French Revolution. Unemployed cooks from aristocratic and royal households became restaurateurs. They introduced elements of fine dining, including ornate rooms, beautifully-set tables, smartly-dressed wait staff, and gourmet dishes. Food was available either as a set meal (prix fixe) or could be ordered from a menu (à la carte). Simpler and cheaper establishments offering a set meal were known as a table d’hôte, like the one operated by Jacques Saint-Victor in Napoleon in America.

An Englishman visiting Paris in 1801 observed:

The usual mode of living at Paris is at the Restaurateur’s: a name which has not been known (I believe) above thirty or forty years. Beauvillier’s, in the Palais Royal, is the most elegant and complete place of the kind I ever saw. The bill of fare usually contains at least 250 different articles, with the prices annexed to each of them. The same may be said of the different kinds of wines. (2)

Dining at Beauvilliers’ in 1802

The kitchen of a restaurateur, as depicted on the title page of the L’Art du Cuisinier by Antoine Beauvilliers, 1814

A restaurateur’s kitchen, as depicted on the title page of the L’Art du Cuisinier by Antoine Beauvilliers, 1814

Antoine Beauvilliers had worked his way up from humble origins to become a chef to the Count of Provence, the future King Louis XVIII. Beauvilliers’ restaurant was considered one of the best in Paris. An Englishman provided a detailed description of a meal there around 1802, when Napoleon was First Consul.

On the first floor of a large hotel, formerly occupied, perhaps, by a farmer-general, you enter a suite of apartments, decorated with arabesques, and mirrors of large dimensions, in a style no less elegant than splendid, where tables are completely arranged for large or small parties. In winter, these rooms are warmed by ornamental stoves, and lighted by quinquets, a species of Argand’s lamps. They are capable of accommodating from two hundred and fifty to three hundred persons, and, at this time of the year, the average number that dine here daily is about two hundred; in summer, it is considerably decreased by the attractions of the country, and the parties of pleasure made, in consequence, to the environs of the capital.

On the left hand, as you pass into the first room, rises a sort of throne, not unlike the estrade in the grand audience-chamber of a Spanish viceroy. This throne is encircled by a barrier to keep intruders at a respectful distance. Here sits a lady, who, from her majestic gravity and dignified bulk, you might very naturally suppose to be an empress, revolving in her comprehensive mind the affairs of her vast dominions. This respectable personage is Madame Beauvilliers, whose most interesting concern is to collect from the gentlemen in waiting the cash which they receive at the different tables. In this important branch, she has the assistance of a lady, somewhat younger than herself, who, seated by her side, in stately silence, has every appearance of a maid of honour. A person in waiting near the throne, from his vacant look and obsequious carriage, might, at first sight, be taken for a chamberlain; whereas his real office, by no means an unimportant one, is to distribute into deserts the fruit and other et ceteras, piled up within his reach in tempting profusion.

We will take our seats in this corner, whence, without laying down our knife and fork, we can enjoy a full view of the company as they enter. We are rather early: by the clock, I perceive that it is no more than five: at six, however, there will scarcely be a vacant seat at any of the tables. …

Good heaven! The bill of fare is a printed sheet of double folio, of the size of an English newspaper. It will require half an hour at least to con over this important catalogue. Let us see; Soups, thirteen sorts. — Hors-d’oeuvres, twenty-two species. — Beef, dressed in eleven different ways. — Pastry, containing fish, flesh and fowl, in eleven shapes. Poultry and game, under thirty-two various forms. — Veal, amplified into twenty-two distinct articles. — Mutton, confined to seventeen only. — Fish, twenty-three varieties. — Roast meat, game, and poultry, of fifteen kinds. — Entremets, or side-dishes, to the number of forty-one articles. — Desert, thirty-nine. — Wines, including those of the liqueur kind, of fifty-two denominations, besides ale and porter. — Liqueurs, twelve species, together with coffee and ices. …

Some of the items on Beauvilliers’ menu, circa 1802

One advantage well deserving of notice, of this bill of fare with the price annexed to each article, is that, when you have made up your mind as to what you wish to have for dinner, you have it in your power, before you give the order, to ascertain the expense. But, though you see the price of each dish, you see not the dish itself; and when it comes on the table, you may, perhaps, be astonished to find that a pompous, big-sounding name sometimes produces only a scrap of scarcely three mouthfuls. It is the mountain in labour delivered of a mouse.

However, if you are not a man of extraordinary appetite, you may, for the sum of nine or ten francs, appease your hunger, drink your bottle of Champagne or Burgundy, and, besides, assist digestion by a dish of coffee and a glass of liqueur. Should you like to partake of two different sorts of wine, you may order them, and drink at pleasure of both; if you do not reduce the contents below the moiety, you pay only for the half bottle. A necessary piece of advice to you as a stranger, is, that, while you are dispatching your first dish, you should take care to order your second, and so on in progression to the end of the chapter: otherwise, for want of this precaution, when the company is very numerous, you may, probably, have to wait some little time between the acts, before you are served.

This is no trifling consideration, if you purpose, after dinner, to visit one of the principal theatres: for, if a new or favourite piece be announced, the house is full, long before the raising of the curtain; and you not only find no room at the theatre to which you first repair; but, in all probability, this disappointment will follow you to every other for that evening.

Nevertheless, ten or fifteen minutes are sufficient for the most dainty or troublesome dish to undergo its final preparation, and in that time you will have it smoking on the table. Those which admit of being completely prepared beforehand, are in a constant state of readiness, and require only to be set over the fire to be warmed. Each cook has a distinct branch to attend to in the kitchen, and the call of a particular waiter to answer, as each waiter has a distinct number of tables, and the orders of particular guests to obey in the dining-rooms. In spite of the confused noise arising from the gabble of so many tongues, there being probably eighty or a hundred persons calling for different articles, many of whom are hasty and impatient, such is the habitual good order observed, that seldom does any mistake occur; the louder the vociferations of the hungry guests, the greater the diligence of the alert waiters. Should any article, when served, happen not to suit your taste, it is taken back and changed without the slightest murmur.

The difference between the establishments of the fashionable restaurateurs before the revolution, and those in vogue at the present day, is that their profession presenting many candidates for public favour, they are under the continual necessity of employing every resource of art to attract customers, and secure a continuance of them. The commodiousness and elegance of their rooms, the savouriness of their cooking, the quality of their wines, the promptitude of their attendants, all are minutely criticized; and, if they study their own interest, they must neglect nothing to flatter the eyes and palate. In fact, how do they know that some of their epicurean guests may not have been of their own fraternity, and once figured in a great French family as chef de cuisine?

Of course, with all this increase of luxury, you must expect an increase of expense: but if you do not now dine here at so reasonable a rate as formerly, at least you are sumptuously served for your money. If you wish to dine frugally, there are numbers of restaurateurs, where you may be decently served with potage, bouilli, an entrée, an entremet, bread and desert, for the moderate sum of from twenty-six to thirty sous. The addresses of these cheap eating-houses, if they are not put into your hand in the street, will present themselves to your eye, at the corner of almost every wall in Paris. Indeed, all things considered, I am of opinion that the difference in the expense of a dinner at a restaurateur’s at present, and what it was ten or eleven years ago, is not more than in the due proportion of the increased price of provisions, house-rent, and taxes.

The difference the most worthy of remark in these rendezvous of good cheer, unquestionably consists in the company who frequent them. In former times, the dining-rooms of the fashionable restaurateurs were chiefly resorted to by young men of good character and connexions, just entering into life, superannuated officers and bachelors in easy circumstances, foreigners on their travels, &c. At this day, these are, in a great measure, succeeded by stock-jobbers, contractors, fortunate speculators, and professed gamblers. In defiance of the old proverb, ‘le ventre est le plus grand de tons nos ennemis,’ guttling and guzzling is the rage of these upstarts. It is by no means uncommon to see many of them begin their dinner by swallowing six or seven dozen of oysters and a bottle of white wine, by way of laying a foundation for a potage en tortue and eight or ten other rich dishes. Such are the modern parvenus, whose craving appetites, in eating and drinking, as in every thing else, are not easily satiated.

It would be almost superfluous to mention, that where rich rogues abound, luxurious courtesans are at no great distance, were it not for the sake of remarking that the former often regale the latter at the restaurateurs , especially at these houses which afford the convenience of snug, little rooms, called cabinets particuliers. Here, two persons, who have any secret affairs to settle, enjoy all possible privacy; for even the waiter never has the imprudence to enter without being called. In these asylums, Love arranges under his laws many individuals not suspected of sacrificing at the shrine of that wonder-working deity. Prudes, whose virtue is the universal boast, and whose austerity drives thousands of beaux to despair, sometimes make themselves amends for the reserve which they are obliged to affect in public, by indulging in a private tête-à-tête in these mysterious recesses. In them too, young lovers frequently interchange the first declarations of eternal affection; to them many a husband owes the happiness of paternity; and without them the gay wife might, perhaps, be at a loss to deceive her jealous Argus, and find an opportunity of lending an attentive ear to the rapturous addresses of her aspiring gallant.

What establishment then can be more convenient than that of a restaurateur? But you would be mistaken, were you to look for cabinets particuliers at every house of this denomination. Here, at Beauvilliers’, for instance, you will find no such accommodation, though if you dislike dining in public, you may have a private room proportioned to the number of a respectable party: or, should you be sitting at home, and just before the hour of dinner, two or three friends call in unexpectedly, if you wish to enjoy their company in a quiet, sociable manner, you have only to dispatch your valet de place to Beauvilliers’ or to the nearest restaurateur of repute, for the bill of fare, and at the same time desire him to bring table-linen, knives, silver forks, spoons, and all other necessary appurtenances. While he is laying the cloth, you fix on your dinner, and, in little more than a quarter of an hour, you have one or two elegant courses, dressed in a capital style, set out on the table. As for wine, if you find it cheaper, you can procure that article from some respectable wine-merchant in the neighbourhood. In order to save trouble, many single persons, and even small families now scarcely ever cook at home; but either dine at a restaurateur’s, or have their dinners constantly furnished from one of these sources of culinary perfection. …

When you want to pay, you say: ‘Garçon, la carte payante!’ The waiter instantly flies to a person, appointed for that purpose, to whom he dictates your reckoning. On consulting your stomach, should you doubt what you have consumed, you have only to call in the aid of your memory, and you will be perfectly satisfied that you have not been charged with a single article too much or too little.

Remark that portly man, so respectful in his demeanour. It is Beauvilliers, the master of the house: this is his most busy hour, and he will now make a tour to inquire at the different tables, if his guests are all served according to their wishes. He will then, like an able general, take a central station, whence he can command a view of all his dispositions. The person, apparently next in consequence to himself, and who seems to have his mind absorbed in other objects, is the butler: his thoughts are, with the wine under his care, in the cellar.

Observe the cleanly attention of the waiters, neatly habited in close-bodied vests, with white aprons before them: watch the quickness of their motions, and you will be convinced that no scouts of a camp could be more on the alert. An establishment, so extremely well conducted, excites admiration, Every spring of the machine duly performs its office; and the regularity of the whole might serve as a model for the administration of an extensive State. Repair then, ye modern Machiavels, to No. 1243, Rue de la Loi; and, while you are gratifying your palate, imbibe instruction from Beauvilliers. (3)

Dining in Paris in 1815

The English at a restaurateur in Paris. Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France

Another English visitor described the dining scene in Paris in the summer of 1815, just after the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

The coffee houses and public dining rooms at the restaurateurs are decorated with a splendour of which the dark and neglected inside of a Parisian’s home may be either cause or effect. One would imagine that all Paris dined every day from home, so much are these innumerable public victualling places resorted to throughout the whole day. Certainly at the present time the host of foreign troops adds to the population much of that particular class of people who dine from home. The profusion of large looking-glasses, of gilt clocks, and gold introduced into the painting of the rooms may well surprise a traveller coming from wealthy Britain, where heavy taxation checks all profusion in these expensive articles in similar public places.

In the Café du Regent the whole length of the wall facing the street appears like one looking-glass from top to bottom. The Café militaire, though not large, is most elegantly fitted up with alternate pier glasses and fasces of spears, painted and gilt, surmounted by gilt helmets with plumes. HIC GAUDET BELLICOSA VIRTUS is written on the fan light over the door. The tables in these houses are generally of an inferior red French marble, easily cleaned and comfortable enough in this warm season. The practice of waiters being paid by the customers, as well as that of the masters charging exorbitantly, has been introduced here by such of the English as have more money than wit, and who used to exclaim: ‘How monstrously cheap it is!’ a hint that was not lost upon Monsieur le restaurateur, nor upon the boutiquiers male and female. These no sooner observe by the cut of your clothes that you come from England, than their only apprehension in dealing with you appears to be that they may not ask or charge enough. (4)

Dining at a restaurateur in 1829

A Parisian restaurant in the 1840s

By the 1820s, there were over 3,000 restaurateurs in Paris. An American visiting the city in 1829 frequented several of them.

You enter into a large hall, with sometimes a suite of rooms in addition. The hall is often very splendidly furnished, and is filled with tables, separately spread, for any number of persons, from two to seven or eight, as may be desired. At the head of it is a raised seat, with a railing around it, where a female is placed, who presides over the whole, and receives the money after you have dined; and also serves out the fruit, which makes a fine show upon a large table near her. She is generally selected for her beauty, in order to attract persons, as one of the ornaments of the saloon. When you have seated yourself at either of the tables you choose, a waiter hands you a carte, from which you select your dinner. At some of the restaurants you pay more or less, according to what dishes you call for; but at others they agree, for a certain sum, to give you a dinner, which shall consist of potage, or soup, the indispensable commencement of a dinner in France, and three different dishes, besides wine, fruit, bread, and a small cup of coffee, without milk, but with a plentiful allowance of sugar, with which your repast finishes. The houses of this description are not among the most genteel or agreeable; and in other respects they are not in the highest esteem, because it is so much the object of the proprietors to economize in the cost of what they set before you, that you are not sure of having food of the best quality.

The most celebrated cafes and restaurants are in the Palais Royal, and along the Boulevards, some of which are fitted up, in all their parts, with real magnificence, and give you the luxuries of the country, prepared in the highest perfection of the gastronomic art. There were great numbers of persons at these places, when I visited them, the rooms being generally quite full. Sometimes, though rarely, there were parties of ladies without any gentlemen; but more frequently of gentlemen alone, or gentlemen and ladies together. I was at first much surprised at meeting so many people; but afterwards came to realize the convenience of being able to obtain a good dinner at a moment’s warning, whenever you choose to call; particularly if you chance to be far from your lodgings. And there are, besides, many gentlemen, whose place of business is at a distance from their houses, and other persons who live in hired apartments, and always dine at a restaurant. But the more fashionable and expensive of these establishments are supported in a great measure by the multitude of foreigners, who resort to Paris, and fill its walks, galleries, and places of recreation and refreshment. These considerations will account for the confluence of persons who are usually to be seen at the restaurateurs. (5)

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Barry E. O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile; or, A Voice from St. Helena, Vol. II (London, 1822), p. 155.
“An Accurate Account of the Present State of the French Republic,” The Monthly Magazine, Vol. 11, No. 2 (London, 1801), p. 105.
Francis William Blagdon, Paris As It Was and As It Is: A Sketch of the French Capital, Vol. I (London, 1803), pp. 442-460.
“A Trip to Paris in August and September, 1815,” The New Monthly Magazine, Vol. V, No. 29 (London, 1816), p. 387.
Caroline Elizabeth Wilde Cushing, Letters, Descriptive of Public Monuments, Scenery, and Manners in France and Spain, Vol. I (Newburyport, 1832), pp. 8-10.

Pauline Bonaparte, Napoleon’s favourite sister, was the only one of his seven siblings to join the exiled French Emperor on Elba. She became the life of Napoleon’s small court. She also helped to finance his stay on the island, as well as his escape from it.

Pauline Bonaparte, Princess Borghese, by Robert Lefèvre, 1803

Pauline calls at Elba

In April 1814, with a European coalition occupying Paris, Napoleon was forced to abdicate the French throne. He was exiled to the small Mediterranean island of Elba, off the west coast of Italy.

As Napoleon made his way to the south of France to embark for his new kingdom, he stopped at the château of Bouillidou, where Pauline was staying. Fearful of being killed by a royalist mob, Napoleon had disguised himself in the coat and hat of an Austrian general. Pauline was astonished to see her brother in an enemy uniform and refused to kiss him until he had removed it. Pauline, who was in poor health, promised to join Napoleon on Elba as soon as she was feeling better.

On May 4, Napoleon disembarked at Portoferraio, the largest town on Elba. He sent the frigate on which he had arrived, HMS Undaunted, back to France to pick up Pauline, but she was not ready to depart. Instead she decided that her health would benefit from a visit to the baths at Ischia, near Naples, which was ruled by her sister and brother-in-law, Caroline and Joachim Murat.

Pauline stopped by Portoferraio at the end of May, on her way to Naples on a frigate sent by Murat. Napoleon had a twenty-one gun salute fired and went on board to greet her. Although Pauline didn’t want to leave the ship, Napoleon convinced her to come ashore, where she was met by local dignitaries and the town’s cheering population. “Ah, Madame,” said Napoleon, “you thought I was in an almost desert country, with half-savage people. Well! Look again and judge if one could be better surrounded than I am.” (1)

Pauline spent 24 hours on Elba. She stayed at I Mulini (the mills), also known as the Palazzina dei Mulini or the Villa dei Mulini, which Napoleon had chosen as his residence. It had been a garrison, consisting of a few large buildings surrounded by shacks and windmills, and was in the midst of an extensive renovation, directed by Napoleon. Pauline did not find the place commodious. Before continuing on to Naples, she gave Napoleon’s grand marshal, General Henri Bertrand, a cluster of diamonds and told him to buy an estate on Elba where she could live. He purchased the villa of San Martino, five miles away, for 180,000 francs. This became Napoleon’s country resort.

The only other member of the Bonaparte family to journey to Elba was Napoleon’s mother, Letizia, officially known as Madame Mère. She arrived in August and took up residence in a house near I Mulini. Napoleon’s Polish mistress, Marie Walewska, came for a brief sojourn in early September, bringing with her Napoleon’s illegitimate son, Alexandre Walewski, who was four years old. Napoleon whisked them away to a far corner of the island, hoping to keep the visit secret. The inhabitants of the island mistook the visitors for Napoleon’s wife Marie Louise and his legitimate son, the King of Rome, age three. Marie Louise and her son had gone to Vienna, to join the court of her father, Emperor Francis I of Austria. Although Napoleon prepared apartments for them on the upper floor of I Mulini, they never did join him on Elba.

Pauline comes to stay

On November 1, Pauline returned to Elba. She arrived on HMS Undaunted, which Napoleon had sent to Naples to fetch her.

Before the arrival of the Princess Pauline a number of cases of furniture, porcelain, glass, and an infinite quantity of pretty, useless things had been unloaded at the port and transported to the palace. The Emperor, curious to see what these cases contained and wishing to be the first to see them, had them opened before him. When the box contained porcelains, glass, or bronzes he would have the pieces taken out one by one, have them handed to him, amuse himself by taking off their wrappings, and, after having looked at them and examined them on every side, he would place them on a table or some other piece of furniture within his reach. This form of distraction pleased him so much that not a box was opened unless he was present.

When the Emperor knew of the arrival of the princess, his sister, he made all the arrangements necessary to receive her. The rooms in the upper story [originally intended for Marie Louise]…and which had been decorated and almost furnished, were put in order. The Emperor himself saw to everything. As soon as the ship which carried His Majesty’s sister entered the port and had anchored, the artillery of the place saluted the princess. The troops, I think were under arms during her landing. As soon as her carriage was ashore she got into it and drove to the palace. (2)

Pauline entertains

Pauline Bonaparte, by Robert Lefèvre, 1806

Pauline was 34 years old when she arrived at Elba – 11 years younger than Napoleon. Although she was estranged from her husband, Prince Camillo Borghese, she retained the title Princess Borghese and was able to draw on her husband’s extensive wealth. She still possessed the beauty for which she was renowned. Napoleon’s second valet, Louis Étienne Saint-Denis, described Pauline on Elba as follows.

Her person, from what could be seen, had all the beautiful proportions of the Venus di Medici. Nothing was lacking to her but a little youth, for the skin of her face was beginning to be wrinkled, but the few defects which resulted from age disappeared under a slight coating of cosmetic which gave more animation to her pretty features. Her eyes were charming and very lively, her teeth were admirable, and her hands and feet were of the most perfect model. She always dressed most carefully, and in the style of a young girl of eighteen. (3)

Napoleon was delighted that Pauline had joined him. “She had all the qualities of a consoling angel,” wrote Pons de l’Hérault, manager of the iron mines on Elba. “Only the presence of the King of Rome could have been more precious…. She was sweet, affectionate, benevolent, and her gaiety animated everything around her.” (4) Napoleon organized a fête to welcome her.

Pauline shook up the staid set of activities on the island. According to Napoleon’s first valet, Louis-Joseph Marchand:

Princess Pauline’s arrival initiated a new way of life in Porto Ferrajo. Parties, balls, and concerts were given at her house; evening receptions were held at the Emperor’s and at Madame’s, replacing the activities of all kinds that had taken place until then. The small court of the sovereign of Elba took on a less military look. The princess, whose every charm was at its peak, lent an air of gallantry and mirth to all who surrounded her. …. She had brought her retinue, taking as lady’s companions Mme Colombani and Mme Bellini, wives of senior officers, and Mme Lebel, daughter of the adjutant general by that name. All three had a remarkable appearance and distinction. The princess dined every day with the Emperor and General Drouot; she had herself transported from her apartments to the Emperor’s. She went on her excursions in a sedan chair, in preference to a carriage; she was always accompanied by officers of the guard, who all vied for the honor. (5)

Napoleon had a large hall on the ground floor of the palace fixed up to serve as a ballroom and small theatre. Pauline organized and performed in comedies, including Les Fausses Infidelités and Les Folies Amoureuses. Napoleon also allowed a former church that was being used as a military storehouse to be converted into a municipal theatre, where Pauline arranged plays. Although mass was said at the palace every Sunday, Pauline “always found some way to escape being at divine service.” (6)

Napoleon was short of money and Pauline had plenty. She gave generously to Napoleon, and – at Napoleon’s insistence – paid for her own extravagances.

Anecdotes of Pauline on Elba

Although Pauline was not in the best of health, she tended to exaggerate her ailments. Pons de l’Hérault observed that she always wanted to be, or appeared to be sick, and the only fault she found in Napoleon was that he would contradict her on this point. Napoleon seemed to take pleasure in telling Pauline that her illnesses were imaginary. On one occasion when Pons de l’Hérault found Pauline being carried around outside by porters, she said, “You see how I am suffering because the Emperor told me to get some fresh air.” (7)

Pauline’s desire to appear ill never interfered with her ability to dance. According to Saint-Denis:

She always said that she was ill, out of sorts; when she had to go up or down stairs she had herself carried on a square of red velvet having a stick with handles on each side, and yet if she was at a ball she danced like a woman who enjoys very good health. She dined with the Emperor and he liked to tease and poke fun at her. One evening she was so angry with what the Emperor had said to her that she rose from table and went away with tears in her eyes. The irritation did not last long, for the Emperor went up to see her that evening or the next morning and the little feeling of annoyance quickly disappeared. (8)

According to Pons de l’Hérault, Pauline was so devoted to Napoleon that she once said that if Emperor had wanted to beat her, she would have resigned herself with good grace. “It would hurt me, but I would let him do it, if it gave him pleasure.” (9)

Pons also recounted how, after losing her temper with a servant, Pauline later rushed to hug the woman at a ball and apologize.

Napoleon leaves Elba

Napoleon leaving Elba, by Joseph Beaume, 1836

On February 16, 1815, the British commissioner on Elba, Colonel Neil Campbell, sailed for Livorno, indicating that he would be gone for at least ten days. Napoleon took advantage of Campbell’s absence to prepare for his own departure from the island (see “How did Napoleon escape from Elba?”). On February 23, four or five large cases belonging to Pauline and insured for 5,000 dollars were disembarked at Livorno. They contained Pauline’s silver dishes and were intended to be sold for the benefit of Napoleon.

On February 26, Napoleon announced that he would leave Elba that evening. Napoleon’s suite said good-bye to Letizia and Pauline. The latter, who was pale and had tears in her eyes, kissed each of them in turn, wished them success, and told them to take care of her brother. It then came time for Napoleon to take his leave. Marchand wrote:

The princess and Madame were in the throes of pain; full of fear and hope, they couldn’t let the Emperor out of their arms. All those who were going with His Majesty were allowed to kiss these ladies’ hands. I was in the Emperor’s room, awaiting his final orders, when Princess Pauline entered, her beautiful face covered with tears; she came up to me, holding a diamond necklace worth 500,000 francs. She wanted to speak, but sobs choked her voice. I myself was moved by the state she was in. She said: ‘Here, the Emperor sent me to hand you this necklace, as the Emperor may need it if he is in trouble. Oh! were this to happen, Marchand, never abandon him, take good care of him. Adieu,’ she said, offering her hand for me to kiss.

‘Your Highness, I am hopeful this is but au revoir.’

‘That is not what I think.’ Some secret premonition seemed to tell her she would never see the Emperor again. His Majesty walked in at this point, speaking words of consolation, and took her out into the garden.” (10)

Although Pauline and Letizia had planned to join Napoleon in Paris, if he made it there safely (which he did, on March 20), Pauline never did see Napoleon again.

When Neil Campbell, the British commissioner on Elba, arrived back on the island on the morning of February 28 and learned that Napoleon and his troops had left, he went to Letizia’s house where he met with Pauline.

She…protest[ed] her ignorance of Napoleon’s intended departure till the very last moment, and of his present destination; laid hold of my hand and pressed it to her heart, that I might feel how much she was agitated. However she did not appear to be so, and there was rather a smile upon her countenance. She inquired whether the Emperor had been taken? I told her I could not exactly say he was, but that there was every probability of it. During this conversation she dropped a hint of her belief in his destination being for France: upon which I smiled and said, ‘non! ce n’est pas si loin, c’est à Naples;’ for I fancied (for the moment) she mentioned France purposely to deceive me. (11)

When Campbell left the island to search for Napoleon, Pauline made her own escape. She left for Italy in a felucca with a small number of companions and her sedan chair. On March 4, she reached Viareggio on the coast of Tuscany, which was under Austrian control. She headed for her sister Elisa’s villa at Compignano. Elisa was elsewhere and the villa was soon surrounded by a detachment of Austrian troops. Pauline was detained as a prisoner of state. She was allowed only limited communication with the outside world until June, when she obtained permission to go to the baths of Lucca for her health. It was there that Pauline learned of Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. She wanted to join Napoleon in exile on St. Helena, but was not permitted to do so. Instead Pauline went to Rome, which is where we find her in Napoleon in America, along with her mother Letizia, her brothers Louis and Lucien, and her uncle Joseph Fesch.

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André Pons de L’Hérault, Souvenirs et Anecdotes de l’Île d’Elbe(Paris, 1897), pp. 260-261.
Louis Étienne Saint-Denis, Napoleon from the Tuileries to St. Helena, translated by Frank Hunter Potter (New York and London, 1922), pp. 76-77.
Ibid., p. 81.
Pons de L’Hérault, Souvenirs et Anecdotes de l’Île d’Elbe, p. 238.
Louis-Joseph Marchand, In Napoleon’s Shadow (San Francisco, 1998), p. 122.
Saint-Denis, Napoleon from the Tuileries to St. Helena, 78.
Pons de L’Hérault, Souvenirs et Anecdotes de l’Île d’Elbe, p. 243.
Saint-Denis, Napoleon from the Tuileries to St. Helena, p. 81.
Pons de L’Hérault, Souvenirs et Anecdotes de l’Île d’Elbe, p. 238.
Marchand, In Napoleon’s Shadow, pp. 147-148.
Neil Campbell, Napoleon at Fontainebleau and Elba (London, 1869), pp. 376-377.

Even if you’re not sure what Napoleon actually looked like, you can usually identify him in pictures thanks to his hat and his coat. This is no accident. Napoleon cultivated an easily recognizable image by keeping his wardrobe simple. The three basic pieces were a modest uniform, a bicorne hat and an overcoat. Here’s more about Napoleon’s uniforms and other things Napoleon liked to wear.

Napoleon’s favourite clothes

Napoleon’s early uniforms

Napoleon donned his first uniform in 1785, when he graduated at age 16 from the military school in Paris and was commissioned as a second lieutenant of artillery. According to his friend Laure Junot, “on the day when he first put on his uniform, he was as vain as young men usually are on such an occasion. There was one part of his dress which had a very droll appearance; that was his boots. They were so high and wide that his little thin legs seemed buried in their amplitude.” Laure’s sister Cecile called him a “puss in boots.” (1)

Napoleon in his general’s uniform, by Andrea Appiani, 1800

Napoleon was promoted to brigadier general in 1793. In 1795 he became general of division, and, in March 1796, commander-in-chief of France’s Army of Italy. As such, he wore the uniform established by the French army regulations of January 1796. This included a single-breasted blue woollen coat with a red collar, red cuffs with white flaps, gold oak-leaf embroidery on the collar, cuffs, pockets and front and rear openings, and a red-and-white sash with gold trim. (2) This is the uniform Napoleon wore during the Italian campaign in 1796-97 and the Egyptian campaign in 1798-99. In August 1798, new regulations introduced a similar, double-breasted general’s coat, which Napoleon wore at the Battle of Marengo in 1800.

Fancy dress

In November 1799, Napoleon became the First Consul of France through a coup d’état. The position was considered a civil, not a military one. One of the early decrees of the consulate mandated the creation of uniforms for consuls and ministers. English visitor John Lemaistre, admitted to an audience at the Tuileries Palace in March 1802, wrote:

Here, in a splendid salon, stood Bonaparte, between Cambacères, the second consul, and le Brun the third. They were all three dressed in their grand costume of scarlet velvet, richly embroidered with gold. (3)

Napoleon as First Consul, by Antoine-Jean Gros, 1802

In 1804, Napoleon was proclaimed Emperor of the French. His coronation costume, designed by Jean-Baptiste Isabey, included white silk breeches and stockings; white slippers with gold embroidery; a long white silk tunic embroidered with gold and ornamented at the hem with a gold fringe; a crimson velvet mantle, with lining, border and shoulder cape of Russian ermine, and embroidered with golden bees and interlaced olive, laurel and oak sprigs surrounding the letter N; white gold-embroidered gloves; a lace cravat; an open gold crown shaped like laurel leaves, and a sword with a gold handle, studded with diamonds, attached to a white sash worn around the waist and decorated with gold. (4)

Napoleon in his coronation robes by François Gérard, 1805

Napoleon had another luxurious costume made for his coronation as King of Italy in 1805, this time in green. He established detailed and extravagant dress codes for his court and his army. “[H]e introduced elaborate new uniforms, using embroidery, lace, plumes, breastplates, dolmans, towering helmets, bear and tiger skins, more lavishly than the royal army ever had.” (5)

Napoleon wore elaborate clothing for banquets, receptions and ceremonial occasions, including his marriage to Marie Louise in 1810. However, for day-to-day activities, and while on his military campaigns, he preferred relatively plain clothes.

Napoleon’s favourite uniforms

In the midst of the finery around him, Napoleon stood out by dressing as a simple officer of his guard. He had two preferred outfits. One was the green and white uniform of a colonel of the chasseurs à cheval (light cavalry) of the Imperial Guard.

The coat of the chasseurs à cheval was of green cloth, lapels pointed, lining of the same cloth; collars and cuffs (pointed) red; gussets in the folds, green, piped with red; facings ornamented with hunting-horns embroidered in gold; hussar buttons bearing an eagle crowned. (6)

Napoleon in his chasseur uniform at the Battle of Friedland in 1807, by Horace Vernet

The other was the blue and white uniform of a colonel of the grenadiers à pied (infantry) of the Imperial Guard.

The grenadiers’ coat was of royal blue cloth; the collar blue, without piping; the lapels white, cut square, without piping; the cuffs scarlet, without piping; the flaps white, with three points; the lining scarlet, without piping, turned back, caught up and decorated with four grenades embroidered with gold on white cloth; the cut of the pocket longways, marked by an edging of scarlet; the gilt buttons bore an eagle crowned. (7)

Napoleon in his grenadier uniform, by François Gérard, 1812

Accounts differ as to which of the two uniforms Napoleon liked best.

Constant, the first valet of the emperor’s household, was in the best position to know, and he reported in his memoirs that most mornings he helped the emperor into his green cavalry uniform. According to Baron Fain, however, Napoleon wore his grenadier uniform…when in Paris and his cavalry uniform when traveling on campaign. Marchand and Meneval give another view, claiming that the emperor wore the cavalry uniform on weekdays and the grenadier uniform on Sundays. Evidence in the portraits of the era are just as confusing as these written reports; they depict him in either uniform whether at war or in peacetime.

Between November 1804 and June 1815, the account ledgers of Chevallier, who was the emperor’s tailor until December 1812, and Lejeune, who succeeded Chevallier, mention thirty-nine green cavalry uniforms. The ledgers also reveal that the cavalry uniforms were mostly delivered at the beginning of military campaigns, again leading to the conclusion that Napoleon chose this as his wartime attire. It is hardly surprising that he would select the cavalry uniform when he knew he was going to be spending a great deal of time on horseback and would prefer the grenadier uniform at other times. In any event, the regulations of 1811 specify that delivery of the uniforms would be alternated: grenadier uniforms on January 1 and July 1 and cavalry uniforms on April 1 and October 1. (8)

In 1815, Napoleon occasionally wore the blue and white uniform of the National Guard. At the Battle of Waterloo, he wore the chasseur uniform.

Napoleon’s hat

Napoleon’s favourite hat was a black felt bicorne – a two cornered hat, as opposed to a tricorne, or three-cornered one. Unlike his generals, he wore it without trim or plume. It had a simple cockade, secured by a black braid. He wore the hat sideways, with the corners parallel to his shoulders, rather than front to back.

When the Emperor went out of his salon to go to table he would have his hat on his head or under his left arm. In that case he would hand it to the prefect of the palace, who returned it to him when he went back into his salon. He often kept it on his head during the meal. If he happened to take it off he would lay it on the ground, to his right, and pick it up again when he left the table. (9)

Napoleon also wore other hats, including velvet bonnets when travelling, and a round hat with his civilian outfits. There are references to him wearing a tricorne when he was in exile.

Napoleon’s hat and greatcoat at the Musée de l’Armée in Paris, photographed by Damian Entwistle

Napoleon’s greatcoat

Another piece of Napoleon’s standard campaign wardrobe was a calf-length wool overcoat, also known as a greatcoat. The armholes were large enough to fit over his uniform. Most of Napoleon’s greatcoats were gray, but he also ordered blue or green ones. For winter campaigns, he wore a longer, fur-lined, velvet greatcoat.

Napoleon’s clothes on Elba

In 1814, Napoleon was exiled to the island of Elba. Neil Campbell, the British Commissioner on the island, mentioned Napoleon’s clothes in his first impression of the fallen Emperor.

I saw before me a short, active-looking man, who was rapidly pacing the length of his apartment, like some wild animal in his cell. He was dressed in an old green uniform with gold epaulets, blue pantaloons and red top boots, unshaven, uncombed, with the fallen particles of snuff scattered profusely upon his upper lip and breast. (10)

According to Napoleon’s first valet, Louis-Joseph Marchand:

The Emperor was consistent in the dress he had adopted: a three-cornered hat, the uniform of the guard’s mounted chasseurs (that of the grenadiers was for Sundays in Paris), riding boots, or silk stockings with buckled shoes. During the first months of his stay on Elba, he wanted to wear white breeches buttoned at the bottom, with cuffed boots; finding this accouterment uncomfortable, he reverted to white cloth trousers and buckled shoes. When his boots were removed on his return, he wanted to don his shoes right away without changing socks, which could be done without inconvenience as his boots were clean inside and he had a fresh change of clothes each day. The Emperor had acquired that habit in Paris where often, returning from a ride or from hunting, he would attend a council of State or one of ministers, and did not take time to change clothes. (11)

Napoleon’s clothes on St. Helena

Napoleon in his chasseur uniform on board the Bellerophon in Plymouth Sound, by Sir Charles Locke Eastlake, 1815

Following his second abdication after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, Napoleon was exiled to the remote South Atlantic island of St. Helena. He wore his chasseur uniform on the British ships that conveyed him first to Plymouth Harbour (the Bellerophon) and then to St. Helena (the Northumberland). Napoleon continued to wear this uniform during his first six weeks on the island, when he was staying with the Balcombe family while his residence of Longwood was being prepared. He then abandoned it for a green hunting uniform and other garb, as described by his second valet, Louis-Étienne Saint-Denis.

When the Emperor lived at ‘The Briars’ he dressed in the uniform of the mounted chasseurs of the Guard. He had worn that costume on board of the Bellerophon and the Northumberland, with, of course, the three-cornered hat and the tricolored cockade. He stopped wearing this cockade later. Shortly after he moved into Longwood he wore a shooting coat at first, and when this, after having been turned, became really too bad, he wore in its place a civilian’s coat, green or brown, I do not recollect which. These three coats were cut on the same pattern. When he dressed he always wore the Grand Ribbon of the Legion of Honor (this ribbon was without a cross and was worn under the coat), and the star on the coat. Whether in military or civilian dress, he wore a waistcoat of piqué or white kerseymere, with little figured pockets, and short breeches of kerseymere with flap and pockets. He never wore anything but silk stockings having a crown in the corner, and gold buckles on his shoes; these were round and ornamented with little roses. The knee buckles were also of bold with little designs and were somewhat longer than broad. He always wore a muslin cravat and a collar of black silk folded, which was buckled behind by a square, narrow gold buckle. In incognito he wore a green frock coat and a round hat.

When the Emperor superintended the work in his gardens he wore a hunting waistcoat and nankeen pantaloons with feet, a broad-brimmed straw hat with a narrow black ribbon, and red or green slippers on his feet. He usually had in his hand a little rose-wood billiard cue which served him both for a stick and a measure. In his room he wore a frock coat of piqué as a dressing gown, pantaloons of white fustian or swanskin with feet, and a madras handkerchief on his head. Except when he went into the gardens he dressed in this way part of the day; he was comfortable in it. If he went to walk in the gardens during the morning, which happened, to tell the truth, every day, he wore nothing else. For the first four years he dressed every day, unless he felt indisposed. (12)

Napoleon on St. Helena

When Napoleon became noticeably ill in late 1820, he stopped getting dressed.

When he wanted to go out in the carriage he kept on his pantaloons and slippers, and would put on a green frock coat instead of his dressing gown, and a round hat instead of his madras handkerchief. (13)

Napoleon died on May 5, 1821. His body was dressed for burial in the uniform of the chasseurs à cheval of the Imperial Guard. Saint-Denis wrote that “he had on his boots and spurs, with his hat on his head and his sword by his side. No piece of the costume was forgotten.” (14) The coffin, however, proved to be so short that Napoleon’s hat would only fit when placed on his thighs. This was the position in which it was found when Napoleon’s coffin was opened in 1840. (See “What happened to Napoleon’s body?”)

What happened to Napoleon’s clothes?

In Napoleon’s will, the list of effects to be given to his son included:

Body Linen.
Six shirts; 6 handkerchiefs; 6 cravats; 6 napkins; 6 pair of silk stockings; 6 black stocks; 6 pair of under stockings; … 2 dressing-gowns; 2 pair of night drawers; 1 pair of braces; 4 pair of white kerseymore breeches and vests; 6 Madras; 6 flannel waistcoats; 6 pair of drawers; 6 pair of gaiters; … 1 gold neck-buckle; 1 pair of gold knee-buckles; 1 pair of gold shoe-buckles.
Clothes.
One uniform of the Chasseurs; 1 ditto of the Grenadiers; 1 ditto of the National Guard; 2 hats; 1 green-and-gray great coat; 1 blue cloak (that which I wore at Marengo); 1 sable green pelisse; 2 pair of shoes; 2 pair of botts; 2 pair of slippers; 6 belts. (15)

Napoleon also left “an embroidered mantle, vest, and small-clothes” to each of his brothers Joseph and Lucien. (16)

Since Napoleon’s son was living with his grandfather, Emperor Francis I of Austria (an enemy of Napoleon), it was not possible for him to receive the clothes before his death in 1832, at the age of 21. Instead the clothes were given to Napoleon’s mother, Letizia Bonaparte, who distributed them among Napoleon’s siblings. Most of Napoleon’s clothes that were preserved by the imperial family are in the Napoleon I Museum at the Château de Fontainebleau, including Napoleon’s only surviving grenadier uniform.

One of Napoleon’s chasseur uniforms is in the Musée de l’Armée at Les Invalides in Paris, along with Napoleon’s hat and greatcoat. Although originally green, the chasseur uniform now appears blue, due to changes in the dye over time. This change in colour also afflicts the chasseur uniform that Napoleon wore on St. Helena, which is part of the collection of the Musées de Sens. That uniform, and the bicorne hat that Napoleon wore at the Battle of Waterloo, have been expertly conserved thanks to a public appeal launched by the Fondation Napoléon. The Fondation Napoleon also has other items of Napoleon’s, including this waistcoat and trousers worn by Napoleon on St. Helena.

A number of Napoleon’s hats survive in public and private collections, although not all hats claimed as Napoleon’s can be verified as such. Napoleon’s cloak, taken from his fleeing baggage train after the Battle of Waterloo, is in Britain’s Royal Collection.

In Napoleon in America, Napoleon takes his chasseur uniform with him to New Orleans.

Thanks to Josh Provan at Adventures in Historyland for suggesting that I write about Napoleon’s clothes.

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Laure Junot Abrantès, Memoirs of the Duchess D’Abrantès (New York, 1832), p. 53.
Philip Haythornthwaite, Napoleon’s Campaigns in Italy (Oxford, 1993), p. 38.
John Gustavus Lemaistre, A Rough Sketch of Modern Paris (London, 1803), p. 159.
Frédéric Masson, Napoleon and His Coronation, translated by Frederic Cobb (Philadelphia, 1911), p. 314.
Philip Mansel, Dressed to Rule: Royal and Court Costume from Louis XIV to Elizabeth II, (New Haven, CT, 2005) p. 81.
Frédéric Masson, Napoleon at Home: The Daily Life of the Emperor at the Tuileries, translated by James E. Matthew, Vol. 1 (London, 1894), p. 116.
Ibid., p. 116.
Colombe Samoyalt-Verlet, “The Emperor’s Wardrobe,” in Katell Le Bourhis, ed., The Age of Napoleon: Costume from Revolution to Empire, 1789-1815 (New York, 1989), p. 204.
Louis Étienne Saint-Denis, Napoleon from the Tuileries to St. Helena, translated by Frank Hunter Potter (New York and London, 1922), p. 5.
Neil Campbell, Napoleon at Fontainebleau and Elba (London, 1869), p. 157.
Louis-Joseph Marchand, In Napoleon’s Shadow (San Francisco, 1998), pp. 87-88.
Saint-Denis Napoleon from the Tuileries to St. Helena, pp. 173-174.
Ibid., p. 254.
Ibid., p. 280.
William Henry Ireland, The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Vol. 4 (London, 1828), pp. 531-532.
Ibid., p. 533.

One thing that early European visitors to the Great Plains commented on was the sight of vast herds of buffalo, like the one Napoleon fictionally encounters in Napoleon in America.

Buffalo Hunt: A Numerous Group, by George Catlin, 1844

In 1541, Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, one of the first white men to visit the American West, wrote to Holy Roman Emperor Charles V:

I reached some plains, so vast that I did not find their limit anywhere that I went, although I travelled more than three hundred leagues through them. And I found such a quantity of cows [buffalo] in these…that it is impossible to number them, for while I was journeying through these plains, until I returned to where I first found them, there was not a day that I lost sight of them. (1)

At the beginning of the 19th century, an estimated 30 million buffaloes, or American bison, roamed across the grasslands that ran from northern Canada to northern Mexico. (2)

During the ‘running season,’ in August and September, they congregate in such masses as literally to blacken the prairie for miles. In these scenes the whole mass is in constant motion, and their bellows and roars at the distance of a mile or two sound like distant thunder. (3)

Buffaloes supplied food, shelter, clothing and tools for Native Americans. Buffaloes also provided sustenance and warmth – “one [buffalo] robe being more than equal to three good blankets” – for white travelers and settlers on the plains. (4) And buffaloes furnished luxury goods for North American and European markets.

Description of a buffalo hunt

Buffalo Hunt, by George Catlin, 1844

Pennsylvania-born artist George Catlin traveled to the American West five times during the 1830s. In addition to producing striking portraits of the Plains Indians, he wrote eloquently about his experiences among them. In 1832, Catlin accompanied members of the Hidatsa tribe on a buffalo hunt in the Knife River area of what is today North Dakota.

It was suddenly announced through the village one morning at an early hour, that a herd of buffaloes was in sight, when an hundred or more young men mounted their horses with weapons in hand and steered their course to the prairies. The chief informed me that one of his horses was in readiness for me at the door of his wigwam, and that I had better go and see the curious affair. I accepted his polite offer, and mounting the steed, galloped off with the hunters to the prairies, where we soon descried at a distance, a fine herd of buffaloes grazing, when a halt and a council were ordered, and the mode of attack was agreed upon. I had armed myself with my pencil and my sketch-book only, and consequently took my position generally in the rear, where I could see and appreciate every manoeuvre.

The plan of attack, which in this country is familiarly called a ‘surround’ was explicitly agreed upon, and the hunters who were all mounted on their ‘buffalo horses’ and armed with bows and arrows or long lances, divided into two columns, taking opposite directions, and drew themselves gradually around the herd at a mile or more distance from them; thus forming a circle of horsemen at equal distances apart, who gradually closed in upon them with a moderate pace, at a signal given. The unsuspecting herd at length ‘got the wind’ of the approaching enemy and fled in a mass in the greatest confusion. To the point where they were aiming to cross the line, the horsemen were seen at full speed, gathering and forming in a column, brandishing their weapons and yelling in the most frightful manner, by which means they turned the black and rushing mass, which moved off in an opposite direction where they were again met and foiled in a similar manner, and wheeled back in utter confusion; by which time the horsemen had closed in from all directions, forming a continuous line around them, whilst the poor affrighted animals were eddying about in a crowded and confused mass, hooking and climbing upon each other….

In this grand turmoil, a cloud of dust was soon raised, which in parts obscured the throng where the hunters were galloping their horses around and driving the whizzing arrows or their long lances to the hearts of these noble animals; which in many instances, becoming infuriated with deadly wounds in their sides, erected their shaggy manes over their blood-shot eyes and furiously plunged forwards at the sides of their assailants’ horses, sometimes goring them to death at a lunge, and putting their dismounted riders to flight for their lives; sometimes their dense crowd was opened, and the blinded horsemen, too intent on their prey amidst the cloud of dust, were hemmed and wedged in amidst the crowding beasts, over whose backs they were obliged to leap for security, leaving their horses to the fate that might await them in the results of this wild and desperate war. Many were the bulls that turned upon their assailants and met them with desperate resistance; and many were the warriors who were dismounted, and saved themselves by the superior muscles of their legs; some who were closely pursued by the bulls, wheeled suddenly around and snatching the part of a buffalo robe from around their waists, threw it over the horns and the eyes of the infuriated beast, and darting by its side drove the arrow or the lance to its heart. Others suddenly dashed off upon the prairies by the side of the affrighted animals which had escaped from the throng, and closely escorting them for a few rods, brought down their hearts blood in streams, and their huge carcasses upon the green and enamelled turf.

In this way this grand hunt soon resolved itself into a desperate battle; and in the space of fifteen minutes, resulted in the total destruction of the whole herd, which in all their strength and fury were doomed, like every beast and living thing else, to fall before the destroying hands of mighty man.

I had sat in trembling silence upon my horse, and witnessed this extraordinary scene, which allowed not one of these animals to escape out of my sight. Many plunged off upon the prairie for a distance, but were overtaken and killed; and although I could not distinctly estimate the number that were slain, yet I am sure that some hundreds of these noble animals fell in this grand melee.

The scene after the battle was over was novel and curious in the extreme; the hunters were moving about amongst the dead and dying animals, leading their horses by their halters, and claiming their victims by their private marks upon their arrows, which they were drawing from the wounds in the animals’ sides.

Amongst the poor affrighted creatures that had occasionally dashed through the ranks of their enemy, and sought safety in flight upon the prairie (and in some instances, had undoubtedly gained it), I saw them stand awhile, looking back, when they turned, and, as if bent on their own destruction, retraced their steps, and mingled themselves and their deaths with those of the dying throng. Others had fled to a distance on the prairies, and for want of company, of friends or of foes, had stood and gazed on till the battle-scene was over; seemingly taking pains to stay, and hold their lives in readiness for their destroyers, until the general destruction was over, when they fell easy victims to their weapons — making the slaughter complete.

After this scene, and after arrows had been claimed and recovered, a general council was held, when all hands were seated on the ground, and a few pipes smoked; after which, all mounted their horses and rode back to the village.

A deputation of several of the warriors was sent to the chief, who explained to him what had been their success; and the same intelligence was soon communicated by little squads to every family in the village; and preparations were at once made for securing the meat. For this purpose, some hundreds of women and children, to whose lots fall all the drudgeries of Indian life, started out upon the trail, which led them to the battlefield, where they spent the day in skinning the animals, and cutting up the meat, which was mostly brought into the villages on their backs, as they tugged and sweated under their enormous and cruel loads.

I rode out to see this curious scene; and I regret exceedingly that I kept no memorandum of it in my sketch-book. Amidst the throng of women and children that had been assembled, and all of whom seemed busily at work, were many superannuated and disabled nags, which they had brought out to assist in carrying in the meat; and at least, one thousand semi-loup dogs, and whelps, whose keen appetites and sagacity had brought them out, to claim their shares of this abundant and sumptuous supply. (5)

Scottish nobleman James Carnegie, 9th Earl of Southesk, who put an end to several buffaloes on an expedition across the Canadian prairies in 1859-60, observed that “[n]o one, till he tries it, can fancy how hard it is to shoot a galloping buffalo from a galloping horse.” (6)

Assiniboine Hunting the Buffalo, by Peter Rindisbacher, 1836

A buffalo hunt in winter

Native Americans also hunted buffaloes in the winter, when the animals’ coats were thick.

In the dead of the winters, which are very long and severely cold in this country, where horses cannot be brought into the chase with any avail, the Indian runs upon the surface of the snow by the aid of his snow shoes, which buoy him up, while the great weight of the buffaloes, sinks them down to the middle of their sides, and completely stopping their progress, ensures them certain and easy victims to the bow or lance of their pursuers. The snow in these regions often lies during the winter, to the depth of three and four feet, being blown away from the tops and sides of the hills in many places, which are left bare for the buffaloes to graze upon, whilst it is drifted in the hollows and ravines to a very great depth, and rendered almost entirely impassable to these huge animals, which, when closely pursued by their enemies, endeavour to plunge through it, but are soon wedged in and almost unable to move, where they fall an easy prey to the Indian, who runs up lightly upon his snow shoes and drives his lance to their hearts. The skins are then stripped off, to be sold to the Fur Traders, and the carcasses left to be devoured by the wolves. This is the season in which the greatest number of these animals are destroyed for their robes — they are most easily killed at this time, and their hair or fur being longer and more abundant, gives greater value to the robe. (7)

Purpose of the buffalo hunt

Native Americans relied on the buffalo for food, shelter, clothing, bedding and other items.

[T]he buffalo not only furnishes flesh for food, but provides horns, hoofs, hide, and bones for the Indian’s bows, shields, wigwam, covering, and tools. (8)

The Indians also traded buffalo meat, pemmican (see below), buffalo robes, and other buffalo items to white fur traders in exchange for things like tea, sugar, ammunition and whiskey.

The horns of the buffalo are short, but very sharp-pointed, although thick at the base. Being very hard and black, they are highly-prized for cups and other purposes. Its flesh, when fat, is excellent, especially the hump; the skins, covered with an excessively thick hair, nearly approaching to wool, are much used in the Northern parts of the United States, more especially as a wrapper when travelling in the sledges or sleighs, over the ice or snow. (9)

For the Plains Indians, buffalo meat was “the great staple and staff of life.”

[They] live almost exclusively on the flesh of these animals, through every part of the year. During the summer and fall months they use the meat fresh, and cook it in a great variety of ways, by roasting, broiling, boiling, stewing, smoking, &c.; and by boiling the ribs and joints with the marrow in them, make a delicious soup, which is universally used, and in vast quantities. (10)

Catlin was struck by how the Mandans, who lived along the Upper Missouri River, preserved buffalo meat for the winter months.

It is all cured or dried in the sun, without the aid of salt or smoke! The method of doing this is the same amongst all the tribes, from this to the Mexican Provinces, and is as follows: — The choicest parts of the flesh from the buffalo are cut out by the squaws, and carried home on their backs or on horses, and there cut ‘across the grain’ in such a manner as will take alternately the layers of lean and fat; and having prepared it all in this way, in strips about half an inch in thickness, it is hung up by hundreds and thousands of pounds on poles resting on crotches, out of the reach of dogs or wolves, and exposed to the rays of the sun for several days, when it becomes so effectually dried, that it can be carried to any part of the world without damage. (11)

Pemmican: tasty or nasty?

Catlin described a dish of pemmican made by the Mandans.

It [pemmican] is made of buffalo meat dried very hard, and afterwards pounded in a large wooden mortar until it is made nearly as fine as sawdust, then packed in this dry state in bladders or sacks of skin, and is easily carried to any part of the world in good order. ‘Marrow-fat’ is collected by the Indians from the buffalo bones which they break to pieces, yielding a prodigious quantity of marrow, which is boiled out and put into buffalo bladders which have been distended; and after it cools, becomes quite hard like tallow, and has the appearance, and very nearly the flavor, of the richest yellow butter. At a feast, chunks of this marrow-fat are cut off and placed in a tray or bowl, with the pemmican, and eaten together; which we civilized folks in these regions consider a very good substitute for (and indeed we generally so denominate it) ‘bread and butter.’ In this dish laid a spoon made of the buffalo’s horn, which was black as jet, and beautifully polished…. (12)

Carnegie was not impressed with the buffalo pemmican he consumed.

Take scrapings from the driest outside corner of a very stale piece of cold roast beef, add to it lumps of tallow rancid fat, then garnish all with long human hairs (on which string pieces, like beads, upon a necklace), and short hairs of oxen, or dogs, or both, – and you have a fair imitation of common pemmican, though I should rather suppose it to be less nasty. (13)

How to dress a buffalo skin

Sioux Encamped on the Upper Missouri, Dressing Buffalo Meat and Robes, by George Catlin, 1832

Catlin described how the Plains Indians dressed, or processed, buffalo skins into leather, for use in clothing or other purposes.

The usual mode of dressing the buffalo, and other skins, is by immersing them for a few days under a lye from ashes and water, until the hair can be removed; when they are strained upon a frame or upon the ground, with stakes or pins driven through the edges into the earth; where they remain for several days, with the brains of the buffalo or elk spread upon and over them; and at last finished by ‘graining,’ as it is termed, by the squaws; who use a sharpened bone, the shoulder-blade or other large bone of the animal, sharpened at the edge, somewhat like an adze; with the edge of which they scrape the fleshy side of the skin; bearing on it with the weight of their bodies, thereby drying and softening the skin, and fitting it for use. The greater part of these skins, however, go through still another operation afterwards, which gives them a greater value, and renders them much more serviceable — that is, the process of smoking. For this, a small hole is dug in the ground, and a fire is built in it with rotten wood, which will produce a great quantity of smoke without much blaze; and several small poles of the proper length stuck in the ground around it, and drawn and fastened together at the top, around which a skin is wrapped in form of a tent, and generally sewed together at the edges to secure the smoke within it, within this the skins to be smoked are placed, and in this condition the tent will stand a day or so, enclosing the heated smoke; and by some chemical process or other, which I do not understand, the skins thus acquire a quality which enables them, after being ever so many times wet, to dry soft and pliant as they were before, which secret I have never yet seen practiced in my own country; and for the lack of which, all of our dressed skins when once wet, are, I think, chiefly ruined. (14)

Things you might not know about buffalo robes

Buffalo robes are cured buffalo skins with the hair left on. Carnegie observed:

In buffalo robes the season [in which the buffalo is killed] makes a great difference. Before November the hair is not long enough, and after New Year’s day it gets ragged, and its rich black-brown is bleached to the colour of tow [pale yellow], especially along the animal’s back. The robes are generally taken from cows, and sometimes from young bulls, but never from the old bulls, whose hides are much too thick and heavy. (15)

Carnegie also reported the following incident, which befell him at Fort Garry (now Winnipeg) in January of 1860.

A curious circumstance happened as I was going to bed – as I hastily slipped myself between the buffalo robes, a wide sheet of electrical flame blazed into my face, for a moment illuminating the whole tent. The same thing happened on a subsequent occasion, though rather less vividly. These flames were doubtless similar to the sparks that issue from a cat’s fur when briskly rubbed in the dark during frosty weather. (16)

Fun fact about buffalo dung

Dry buffalo dung is an excellent fuel source. Catlin, who kindled his fires with it, referred to the Mandans making a fine powder of the stuff and using it as tinder to light their pipes. Carnegie provided this description.

[After crossing the Qu’Appelle River], a wide, bare, sandy expanse lay before us, dotted with small hillocks and utterly devoid of trees or brush, though not altogether wanting in fuel, being thickly strewn with dry buffalo dung – ‘bois des prairies’ I believe the French voyageurs call it, it is sometimes also spoken of as buffalo chips. We frequently used it in our camp fires. I rather liked to burn it, as it throws out a very pleasant strongly aromatic smell redolent of wild thyme and other herbs of the prairie. (17)

Buffalo hunted to near-extinction

Buffalo Skull Pile, circa 1892. Buffalo bones were processed for use in glue, fertilizer, dye/tint/ink, or were burned to create “bone char,” a component in sugar refining.

A combination of over-hunting and environmental change led to the near-extinction of the buffalo. Even in the early 19th century, observers noted that the buffalo population was declining. David Gouverneur Burnet of Cincinnati, who later served as the first president of the Republic of Texas, spent more than a year living with the Comanche Indians in 1818-19. He commented:

It has been remarked that the number of Buffaloes that annually reach the regions inhabited by the Comanches has sensibly diminished within a few years. In the event of a serious failure of that munificent provision of nature, these and other tribes of similar habits will be compelled to resort to agriculture, or to recede northwardly in pursuit of their ancient prey. (18)

Catlin also foresaw the fate of the buffalo. He urged the government to create a large park in which both Indians and buffaloes could be preserved.

It is melancholy for the traveller in this country to perceive that the time is not far distant when these noble animals will at last perish before the cruel and improvident rapacity of the white men and the red. Only a few days before I arrived, an immense herd showing in the distance, a band of several hundred Sioux crossed the river at mid-day, and after a few hours brought in fourteen hundred fresh buffalo tongues for which they received a few gallons of whiskey. Not a skin did they bring; it was not the season for fur. Not a pound of flesh did they bring; the camp required no fresh meat. This is but one instance of the profligate waste of the buffalo. (19)

James Carnegie provided a similar lament.

With the buffalo it is…kill, kill, kill. All the year round the Indians are hunting and slaughtering them, and in the winter they drive them into ‘pounds’ by hundreds at a time, and murder every beast in the enclosures, male and female, young or old, usable or useless. Such waste will soon bring its bitter punishment. (20)

The last of the Canadian buffaloes, 1902

By 1900, there were fewer than 1,000 buffaloes left in North America. In 1905, conservationists established the American Bison Society, which established and stocked several buffalo refuges. Similar efforts to save the diminishing herds took place in Canada. Today there are some 500,000 buffaloes, found both in publicly and privately held herds, although most of these include animals with genes from domestic cattle. According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, fewer than 15,000 pure wild American bison remain. (21)

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George Parker Winship, Coronado’s Journey to New Mexico and the Great Plains, 1540-41, American History Leaflet No. 13 (New York, 1894), p. 11.
Estimates of the number of buffalo prior to 1800 go as high as 60 million; the 30 million figure is based on the estimated carrying capacity of the grassland. See Tom McHugh, The Time of the Buffalo (Lincoln, NE, 1972), p. 17, and Andrew C. Isenberg, The Destruction of the Bison: An Environmental History, 1750-1920 (Cambridge, 2000), p. 25.
George Catlin, My Life Among the Indians, edited by Mary Gay Humphreys (New York, 1915), p. 228.
James Carnegie, Earl of Southesk, Saskatchewan and the Rocky Mountains: A Diary and Narrative of Travel, Sport, and Adventure, during a Journey through the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Territories, in 1859 and 1860 (Edinburgh, 1875), p. 276.
George Catlin, Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians, Vol. I, Fourth Edition (New York, 1842), pp. 199-201.
Carnegie, Saskatchewan and the Rocky Mountains, p. 105.
Catlin, Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians, Vol. I, p. 253.
Catlin, My Life Among the Indians, p. 7.
Henry George Ward, Mexico, Second Edition, Vol. II (London, 1829), p. 437.
Catlin, Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians, Vol. I, p. 122.
Ibid., p. 124.
Ibid., p. 116.
Carnegie, Saskatchewan and the Rocky Mountains, p. 302.
Catlin, Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of the North American Indians, Vol. I, pp. 45-46.
Carnegie, Saskatchewan and the Rocky Mountains, p. 307.
Ibid., p. 366.
Ibid., p. 67.
Ernest Wallace, “David G. Burnet’s Letters Describing the Comanche Indians, with an Introduction,” West Texas Historical Association Year Book, Vol. 30, 1954, p. 136.
George Catlin, My Life Among the Indians, p. 237.
Ibid., p. 265.
K. Aune, D. Jørgensen, & C. Gates. 2017. Bison bison (errata version published in 2018). The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2017: e.T2815A123789863. http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2017-3.RLTS.T2815A45156541.en. Accessed January 10, 2019.

New Year’s Day is traditionally a time for reflecting on events of the previous year and expressing hopes for the year to come. On January 1, 1823, the editors of Galignani’s Messenger, an English-language newspaper published in Paris, conveyed their New Year wishes as follows. They undoubtedly hoped that the government of King Louis XVIII was paying attention.

Happy New Year wishes

The departure of the Old Year, and the dawning of a New One naturally offer an ample range for serious reflection. Another page in the Book of Experience has just closed upon us; but it is only from experience that we can acquire wisdom, and, though it may sometimes prove ‘a bitter draught,’ yet the philosopher, whether in public or in private life, will not fail to turn it to a profitable account. It affords a lesson of equal instruction to the prince and to the peasant – it points, with monitory hand, to evils encountered, and to errors committed, and acts as a friendly beacon to our future path and practice.

The feelings associated with the commencement of another year are those of festivity and friendship, the renewal of brotherhood and affection, the reciprocal forgiveness of injuries, the union of pleasure with deeds of mercy and charity, in fine, it is a time of peace and good-will to all mankind; and those sentiments cannot be too much cherished, or too often promulgated.

If we take a retrospective glance of the political events of the past year, and then turn to the actual state of Europe, with much cause of regret for the blood that has, unhappily, been shed in Greece and in Spain, we shall find, also much reason for consolation in the measures that, we trust, have been or are about to be adopted to prevent the calamities of war (which include all others) again shedding their baneful influence around us. Those, who in the march of armies and the sailing of fleets delude themselves with visions of glory and courage, would do well to reflect at what price these bubbles are purchased. In peace, human life is preserved, in war it is sacrificed; in peace, the public expenses, and consequently, the burthens of the people are diminished, in war they are greatly augmented; in peace, a free commerce stimulates to enterprise, and industry produces abundance and contentment; but in the pursuit of the most successful war a nation always retrogrades from civilization and happiness.

On one principle, indeed, war is not only a justifiable, but it may be termed a holy measure, – it is when we take up arms to defend our native soil; or again, it may be necessary, when a sufficient case is made out that our own political existence is in absolute and exigent danger of destruction, by the contaminating principles and insidious machinations of a neighbouring state; yet, only then, when every means of negotiation have failed. So far as this latter argument bears on the relative position of France and Spain, we venture to hope there is now little to apprehend, and this hope is powerfully supported by the benevolent character of the august Monarch of France, to whose paternal government, and pacific sentiments, this country is so deeply indebted for its present flourishing and improving condition. The French Ministry is too wise and too moderate to plunge the nation into hostilities, without strong and provocative grounds of necessity, and the Spanish nation, with all its Quixotism, has too much prudence and good sense to strike the first blow.

The influence of England, and the able councils by which she is directed, present another cogent argument in favour of peace; and we trust that, through her mediation, Spain will ultimately escape from the Scylla of fanaticism on one side, and the Charybdis of anarchy on the other, and found a true and permanent system of freedom, like the French, on the rock of a Constitutional Government, which will equally ensure the rights of the Sovereign and the people, and replace her in a position to command confidence and respect. (1)

On January 28, 1823, Louis XVIII announced his intention to send troops into Spain, an event that forms part of the backdrop to Napoleon in America. To find out how that turned out, see “The 1823 French Invasion of Spain.”

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Galignani’s Messenger, Paris, January 1, 1823.

Napoleon Bonaparte died on May 5, 1821 as a British prisoner on the remote South Atlantic island of St. Helena. In 1840, his remains were dug up and transported to France on the ship La Belle Poule. On December 15, 1840, they were conveyed through Paris in a grand funeral procession, culminating in a mass at the Dôme des Invalides. In the words of a British observer, Napoleon’s funeral was “the strangest mixture of sorrow and triumph that human ingenuity could have derived.” (1)

Napoleon’s funeral carriage crossing the Place de la Concorde, by Jacques Guiaud

Le retour des cendres

Although Britain regarded its custody of Napoleon’s body as temporary, French King Louis XVIII and his successor, Charles X, had no desire to revive Bonapartist sentiments by bringing the Emperor’s remains to France. Even after 1830, when Charles X was overthrown and Louis Philippe, the Duke of Orleans, became King of the French, there was little official appetite for Napoleon’s return. It took the pressure of historian Adolphe Thiers, who in 1840 was serving as French prime minister and foreign minister, to convince a reluctant Louis Philippe to support the repatriation of Napoleon’s remains. Thiers was writing a 20-volume history of the Consulate and Empire. He regarded the “retour des cendres” (return of the remains) as an opportunity to rehabilitate the period’s reputation, unite the French people, and increase the government’s popularity.

In the autumn of 1840, an expedition led by King Louis Philippe’s son, the Prince of Joinville, was sent to St. Helena to retrieve Napoleon’s remains (see “What happened to Napoleon’s body?”). On November 30, La Belle Poule reached Cherbourg in France. On December 10, Napoleon’s casket was transferred to a steamboat, La Normandie, which ferried it to Val-de-la-Haye, near Rouen. Here the casket was transferred to the foredeck of a smaller steamboat, La Dorade, capable of navigating the shallow bits of the Seine. On December 14, La Dorade and its accompanying flotilla moored at Courbevoie, a village four miles northwest of Paris.

The Landing at Courbevoie

The arrival of Napoleon’s remains at Courbevoie, by Henri-Félix-Emmanuel Philippoteaux

At 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday, December 15, La Dorade was brought up to a wharf on the left bank of the river, constructed for the landing of Napoleon’s remains. It was a bitterly cold day, so much so that workmen were unable to finish the decorations on the quay and at the head of the bridge of Neuilly in time for the ceremony. Work had begun on a massive column of Notre Dame de Grace, intended to be upwards of 150 feet in height, topped with a six-foot globe, and crowned by an eagle with a wingspan of 16 feet. Owing to the piercing wind, the authorities ordered the works suspended. While the column remained a skeleton, the base was finished, inscribed with Napoleon’s dying request: “I wish my ashes to repose on the banks of the Seine.” Next to it were three decorated tripods, each 20 feet high, from which flames arose. The wharf led to an open Grecian temple, 100 feet high, decorated with palm branches and tricoloured flags. The eagle that was to have surmounted the column was placed over the front of the temple. The most interesting decoration was a colossal statue of Josephine, erected at the end of the bridge, on the road leading to the Château de Malmaison.

The troops and National Guards of Courbevoie, Rueil and other neighbouring districts lined the quays, and the artillery was drawn up close to the riverside. Crowds filled the shore, the islands in the river, and the roofs of nearby houses. While preparations for landing the casket were being made, people sang “La Marseillaise.” They then gave three cheers for Napoleon and as many for his enemies.

At 9:00, the first gun was fired. Numerous clergy, led by Abbé Félix Coquereau, chaplain of La Belle Poule, proceeded between two lines of soldiers from the temple to La Dorade. The Prince of Joinville met them. After an exchange of salutations, the massive casket was lifted by 24 sailors from La Belle Poule and carried to the temple. The priests walked in front, chanting. The artillery fired a salute of 21 rounds. Napoleon’s remains lay in the temple for two hours while religious rites were performed.

While waiting for the departure of the cortège in the Avenue de Neuilly, a number of Napoleonic veterans, dressed in their old uniforms, passed through the crowd on their way to join the procession at the bridge. They were greeted with cries of “Vive la Vieille Garde!”

The one who seemed to excite the most lively sympathy was an old chief of squadron of the Mamelukes of the Imperial Guard, attired in the rich costume of that regiment, bearing on his breast the decorations of the Legion of Honour and of the Iron Crown. The people taking him for Roustan, the Mameluke of the Emperor, treated him with marks of the greatest respect, dividing as he walked down the avenue to let him pass, and taking off their hats. The Polish Lancers of the Guard were also loudly cheered with cries of ‘Vive la Pologne!’(2)

The Funeral Carriage

Napoleon’s funeral carriage, lithograph by J. Arnout after V. Adam. Source: Wellcome Collection

At 11:00, the sailors carried the casket to the funeral carriage, which was more triumphal car than hearse. Resting on four massive gilt wheels, it consisted of a gilded base, 25 feet long and 6 feet high, with a semi-circular platform in front. On this platform were statues of genies, supporting the crown of Charlemagne. Other genies held garlands and the trumpet of fame. At the back rose a pedestal, 18 feet long and 7 feet high, covered with gold and purple cloth, with the cipher and arms of Napoleon. On both sides hung two velvet imperial mantles, decorated with bees. Behind was a profusion of flags. On the pedestal stood fourteen statues of draped female figures (six on one side and six on the other, plus one at each end), somewhat larger than life, entirely gilded, supporting with their heads and hands an immense golden shield, above which was placed a model of Napoleon’s sarcophagus. Napoleon’s actual casket was placed in the base of the carriage, where it could not been by spectators.

The carriage, weighing 13 tons, was drawn by 16 black horses. The latter were richly caparisoned in gold cloth, their manes adorned with gold tresses and white plumes. Each horse was led by a groom, dressed in green and gold imperial livery. Some 400-500 sailors from La Belle Poule marched 15 abreast before and behind the carriage, headed by the Prince of Joinville on horseback. Masses of troops preceded and followed the carriage. The clergy took their seats in carriages of black and silver. Napoleon’s old aides-de-camp and people belonging to his household were in the procession, along with other civil and military officials, veterans of the Napoleonic Wars, and various active battalions, brigades and squadrons. The National Guards and troops stationed along the route fell into line after the passage of the funeral carriage, closing the procession.

The Medical and Law Students

Wanting to avoid a revolutionary outbreak, the government had decreed that the ceremony would be strictly a military one. Medical and law students had asked if they could join the cortège after the military schools, but their request was denied. They decided to show up anyway and form a procession of their own. At 8:00 they assembled at the Place du Pantheon and marched through the city, four abreast, preceded by a tricoloured flag covered with black crepe. As they crossed the Pont Royal, the guards of the Tuileries Palace became alarmed. However, on seeing that the students were passing quietly, they allowed them to cross the gardens of the Tuileries. The students then entered the Champs Élysées and proceeded towards Neuilly. They joined the procession, walking behind the National Guards. They went as far as the Place de la Concorde, singing “La Marseillaise” and shouting “Death to the English” and “Death to [François] Guizot,” who had succeeded Thiers as foreign minister. They then continued on to the Foreign Office. At one point a captain tried to wrest the flag from them. “Unsupported by his comrades, he was soon disarmed and knocked down, and finally taken by the four limbs and thrown into a ditch on the side of the road, by which means he escaped being trodden to death by the crowd.”(3) The students proceeded to throw dried flowers on the column of the Place Vendôme and then scattered to their homes.

At the Arc de Triomphe

Napoleon’s funeral carriage passing under the Arc de Triomphe, by Jean Valmy-Baysse

The whole route was adorned with flags and temporary structures, set up the previous night. At the Arc de Triomphe,

the most striking objects were some thirty or forty masts of thirty feet high, from each of which floated an immense tricoloured pennant, surmounted by black crape, each bearing the letter of one or other army of the republic or the empire. Thus we had ‘The Army of the Rhine,’… ‘The Army of Italy,’… &c. From these the eye ascended to the pediment [of the triumphal arch], where men, seeming about six inches in height, were busy in completing the work which the intensity of the cold absolutely prevented the possibility of their accomplishing during the night. It was finished by ten o’clock a.m., however and displayed good taste and architectural proportion. It was termed ‘the Apotheosis of Napoleon,’ correctly, I suppose, and consisted of the Emperor himself, in his imperial costume, supported in some degree by an eagle on each hand, and beyond them Fame, à cheval, proclaiming his deeds of arms. …

Gradually the windows of the houses adjoining to the Rond Point (of l’Etoil), the stages in front of or connected with them, the sloping bank on the south side of the road, and the alleys and road became crowded and then commenced the industrie de circonstance for which the Parisian hawkers and pedlars are famous. Independently of barrows laden with gateaux de Nanterre, and other cakes of indescribable qualities, all of them, however, saturated with lard, there were portable kitchens in full swing, getting up potatoes and sausages in such an inviting way that ere noon they had all disappeared. There were besides lemonadiers, and, to the annoyance of the resident cafetiers, brandy-merchants. So far the creature-comforts. Then came the intellectual large sheets – some coloured, some plain – with all manner of representations of the Emperor, ascending to or seated in heaven, surrounded by his old guard, or emerging from his tomb at St. Helena, which were thrust before every passenger, and eagerly purchased. Another set of marchands sold you, for three sous each, gilt or plated medals, commemorative of the occasion, to which an immortelle was fastened by a piece of black riband. Others had immortelles (the dried flowers so called) of all colours, but mixed with black. These were earnestly sought after, in order to be worn at the button-hole. Lastly, a man drove a roaring trade with little knots of black crape, to be similarly borne, for passing around the arm.

While this was going on without, the restaurateurs, so renowned (as each says he is), for the glories of the French kitchen and wine, at 6 sous the bottle, were crowded to overflow. All the world was excited, busy, bustling, hurried, or otherwise occupied. (4)

Two batteries of artillery took up a position to the right of the triumphal arch. The first National Guards appeared, their drums beating. A continuous stream of pedestrians arrived. Many mounted trees, while others bargained for a chair, or a seat on a bench or a table. Temporary ambulances were established, in case of accidents. Finally the procession made its appearance. Veterans of the armies named on the pennants went by.

Here were to be found on foot men of all grades, from the lieutenant-general, with his hat laced with gold, indicating that the wearer had commanded in a general engagement, to the simple soldier…there was not a man of them who did not carry imprinted on his face an expression which seemed to say, ‘I was a soldier of the republic; I was on the Rhine with the advanced guard; in Italy, in Egypt, in Germany, in Spain, or in Russia.’ Here were, in all their variety of uniform (some of them approaching to the grotesque, and others the acme of military costume), the soldiers of Hoche and Marceau, of Moreau, Jourdan, Massena, Angereau, Lannes, Kilmaine, Daovust, Ney, Berthier, Lasalle, Murat, Bernadotte, Bessieres, Kleber, Kellerman, &c.…. Many of these veterans had, in addition to scars and cicatrices, other strong personal claims to interest; so that between the excitement of what we had seen and what was on the point of passing before our eyes, and the associations and recollections conjured up by the aspect of men whom the imagination almost pictured as called from the grave to figure for the moment in the pageant, the mind yielded to them involuntary homage and respect. (5)

At 1:00 the funeral carriage arrived. It passed under the Arc de Triomphe, where it remained stopped for a few minutes. The artillery fired. Shouts of “Vive l’Empereur” were raised.

The Champs Élysées

Napoleon’s funeral carriage moving along the Champs-Élysées, by Louis-Julien Jacottet

As early as 8 o’clock…the Champs Elysees presented an animated appearance; numerous bodies of pedestrians kept moving in the direction of Courbevoie; troops of the line arrived to form the line along the road through which the procession was to pass; sundry itinerant vendors of hot wine and cake and other comestibles established themselves in the alleys, and found many customers among the curious bystanders, whose enthusiasm for Napoleon’s memory began to be cooled by the sharp north-east wind which was blowing. The National Guard began to arrive at 9 o’clock, and the battalions were observed to be more complete than on any occasion of their assembling since the revolution of 1830….

The multitude continued to arrive in great numbers, and patiently awaited the signal gun which was to announce the setting out of the procession from Courbevoie. The persons who had fitted up seats on speculation did not appear to have been very successful, as numbers who had apprehended difficulty in seeing the procession found, that from the perfect order that was observed, pedestrians could obtain a nearer view than those seated at the windows of the adjoining houses. Besides a number of columns which had been erected on either side of the grand avenue of the Champs Elysees…and which were tastefully decorated with wreaths of laurel and immortelles and tricoloured flags, large vases placed on pedestals in imitation of marble were filled with inflammable matter, which was ignited shortly before the procession arrived, and emitted a thick smoke with intermitting flame, which had a solemn effect. (6)

The procession reached the Champs Élysees about 12:15 and moved slowly forward, halting at intervals. When the funeral car appeared “[s]houts of admiration spread through all ranks; some few raised their hats and cried ‘Vive l’Empereur,’ but the majority seemed to have reserved all their applause for the car, which fully equaled in splendour any funeral car which has been seen, at least in modern times.” (7)

The Place de la Concorde

The Place de la Concorde was less crowded than other places along the route. The terraces of the Tuileries were taken up by those who had been fortune enough to obtain tickets. The Pont de la Concorde was decorated with two lofty columns at each end, each surmounted by an immense gilded eagle and a huge silk tricoloured flag. Eight allegorical statues were also erected, including those of War and Prudence. Spectators had been told that the procession would reach the Place de la Concorde by ten o’clock; however it was a quarter past one before it made its appearance.

In the interval the natural buoyancy of the French character, and their love of fetes, kept hope alive, and they managed to spend (kill) the time as agreeably as possible. Some derived amusement from the breaking down of overloaded benches and rickety chairs, others from the dislodgment of boys and adults from young and old trees, and others from the administration of a petit verre or other cordial from the numerous ambulatory fountains of refreshment, whose harvest must have been considerable on this occasion. In the cafés along the line everything rose a hundred per cent, and in many instances it was impossible to obtain a supply upon any terms. The wise ones, who brought a stock of cakes and other provisions, sat down wherever they could, and regaled themselves, in expectation of the coming event. At last the long wished-for moment arrived, and the approach of the head of the procession was announced by the beating of drums, and the solemn funeral music, and the appearance of a detachment of Cuirassiers, at the Place de la Concorde. The cortège then moved slowly on, passing through a double file of National Guards and soldiers of the line, and continuing across the Bridge de la Concorde. (8)

The Church of the Invalides

Napoleon’s funeral carriage moving towards Les Invalides, by Adolphe Jean-Baptiste Bayot and Eugène Charles François Guérard

People with tickets to the esplanade of the Invalides arrived as early as 8 a.m.

Several hours elapsed ere the procession appeared, and here it is painful to have to remark how little dignity prevailed in the interim. In one place national guards were seen getting planks, and breaking them for the purpose of making fires; in another national guards, soldiers of the line, &c. formed a ring and danced round a flag; elsewhere an officer was in the centre; and in the third place a hat…. At length, however, the funeral car was perceived on the other side of the river, and some order was restored, the troops that had piled their arms hastened to snatch up their muskets and to form their ranks….

As the car passed, each head was uncovered; and although the shouts of ‘Vive Napoleon! Vive l’Empereur!’ joined to the cries of ‘Vive le Roi! Vive le Prince de Joinville!’ were few and far between, a certain degree of emotion prevailed, and many an eye was suffused with tears. To be just, however, it must be said that far less enthusiasm prevailed than was expected on the occasion. (9)

The church was richly decorated, or at least tried to give the appearance of being so.

The great court of the Hotel had certainly a striking effect when one first entered and cast a hasty coup d’oeil around one. The amphitheatre of steps that descended from the gallery to the ground, the black trappings which were hung round the upper gallery, and the general effect of the archways covered with festoons and garlands were imposing; but a nearer look betrayed the coarse painting of the canvas scene that covered the usual walls of the court, the wood work of which was in many places badly joined, and convinced me that the decoration had been patched together in haste and without taste. In the interior of the chapel the whole system of embellishment had been the same. The sight, was admirable, but the painted canvas, representing trophies, shields, and laurel crowns, enwreathing swords, which was suspended between each archway; the great porch built in the same scenic fashion at the entrance of the beautiful chapel of painted archways and columns, and the coarsely carved and gilt candelabra that lined the whole length of the nave, to say nothing of two great machines at each side of the entrance to the dome, which looked like whitewashed fonts in a country church mounted upon a stage pedestal, and of which it was impossible to devise the meaning or purpose, unless by supposing that haste or negligence had left them incomplete; all this, when one looked again, was poor, tasteless, mean…. [A] Frenchman near me expressed himself nearly in the same sentiments by saying, ‘Ah, bah! On aurait sifflé ça à l’opera.’ …

The great altar which generally separates the long line of nave from the dome, had been removed…. The space under the dome…was filled with a blaze of light from the thousands…of wax lights that hung in lustres or lined the walls, until the extremity of this part of the chapel looked one great wall of fire. In the midst was erected the catafalque upon which the coffin was to be placed, and stands hung with black drapery, rose tier above tier for the different corps de l’état, the members of the two Chambers, and the Royal Family. Along the nave the archways, both below and above, had been filled with tribunes for spectators, and were decorated with black velvet draperies, studded with the different Napoleonic emblems.

The real sight worth seeing…was the crowd in mourning dresses that filled the chapel, first along the archways of the nave, then in the tribunes of the dome as they became crowded with the representatives of the different bodies of the state, the ministers, and staff, the marshals, and superior officers of the army, and seemingly all that France still contained of brilliant in uniform or costume; and then the long vista of the nave as it became lined with the different deputations of the courts of justice, of the thousand and one departments of the French state mechanism, and at a later period with the officers, non-commissioned officers, soldiers, and sailors, who had formed a part of the procession. (10)

Interior of the Dôme des Invalides during Napoleon’s funeral in 1840, by François Fortuné Antoine Ferogio

Shortly before three o’clock, the firing of 21 guns in succession announced the arrival of Napoleon’s casket at the entrance of the Hôtel des Invalides. The Archbishop of Paris, attended by his clergy, went to receive it and sprinkle it with holy water. At three, the orchestra began a solemn march, and the clergy and the muffled drums came slowly up the aisle.

To see the coffin borne along the nave was a sight that set all the meanness of the painted theatrical show around at defiance. It was one of sentiment, and not of show. As the coffin advanced, borne upon the shoulders of the 32 non-commissioned officers appointed for that purpose, accompanied at each end by General Bertrand and the Marshals who occupied each corner, covered with the funeral pall, with the imperial crown reposing above, there was an evident thrill, an evident electric emotion, which pervaded the crowd that lined its passage. The old Invalides, who occupied the first rank, were deeply moved, as he whom they had for the most part obeyed with such fervour and enthusiasm in life, was borne along in death. Their emotion seemed to me to be one of pride and joy more than of grief. He was restored to them. The same sort of electric movement of feeling seemed to animate the mass of military men who lined one side of the dome as the coffin was slowly carried along up the steps that led to it from the nave. In a few minutes more it was being raised into the catafalque that occupied the middle of the dome, and the mortal remains of Napoleon reposed where his last wish was that they should repose – a wish which he thought in his dying moments to have been a vain one – in the heart of his own country, in the place worthy of France’s greatest general – under the dome of the Invalides. (11)

King Louis Philippe, wearing the uniform of the National Guard, was seated on the throne to the right of the altar. The Prince of Joinville said, “Sire, I present to you the body of the Emperor Napoleon.” The King replied, “I receive it in the name of France.” (12) The sword that Napoleon had worn at Austerlitz and Marengo was placed on Napoleon’s casket and the mass began. Mozart’s Requiem was admirably performed by the principal singers of the French and Italian operas. At the conclusion of the mass, holy water was sprinkled upon the catafalque by the archbishop, and then handed to some of the marshals and older officers to go through the same rite.

The service lasted about an hour. In addition to the French royal family, some members of the royal family of Spain were present. None of the Bonapartes were there, having been banished from France.

It was long before the chapel was in any degree cleared. The crowd lingered still behind and turned again and again to look at the coup d’oeil of the burning wax-lights, chapelle ardente, the illuminated catafalque, and the long vista of funeral pomp, however mean it may have been in its minor details. Curiosity was, as usual, the only predominant feeling – devotion was, generally speaking, quite out of the question, and of enthusiasm I could not see a glimpse. The only words that reached my ears were exclamations of curiosity from the ladies, a few political speculations from the gentlemen around me, or such remarks as ‘Hush, that is Grisi’s voice.’ ‘How charmingly Duprez sings,’ &c.

Thus ended a ceremony which, for the interest inspired by the occasion, for the extraordinary congregation of men whose actions for good or for evil have been celebrated throughout the world, and for its own intrinsic splendor, will probably long remain without a rival. (13)

Commentary

Queen Victoria visiting Napoleon’s tomb at the Invalides in 1855, by Edward Matthew Ward

Some British commentators viewed Napoleon’s funeral rather snidely.

To describe it as a great national event either of mourning or rejoicing would be a mistake; it was neither…. With the exception of General Bertrand it does not appear that there were any persons present likely to show personal feelings of affection towards the deceased. Count Montholon, one who watched his death-bed, is confined as a prisoner, and the Government…had received and silently rejected his supplication to be present. The church contributed nothing to render the ceremony imposing, but seems to have done just so much as was necessary to make the church appear an indispensable party in a funeral and no more. The Church does not practice the forgiveness it preaches, and it has, or fancies that it has, real grievances to complain of in the case of Napoleon. On the whole, with the exception of a piece of folly among some half-witted students, most admirably reproved by the tolerant but unsympathizing conduct of the people, the funeral procession seems to have deserved its name. It was a mere show, in which the idea of the death of one formerly great appears to have predominated over every other sentiment. In one respect it did great injustice to Napoleon’s memory. Its arches and pictures associated him with the idea of war; but that to which he himself seems to have looked as to his most certain hope of glory was utterly neglected. He said that he should descend to posterity with the code in his hand. So far as we have seen the accounts his military achievements were remembered – his civil greatness forgotten. This was a mistake. (14)

William Makepeace Thackeray (using the pseudonym Michael Angelo Titmarsh) wrote a satirical book about the retour des cendres and Napoleon’s funeral, called The Second Funeral of Napoleon. You can read it for free on the Internet Archive. Here is a sample:

All along the Champs Elysées were urns of plaster-of-Paris destined to contain funeral incense and flames; columns decorated with huge flags of blue, red, and white, embroidered with shining crowns, eagles, and N’s in gilt paper, and statues of plaster representing Nymphs, Triumphs, Victories, or other female personages, painted in oil so as to resemble marble. Real marble could have had no better effect, and the appearance of the whole was lively and picturesque in the extreme. On each pillar was a buckler, of the color of bronze, bearing the name and date of a battle in gilt letters: you had to walk through a mile-long avenue of these glorious reminiscences, telling of spots where, in the great imperial days, throats had been victoriously cut. (15)

On April 2, 1861, Napoleon’s casket was transferred to his current tomb beneath the dome of the Invalides – a sarcophagus of red quartzite, designed by Louis Visconti. The ceremony was private, attended by Emperor Napoleon III (Napoleon’s nephew), his immediate family, government ministers and senior officials.

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“Foreign Intelligence,” Bell’s Life in London and Sporting Chronicle (London, England), December 20, 1840.
“The Funeral Procession of the Emperor Napoleon,” The Sunday Times (London, England), December 20, 1840.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
“Funeral of Napoleon,” The Watchman (London, England), December 23, 1840.
“The Funeral Procession of the Emperor Napoleon,” The Sunday Times (London, England), December 20, 1840.
Ibid.
“Funeral of Napoleon,” The Watchman (London, England), December 23, 1840.
“The Funeral Procession of the Emperor Napoleon,” The Sunday Times (London, England), December 20, 1840.
Ibid.
William Makepeace Thackeray, The Second Funeral of Napoleon and Critical Reviews (New York, 1883), p. 582.

The reign of Napoleon I ended in 1815, more than a decade before the world’s oldest surviving photograph was taken in France in 1826-27. The restored Bourbons were pushed off the throne in 1830, eight years before Louis Daguerre took the oldest surviving photograph that shows people. Yet photographs of members of the royal family from both the First Empire and the Second Restoration exist, as do photographs of King Louis-Philippe, who was forced to abdicate in 1848. There are numerous photos of Napoleon III and his family, who reigned from 1852 to 1870. Enjoy these vintage photos of 19th-century French royalty.

Empress Marie Louise (1791-1847)

Daguerreotype of Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma, in 1847, age 56

After divorcing Josephine, Napoleon in 1810 married Archduchess Marie Louise, the daughter of Emperor Francis I of Austria, head of the House of Habsburg. Marie Louise was Empress of the French for four years, during which time she bore Napoleon a son. In 1814, when Napoleon abdicated for the first time and was exiled to Elba, Marie Louise returned to Austria. She became the Duchess of Parma and had three children with her lover, Count Adam Albert von Neipperg, whom she married after Napoleon’s death in 1821. After Neipperg died, she married her chamberlain Count Charles-René de Bombelles. Marie Louise died in Parma in 1847, when she was 56 years old, of pleurisy.

Prince Jérôme Bonaparte (1784-1860)

Jérôme Bonaparte circa 1852, age 68, photographed by André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri

When Napoleon had himself made Emperor in 1804, he left his youngest sibling, Jérôme, off the list of new princes. Jérôme had married an American, Elizabeth (Betsy) Patterson, against Napoleon’s wishes. It was only when Jérôme agreed to end the marriage that he was recognized as an Imperial Prince. Napoleon gave him a new wife, Princess Catharina of Württemberg, and the newly-created kingdom of Westphalia, which Jérôme ruled from 1807 to 1813. After Napoleon’s removal from the French throne, Jérôme was given the title of Prince of Montfort by his father-in-law. After Catharina’s death in 1835, Jérôme married a rich Italian widow named Justine (Giustina) Bartolini-Baldelli. Later, under Napoleon III, Jerome served as President of the Senate and received the title “Prince Français.” Jérôme died in 1860 at the age of 75.

Princess Louise d’Artois (1819-1864)

Louise Marie Therese d’Artois circa 1860, age 41

When Louise Marie Thérèse d’Artois was born at the Élysée Palace, her great-uncle, Louis XVIII, was king of France and her grandfather, the Count of Artois (later Charles X), was heir to the French throne. Louise spent the first decade of her life in the French court. In 1830, revolution compelled Charles X to abdicate and the royal family went into exile. They lived in Edinburgh for two years, then moved to Prague, and then to Gorizia, on the Slovenian-Italian border. In 1845, Louise married her cousin Ferdinando Carlo, the hereditary Prince of Lucca. Four years later, they became the Duke and Duchess of Parma. After Ferdinando was murdered in 1854, Louise served as regent for her young son, Roberto. In 1859, the family was removed from power during the Second Italian War of Independence. Louise died in Venice of typhus fever in 1864 at the age of 44. She appears as a young girl in Napoleon in America.

Louise Marie Thérèse d’Artois, Dowager Duchess of Parma, circa 1860, with her children: Roberto (1848-1907); Margherita (1847-93); Enrico (1851-1905); and Alicia (1849-1935)

Prince Henri d’Artois (1820-1883)

Henri d’Artois, Count of Chambord, photographed by Etienne Neurdein in the 1870s when Henri was in his 50s

Louise’s brother Henri, the Duke of Bordeaux, was born one year after her at the Tuileries Palace. When his grandfather became King Charles X in 1824, Henri became the presumed heir to the French throne, next in line after his childless uncle, the Duke of Angoulême. French Legitimists (supporters of the senior Bourbons) hold that young Henri actually reigned as King Henri V for seven days in 1830, after Charles X’s abdication and before Louis Philippe’s swearing in as King of the French. Henri had an opportunity reclaim the throne after the end of Napoleon III’s empire in 1870, but he did not take it, preferring to remain in Austria in cheerful retirement as the Count of Chambord. He died in 1863, age 62. Henri appears as a baby in Napoleon in America.

King Louis Philippe (1773-1850)

King Louis Philippe in the 1840s, when he was in his late 60s or early 70s

Louis Philippe, a member of the House of Orléans, ascended the throne in 1830, after his cousin, the Bourbon Charles X, was forced to abdicate by the July Revolution. Louis Philippe presented himself as the defender of middle-class interests and was thus known as the “Citizen King.” It was during his reign that Napoleon’s body was repatriated to France from St. Helena. It was also under Louis Philippe that France conquered Algeria. In 1844, Louis Philippe visited Queen Victoria at Windsor, marking the first meeting between French and British monarchs on English soil in some 500 years. Faced with insurrection in 1848, Louis Philippe abdicated and fled to England with his family. They settled at the estate of Claremont in Surrey, where Louis Philippe was known as the Count of Neuilly. He died there in 1850 when he was 76.

Queen Marie-Amélie (1782-1866)

Marie-Amélie, photographed in the 1860s by Antoine Claudet when she was in her 80s

Louis Philippe’s wife, Queen Marie-Amélie, was born as the Italian princess Maria Amalia, daughter of King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies and Maria Carolina of Austria (sister of the Austrian-born Queen Marie Antoinette). Marie-Amélie was related both to Napoleon’s wife Marie Louise and to the Bourbon royals of France. She was initially engaged to her cousin, Louis Joseph, the son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, but he died in 1789. She married Louis Philippe in 1809, when they were both in exile in Palermo. She gave birth to ten children over the next 15 years. Remaining loyal to the Bourbon branch of the family, Marie-Amélie did not believe that her husband should accept the French crown when it was offered to him in 1830. As Queen of the French, she was known for her simple personal life and her charity. After 1848, she shared her husband’s exile in England as the Countess de Neuilly. Marie-Amélie died at Claremont House in 1866 at the age of 83.

Prince Louis d’Orléans (1814-1896)

Louis d’Orléans, Duke of Nemours

Prince Louis, Duke of Nemours, was the second son of Louis Philippe and Marie-Amélie. He was born at the Palais-Royal during the First Restoration. Louis became an army officer, participating in several Algerian expeditions. In 1840 he married Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, a cousin of Queen Victoria’s husband Prince Albert. Louis and his wife joined his parents in exile in England after 1848. After his father’s death, he tried to reconcile the two branches of the house of Bourbon. In 1871, Louis returned to France and was restored to his rank as general of division. He died at Versailles in 1896 at the age of 81.

Princess Clémentine d’Orléans (1817-1907)

Clémentine d’Orléans, circa 1860, age 43

Clémentine was Louis Philippe’s and Marie-Amélie’s sixth child and youngest daughter. She was born at the Château de Neuilly two years after the Second Restoration. In 1843, at the Château de Saint-Cloud, Clémentine married Prince August of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. When her father was removed from the throne in 1848, Clémentine and her husband went to Vienna, where August was an officer with the Austro-Hungarian army. After August died, Clémentine lobbied for her youngest and favourite son, Ferdinand, to become Prince of Bulgaria. She moved to Bulgaria as mother of the sovereign. She died in Vienna in 1907, age 89, one year before Ferdinand became Tsar of Bulgaria.

Prince François d’Orléans (1818-1900)

François d’Orléans, Prince of Joinville, in 1852, age 34

François d’Orléans, Prince of Joinville, was the seventh child and third son of Louis Philippe and Marie-Amélie. He became an officer in the French navy and served with distinction in the 1838-39 Franco-Mexican War. In 1840, he headed the expedition to return Napoleon’s remains to France. In 1843, he married Princess Francisca of Brazil. The following year, his success in naval operations on the coast of Morocco resulted in his promotion to vice-admiral. When Louis Philippe was dethroned in 1848, François lost his position and fled to England. He announced his intention to stand in the French presidential election of 1852, but a coup by the future Napoleon III meant the election never took place. Upon the outbreak of the American Civil War, François went to Washington with two nephews to offer their services to President Lincoln. They were appointed to the staff of Major General George B. McClellan. In addition to being a military advisor, François made over 50 sketches and watercolors of the war. In 1862, difficulties between France and the USA over Mexico caused the Orléans princes to withdraw from the American army and return to England. After Napoleon III’s abdication, François served for five years in the French National Assembly, where his contribution was minimal because of his deafness, which had grown progressively worse since his early 20s. François died in Paris in 1900 at the age of 81.

The Duke of Chartres, the Count of Paris, the Prince of Joinville, and friends playing dominoes at Camp Winfield Scott, near Yorktown, Virginia in May 1862, photographed by James Gibson

Prince Henri d’Orléans (1822-1897)

Henri d’Orléans, Duke of Aumale

Henri d’Orléans, Duke of Aumale, was Louis Philippe’s and Marie-Amélie’s fifth son. As a boy, he inherited great wealth from his godfather, the last Prince of Condé. He pursued a military career, distinguishing himself during the French invasion of Algeria. In September 1847, he became Governor-General of Algeria, a position he had to give up five months later, when his father lost the French throne. Henri, his wife (Princess Maria Carolina of the Two Sicilies), and their children joined the rest of the family in exile in England. After the fall of Napoleon III, he returned to France and rejoined the army as general of division. In 1879, Henri became inspector-general of the army, but lost the position when a law passed in 1883 deprived all members of families who had reigned in France of their military positions. He died in Sicily in 1897, age 75. In his will he bequeathed his estate of Chantilly to the state, so that his extensive collection of art and manuscripts could be turned into the Musée Condé.

Prince Antoine d’Orléans (1824-1890)

Antoine d’Orléans, Duke of Montpensier, circa 1860, age 36

Antoine d’Orléans, Duke of Montpensier, was Louis Philippe’s and Marie-Amélie’s youngest son. In 1846 he married Infanta Luisa Fernanda of Spain. Unlike his brothers, he went to Spain instead of England in 1848. During the Spanish revolution of 1868, he supported the insurgents against his own sister-in-law, Queen Isabella II. After he killed Isabella’s cousin, the Infante Enrique, in a duel in 1870, Antoine was sentenced to one month in prison. In January 1878, his daughter Mercedes became Queen of Spain when she married Isabella’s son. Sadly she died five months later at the age of 18 without any children. Antoine died in Sanlúcar de Barrameda in 1890 at the age of 65.

Prince Philippe d’Orléans (1838-1894)

Philippe d’Orleans, Count of Paris, in the 1870s when he was in his 30s

Born at the Tuileries Palace during the reign of his grandfather King Louis Philippe, Louis Philippe Albert d’Orléans, Count of Paris, became heir apparent to the French throne when his father, Prince Ferdinand-Philippe (Louis Philippe’s oldest son), was killed in a carriage accident in 1842. This prospect ended with the French Revolution of 1848, when Philippe was ten years old. He grew to adulthood in England. In 1861, Philippe and his younger brother Robert, Duke of Chartres, went to the United States with their uncle François to volunteer for service as officers in the Union army. Philippe and Robert were given the rank of captain and served on the staff of Major General George McClellan for nearly a year. After their return to England in 1862, Philippe married his cousin Marie Isabelle d’Orléans, the daughter of his uncle Antoine. They moved to France after Napoleon III’s downfall. In 1873, Philippe withdrew his claim to the French throne in favour of Henri d’Artois. It was assumed that Philippe would succeed to the throne upon the childless Henri’s death, thus uniting the Bourbon and Orléanist claims to the throne. However, Henri’s refusal to recognize the tricolor as the French flag ended the possibility of a restoration. In 1886, the royal family was again exiled. Philippe died at Stowe House in Buckinghamshire in 1894, at the age of 56.

Philippe d’Orléans and his brother Robert as officers of the Union Army in 1861-62

Emperor Napoleon III (1808-1873)

Napoleon III

Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, the son of Napoleon’s brother Louis and Josephine’s daughter Hortense, was elected President of France in 1848. Unhappy with being limited by the constitution to a single term, he staged a brutal coup d’état to remain in power and, in 1852, declared himself Emperor Napoleon III. The new emperor and his family often posed for photographs appearing more relaxed and wearing more casual attire than in their painted portraits, in the hope that their subjects would find it easier to identify with them. Napoleon III undertook steps to modernize France, including the grand reconstruction of Paris. He also increased French influence in Europe, allying with Britain to defeat Russia in the Crimean War, and helping the Italians drive the Austrians out of Italy. His attempt to impose a French-allied monarchy on Mexico ended in disaster. The Emperor’s reign ended in 1870, as a result of defeat at the Battle of Sedan in the Franco-Prussian War. When news reached Paris that Napoleon III had surrendered, the legislature voted to depose him and proclaimed the Third Republic. After a short spell as a Prussian prisoner of war, Napoleon III went into exile with his family in England. He died at Chislehurst in Kent in 1873, age 64.

Napoleon III and his family in the 1860s

Napoleon III and his family in exile in England in 1872, by W&D Downey

Empress Eugénie (1826-1920)

Eugénie, Empress of the French, photographed by Gustave Le Gray in 1856 when she was 30

The last Empress of the French was Spanish Countess Eugénie de Montijo. In 1834, her family was forced to seek refuge in Paris, where she received most of her education. President Louis-Napoleon met her in 1849 and was struck by her beauty. He married her in 1853, shortly after becoming Emperor. In 1856, their only child, Louis-Napoléon, Prince Imperial, was born. Eugénie brought decorum and style to the role of Empress, acted as an advisor to her husband, and served as regent when he was absent from France. After the fall of the Empire, the imperial family went into exile in England. Eugénie was later allowed to return to France. She died while visiting relatives in Madrid in 1920 at the age of 94.

Empress Eugénie and her son, the Prince Imperial, in 1862

Eugénie in mourning, by W&D Downey

Eugénie in 1920, the year she died, at the age of 94

Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, Prince Imperial (1856-1879)

Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, Prince Imperial, in 1870, age 14, wearing the uniform of an infantry sub-lieutenant, photographed by Augustin Aimé Joseph Le Jeune

Napoléon Eugène Louis Jean Joseph Bonaparte, otherwise known as Louis-Napoléon, Prince Imperial, was born at the Tuileries Palace in Paris. He was doted upon by his parents, Napoleon III and Empress Eugènie. From an early age, he took an interest in a military career. In 1870, he accompanied his father to the front in the Franco-Prussian War. When the war started to go against France, the Prince Imperial was smuggled across the border to Belgium, and from there to England, where he was reunited with his parents after the fall of the Second Empire. In 1872, Louis-Napoléon entered the Royal Military Academy, graduating with a commission as a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery. Keen to see action, he pressured the British government to allow him to participate in the Anglo-Zulu War in South Africa. Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli refused the request, but Queen Victoria intervened and Louis-Napoléon was given permission to go. In 1879, he was killed in a skirmish with a group of Zulus at the age of 23.

The Prince Imperial with his father Napoleon III in 1872

Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte in London in 1878, age 22, photographed by Alexander Bassano

Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte in South Africa in 1879

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Henri d’Artois, Unready to be King

Louise Marie Thérèse d’Artois, Mademoiselle of France

François d’Orléans, Prince of Joinville: Artist & Sailor

Watching French Kings Rise: The Grande Lever

The Tuileries Palace under Napoleon I and Louis XVIII

The Palace of Saint-Cloud

Leopold I of Belgium

John James Audubon, formerly Jean-Jacques Fougère Audubon, a French refugee driven to America by the Napoleonic Wars. Portrait by John Syme, 1826.

Like the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars – which raged across Europe from 1803 to 1815 – caused a number of French people to flee to America. Some regarded themselves as Frenchmen living in exile and returned to France at the first opportunity. Others stayed and became part of American society. Here are five prominent French refugees who wound up in the United States during the Napoleonic Wars.

John James Audubon

Before he became a famous ornithologist, naturalist and painter, John James Audubon (1785-1851) was Jean-Jacques Fougère Audubon, born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) and raised in France. Initially Audubon’s father – a naval officer – wanted his son to follow in his footsteps, much against the boy’s inclinations. Audubon suffered from seasickness and was not keen on navigation. After a year of studies in Rochefort, he returned to his father’s villa on the Loire below Nantes.

Audubon’s father eventually changed his mind about his son’s career. In 1803, fearing Audubon would be conscripted into the forces Napoleon was mustering for a planned invasion of England, his father arranged for him to sail to the United States to superintend a property there. Audubon was 18 years old.

[M]y affections were with those I had left behind, and the world seemed to me a great wilderness. At length I reached the country in which my eyes first opened to the light; I gazed with rapture upon its noble forests, and no sooner had I landed, than I set myself to mark every object that presented itself, and became imbued with an anxious desire to discover the purpose and import of that nature which lay spread around me in luxuriant profusion. (1)

In 1805 Audubon returned to France to make his father aware of problems with a business associate, and to request his father’s permission to marry an American, Lucy Bakewell.

France was at that time in a great state of convulsion; the republic had, as it were dwindled into a half-monarchical, half-democratic era. Bonaparte was at the height of success, overflowing the country as the mountain torrent overflows the plains in its course. Levies, or conscriptions, were the order of the day, and…my father felt uneasy lest I should be forced to take part in the political strife of the days.

I underwent a mockery of an examination, and was received as a midshipman in the navy, went to Rochefort, was placed on board a man-of-war and ran a short cruise. (2)

Audubon’s father obtained a leave of absence for this son and arranged a false passport for him, which stated that Audubon was born in New Orleans. In 1806, Audubon again found himself on a ship bound for New York, along with other Frenchmen travelling under assumed names to avoid conscription. The ship was overtaken and robbed by an English privateer. Audubon kept his gold safe by hiding it in a woolen stocking under some cable in the bow of the ship.

Audubon became an American citizen in 1812. After years of field observations, he wrote, illustrated and published a magnificent book, The Birds of America, which includes 435 hand-coloured, life-size prints of 497 North American bird species. This was followed by a sequel, Ornithological Biographies. Audubon discovered 25 new species and 12 new subspecies, and made a significant contribution to the understanding of bird anatomy and bird behaviour. John James Audubon died in New York City in 1851.

Jean-Victor Moreau

General Jean-Victor Moreau at the Battle of Hohenlinden, by Henri Frédéric Schopin, 1836

Jean-Victor-Marie Moreau (1763-1813) was a skillful general of the French Revolutionary Wars who helped Napoleon come to power in the coup d’état of 18 Brumaire (November 9, 1799). As a reward, Napoleon gave Moreau command of the Army of the Rhine. Moreau resented taking orders from the younger Corsican general and initially refused to follow instructions. Napoleon began to regard Moreau as a rival, a feeling that was exacerbated by Moreau’s stunning victory over the Austrians and Bavarians at the Battle of Hohenlinden on December 3, 1800. Napoleon feared that Moreau, a republican, was plotting against him.

In 1801 Moreau quit his command and returned to Paris, where his wife, Eugénie Hulot, hosted a social circle of people dissatisfied with Napoleon’s rule. General Moreau’s disdain for Napoleon was well-known. At a dinner for officers who had served under him, Moreau joked that the maître d’hôtel should be presented with a “saucepan of honour,” a dig at the Legion of Honour Napoleon had recently instituted to secure political and military loyalty. (3)

Moreau renewed his friendship with Jean Pichegru, an exiled French general who was involved in a plot to overthrow Napoleon (see “Assassination Attempts on Napoleon Bonaparte”). Moreau was arrested in February 1804. Although a trial found him not guilty of being a conspirator, Moreau was sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for failing to report the plot to the authorities. At Moreau’s request, and in light of the general’s popularity with the army and the public, Napoleon changed the sentence to banishment from France.

Moreau arrived in New York City in August 1805. Benjamin Rush, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, visited him.

Such is his modesty that I was obliged frequently to revive in my mind the idea that I was in company with the first hero and general of the age. I asked him if Bonaparte’s military talents were as great as fame had reported them to be. He said yes – he had consummate military abilities – [but] that he was however not without [many] faults, but such was the activity of his genius, that he always corrected them before his enemies had time to take the advantage of them…. I was much struck in hearing him speak in such respectful & dispassionate terms of a man who had attempted to take his life, who had afterwards robbed him of a large part of his fortune, and finally made him an exile from a country over which his victories more than Bonaparte’s had made him an Emperor & a King. (4)

Moreau settled in Morrisville, Pennsylvania with his wife and young daughter. He bought an estate near the Delaware River, where he fished, hunted and entertained visitors. Moreau discussed military strategy with American officers, while his wife shocked the locals by dancing and playing cards on Sunday.

General Moreau returned to Europe in 1813 at the request of Russian Tsar Alexander I, to help defeat Napoleon. While speaking with the Tsar during the Battle of Dresden on August 27, 1813, Moreau was struck by a cannonball that shattered his right leg, passed through his horse, and destroyed the calf of his left leg. The general reportedly told those around him, “Be calm, gentlemen; this is my fate.” (5) Both legs had to be amputated below the knee. Moreau died of his wounds on September 2, 1813.

Jean-Guillaume Hyde de Neuville

Scene at the École Économique, or the Economical School, 1810 – 1814, by Anne-Marguerite Hyde de Neuville. The Hyde de Neuvilles set up the school for the children of refugees from Saint-Domingue.

Jean-Guillaume Hyde de Neuville (1776-1857) was in England plotting a French royalist uprising when he learned of Napoleon’s 1799 coup d’état. He returned to France to try to persuade Napoleon to restore the Bourbon monarchy.

I was deeply moved at the thought of finding myself face to face with the man who held in his hand the destiny of the cause to which I had devoted my life…. The door opened. Instinctively, I looked at the man who came in, short, thin, his hair plastered on his temples, his step hesitating; he was not in the least what I had pictured to myself. I was so much wanting in perception, that I took him for a servant…. He leaned his back against the chimney-piece, raised his head, and looked at me with such an expressive, such a penetrating glance, that I lost all my assurance under the fire of that questioning eye. (6)

When Napoleon and his police minister became convinced that Hyde de Neuville had played a role in the “infernal machine” attempt on Napoleon’s life on December 24, 1800, Jean-Guillaume and his wife Anne-Marguerite went into hiding. After their estate was seized, Anne-Marguerite met with Napoleon to ask for clemency. Napoleon agreed to restore the confiscated property, but only if the Hyde de Neuvilles went into exile in the United States.

They arrived in New York City in 1807. Hyde de Neuville founded a school for the children of French refugees from Saint-Domingue. He organized balls and concerts, and edited a monthly literary magazine to support the school’s operation. Anne-Marguerite painted watercolours, a number of which she published in a book called American Sketches. In 1811 they bought a small estate near New Brunswick, New Jersey, where they raised merino sheep. General Moreau tried to entice Hyde de Neuville to join him in serving with the allies against France, but the latter refused.

After Napoleon’s 1814 abdication, the Hyde de Neuvilles returned to France. When Napoleon escaped from Elba in 1815, Hyde de Neuville accompanied Louis XVIII into exile. Although a firm royalist, he felt sympathy for Napoleon when the latter was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo and exiled to St. Helena.

As soon as I saw him in misfortune, an outlaw as I had been myself, I pitied him, and forgot the persecution I had undergone. I was sorry that Napoleon, when in Elba, had not abandoned his terrible design, and accepted the offer I had been empowered to make to him of exile in America. On that virgin soil of liberty, the name of the great Conqueror would have commanded the respect of Europe; it would have been a background worthy of him, and the renunciation of his ambition would have been an heroic end. (7)

The Hyde de Neuvilles returned to America in 1816, when Jean-Guillaume was appointed French ambassador to the United States. He kept a close watch on Napoleonic exiles in the United States, including Joseph Bonaparte, Charles Lallemand and Charles Lefebvre-Desnouettes. Despite the surveillance, Hyde de Neuville was generous to his political opponents, knowing what it was like to be a political refugee.

I felt deep pity for these Frenchmen, exiled to this land as I had been. Were they not suffering for the crimes and errors caused by the ambition of one man; expiating, far from their families and country, faults, committed it may be, from blindness and fidelity? (8)

Jean-Guillaume Hyde de Neuville was recalled to France in 1820. He returned to Washington in 1821-22 to negotiate a commercial convention with the United States. He later served in the French Chamber of Deputies, and as France’s naval minister.

Jean Frédéric de La Farge

In 1802, Jean Frédéric de La Farge (1786-1858) sailed as a 15-year-old midshipman on an expedition sent by Napoleon to put down an anti-slavery uprising in Saint-Domingue. Tempted by promotion to the rank of lieutenant, La Farge joined the land forces upon arrival and was eventually taken captive by the insurgents. After the withdrawal of the French in December 1803, La Farge remained in newly-independent Haiti. When he heard rumours of an impending massacre of all remaining whites, he escaped, arriving in Philadelphia in 1807.

Having no desire to again be pressed into French military service, La Farge decided to try his hand at commerce. He moved to New Orleans and used his French connections to build his wealth in international shipping and the mercantile business. He partnered with Joseph Russell in the importing and exporting firm of Russell and Lafarge, which was the business employed by President James Monroe in 1817 to acquire French furniture and other goods to decorate the White House in Empire style.

La Farge also speculated in real estate. He purchased large tracts in upstate New York, an area favoured by French exiles like Joseph Bonaparte and Pierre-François Réal. After 1820, he moved to Watertown, NY to manage his holdings. La Farge became a prominent developer in Jefferson County, where he made enemies by evicting squatters and fighting over property rights. He gave his name to La Fargeville, where he built an ostentatious mansion.

‘The dwelling…was occupied by its owner in princely style, entertaining royally whenever he could get anyone to entertain,’ a local newspaper taunted, ‘although it is hinted that the manner in which he made his wealth was somewhat questionable.’ (9)

In 1823 La Farge married Louisa Josephine Binsse de Saint-Victor, the daughter of a wealthy family that had fled France during the Revolution. Within a few years, John Frederick La Farge (he Anglicized his name) liquidated his holdings in upstate New York and settled in Manhattan. He invested in commercial properties, acquiring a fortune that caused him to be referred to in the same category as the Astors and the Vanderbilts. He and Louisa had nine children, including the painter, stained glass artist, and writer John La Farge (1835-1910). John Frederick de La Farge died at his summer home at Glen Cove, Long Island, in 1858.

Jean Joseph Amable Humbert

Another participant in the unsuccessful French expedition to Saint-Domingue was Jean Joseph Amable Humbert (1767-1823), a French Revolutionary general who had earlier led a failed invasion of Ireland. The commander of the Saint-Domingue expedition, General Victoire Leclerc, accused Humbert of indiscipline and other infractions and soon sent him back to France. Humbert’s rumoured affair with Leclerc’s wife, Napoleon’s sister Pauline Bonaparte, did not help.

In 1803, Humbert was stripped of his rank and dismissed from the army “for embezzling army rations and selling them for profit, and for having illicit relations with the leaders of the brigands.” (10) Humbert retired to Brittany, where he became a farmer and a horse dealer. After being briefly recalled to service, he was discharged from the army in 1810.

Given his dim prospects at home, in 1812 Humbert requested a passport to the United States, which Napoleon issued on the condition that he never return to France. Humbert went to Philadelphia, where he became involved in a plot to assist Mexican revolutionaries, who were seeking independence from Spanish rule. By September 1813 Humbert was in New Orleans, recruiting for an “army” to invade Texas (then part of Mexico). A number of his colleagues – veterans of earlier Texas filibustering expeditions – created a “Provisional Government of the Free Men of the Interior Provinces of Mexico.” Humbert was given a general’s commission and command of the so-called Republican Army of the North. In June 1814 Humbert sailed to Mexico to meet with rebel leaders. Upon his return to New Orleans, General Andrew Jackson recruited him to help defend against an impending assault on the city by British forces.

During the Battle of New Orleans (January 8, 1815), when the British overran the American line on the west bank of the Mississippi River, Jackson sent Humbert with reinforcements to attempt to retake the position. The British withdrew of their own accord, which was just as well, as the American officers on the west bank were unwilling to relinquish command to a French officer.

After Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815, Humbert stayed in the United States. He again took up the idea of an expedition to Texas, but infighting among the filibusters, as well as full Spanish knowledge of the scheme, derailed his attempts. When he was offered the position of military commander of the Laffite brothers’ base on Galveston Island, Humbert eagerly accepted. He did not join General Charles Lallemand and other Napoleonic exiles in their quest to establish a military colony in Texas, but he did help them get back to New Orleans when the colony failed. For this service, Humbert received a share of the money collected for the colonists by the French newspaper La Minerve. He also received a military pension from the French government.

The collection of this stipend, doled out to him every quarter by the French Consul…afforded him the occasion for a great official ceremony. Attired in his old costume of a General of the Republic, the same, perhaps, which he had worn on the heights of Landau or at Castlebar, with his faithful sabre resting across his arm, he would repair, erect and proud, to the consular office on Royal street to receive the pittance allowed by Bonaparte, as the price of his blood on the fields of Europe. Thence, he would gravely walk down the pavement towards his friend…and, after partaking of a glass or two of his unique ‘petit gouave,’ he would return to his humble lodgings and doff his military trappings. (11)

Jean Joseph Amable Humbert died in New Orleans in 1823. A death notice observed:

For the last five years his mind had been disordered and a deep melancholy preyed upon his spirits, the consequence of a poverty which left not sufficient to pay the expenses of his funeral. (12)

Both Jean-Guillaume Hyde de Neuville and General Humbert appear as characters in Napoleon in America.

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Why didn’t Napoleon escape to the United States?

Jean-Guillaume Hyde de Neuville, a 19th-Century Knight-Errant

General Jean Joseph Amable Humbert: Soldier, Lothario, Filibuster

General Charles Lefebvre-Desnouettes, Unhappy in Alabama

Letters of Introduction in the 19th Century

John James Audubon, Ornithological Biography, or an Account of the Habits of the Birds of the United States of America, Vol. II (Edinburgh, 1834), p. v.
John James Audubon, Maria Rebecca Audubon, Audubon’s Story of His Youth, Scribner’s Magazine, Vol. XIII, No. 3 (March 1893), pp. 281-282.
John Philippart, Mémoirs, &c. &c. of General Moreau (London, 1814), p. 189.
“To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 21 September 1805,” Founders Online, National Archives, last modified June 13, 2018, http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-5102
Philippart, Mémoirs, &c. &c. of General Moreau, pp. 218-219.
Frances Jackson, ed. and trans., Memoirs of Baron Hyde de Neuville, Vol. I (Edinburgh and Glasgow, 1913), p. 126.
Frances Jackson, ed. and trans., Memoirs of Baron Hyde de Neuville, Vol. II (Edinburgh and Glasgow, 1913), p. 57.
Ibid., p. 81.
James L. Yarnall, John La Farge, A Biographical and Critical Study (New York, 2016), p. 11.
Frédéric Masson, Napoléon et sa Famille, Vol. II (Paris, 1901), p. 230.
Henry C. Castellanos, New Orleans as it Was: Episodes of Louisiana Life (New Orleans, 1905), p. 43.
B. Collyer, T. Raffles, J.B. Brown, eds., The Investigator or Quarterly Magazine, Vol. VII (London, 1823), p. 222.

Does historical accuracy of place matter? By historical accuracy of place, I mean the concept that a specific physical location – a building, a piece of ground, a geographic coordinate – that is claimed to be of historical significance actually was the site of the historical event from which the claim is derived. The question is not ‘did the historical event happen?’ The question is ‘did the historical event happen here?’ In short, does it matter if historical markers are in the wrong place?

The Battle of Stow on the Wold probably didn’t happen here.

It happened, but not here

The question arises more often than you might think. The American Battlefield Trust notes, in respect of American Civil War monuments:

Monuments are not always accurately placed on battlefields. Park commissioners were often challenged on monument locations. Many times, the early parks did not own the land on which a unit fought…. Commissions also wanted to avoid haphazard placement of monuments. At Gettysburg, this meant that monuments had to be placed along the main line of battle. The problem is that units move around a lot, and these locations were at times arbitrary and vague. This approach helped to make monument placement uniform, but it also kept Confederate monuments away from Union monuments. For example, Confederate units attacking Little Round Top entered the battle along Warfield and Seminary ridges, up to one mile away from the main Union battle line. While former Confederates fought with the commissions to place monuments closer to where they had engaged the Federals, they were overruled at almost every turn. (1)

The discovery of historical evidence can change received wisdom about where an event took place. For example, survey work at the traditional site of the Battle of Stow on the Wold, fought in 1646 at the end of the first English Civil War, has failed to identify battlefield remains, leading to the suggestion that the battle actually occurred two miles from where the memorial to the battle is placed. (2)

Even when the evidence shows that a purported historical location is not what it is alleged to be, the original claim is not always corrected. Several scenes in Napoleon in America take place at the Exchange Coffee House in New Orleans. The Exchange Coffee House was operated by Bernard Tremoulet from 1811 to 1814, and by Pierre Maspero from 1814 until his death in 1822. It was at various times known as the Commercial Coffee House, Maspero’s Coffee House, Maspero’s Exchange, the French Exchange, the New Exchange, or the French Coffee House. Maspero’s Exchange offered food and drinks, gambling and billiards, and a subscription reading room. It was also the site of auctions of land, buildings and slaves.

Erected in 1810, Maspero’s Exchange was located at the north corner of Chartres and St. Louis Streets (directly across Chartres Street from Napoleon House), on part of the site now occupied by the Omni Royal Orleans Hotel. An exchange continued to operate on the site after Maspero’s death. The original building was replaced in 1838 by the new, larger City Exchange, which extended along St. Louis Street from Royal Street to Chartres.

Maspero’s Exchange was apparently never located in the building at the south corner of Chartres and St. Louis Streets. (3) Yet that building, erected in the late 18th century, which houses a restaurant called “The Original Pierre Maspero’s,” is generally referred to as Maspero’s Exchange, and the restaurant website indicates that the building was “the Original Pierre Maspero’s Slave Exchange.” (4)

An illustration of the lack of historical accuracy of place. The building at 440 Chartres Street, New Orleans, generally known as Maspero's Exchange, never actually housed Maspero's Exchange.

The building at 440 Chartres Street, New Orleans, generally known as Maspero’s Exchange, never actually housed Maspero’s Exchange.

Does it matter?

For the purpose of adding to knowledge, historical accuracy of place is extremely important. For things like targeting archaeological investigations, understanding how a battle unfolded, and investigating historical patterns of settlement, it matters quite a lot whether historical locations are correctly identified.

But history serves many purposes, and if the purpose of a marker, or a monument, or a historic site, is to educate the public about a historical event, does it matter if the location is off-kilter? Isn’t what is said about the event the main thing? In a 2015 controversy over moving an existing marker 4,000 feet to more accurately indicate where Union general Joshua Chamberlain was wounded during the Second Battle of Petersburg in 1864, a representative of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources observed:

The marker’s primary purpose…is not to provide an exhaustive account of troop movements at Petersburg, but rather to commemorate Chamberlain’s important contributions and to educate the public about them. (5)

As James W. Loewen wrote in his excellent Lies Across America: What American Historic Sites Get Wrong:

Sometimes the historical marker becomes more important than the site itself. If the place has changed, the plaque offers something to see, a way to connect with the event…. Even when the countryside hasn’t changed much…in itself the landscape reveals nothing of what happened at the site more than a century earlier. The story is told on the marker – or it should be. (6)

When we visit a location, we do not see what those who were there in the past saw. Trees are planted or cut down; rivers change course; buildings are replaced. How many of us have had the experience of returning to a place we knew in childhood only to find that it is no longer recognizable. The landscape may be so transformed that we are unable to find the precise spot we are looking for. Even historical preservation involves rehabilitation, restoration and reconstruction. And that is often based on incomplete evidence of what the place originally looked like.

Does a diner enjoying a meal in a late 18th-century building really care that the building is not the particular historical site that it claims to be? Beyond education, isn’t the purpose of visiting historical places – of seeing the landscape, the markers, of stepping on the ground – to feel a connection to the past? British poet Edward Thomas put it eloquently:

There are many places which nobody can look upon without being consciously influenced by a sense of their history. It is a battlefield, and the earth shows the scars of its own wounds; or a castle or cathedral of distinct renown rises among the oaks; or a manor house or cottage, or tomb or woodland walk that speaks of a dead poet or soldier. Then, according to the extent or care of our reading and the clearness of our imagination, we can pour into the groves or on the turf tumultuous or silent armies, or solitary man or woman. It is a deeply-worn coast; the spring tide gnaws the yellow cliff, and the wind files it with unceasing hiss, and the relics of every age, skull and weapon and shroudpin and coin and carven stone, are spread out upon the clean, untrodden sand, and the learned, the imaginative, the fanciful, the utterly unhistoric and merely human man exercises his spirit upon them, and responds, if only for a moment.…

When we muse deeply upon the old road worn deep into the chalk, among burial mound and encampment; we feel rather than see the innumerable companies of men like this, following their small cattle to the stream or the dew-pond, wearing out the hard earth with their naked feet and trailing ash staves. (7)

If the important thing is feeling that connection, does the specific location of the cue really matter? Is anywhere in the vicinity close enough? Cenotaphs and war memorials can trigger this kind of remembrance even when they are far from the site of a battle.

Historical facts matter

Lincoln sat here.

And yet…something happened in the past at a specific location: a battle took place; slaves were auctioned; somebody died. Unlike with historical films and novels, in which one anticipates some historical license being taken, visitors to historical sites expect that those sites are what they claim to be. If a marker is in the wrong place, it could be an indication that other things said about that site, or historical event, are also wrong.

These misrepresentations on the American landscape help keep us ignorant as a people, less able to understand what really happened in the past, and less able to apply our understanding to issues facing the United States today. (8)

Even when it comes to evoking a feeling of connection to the past, historical accuracy of place is important.

Being at the place where history was made has a certain power. ‘It may have been this chair where Abraham Lincoln sat when he had lunch here,’ a tourist I did not know whispered as we reached the parlor of the White House of the Confederacy in Richmond. ‘That gave me the shivers.’ (9)

If you are at a historical site thinking that Lincoln, or another historical person, was once in that same spot, and then find out that they weren’t, the frisson is diminished. You feel cheated.

History matters. Historical facts matter. Historical accuracy of place matters.

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American Battlefield Trust, “10 Facts: Civil War Battlefield Monuments, Markers, and Tablets,” https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/10-facts-civil-war-battlefield-monuments-markers-and-tablets. Accessed October 31, 2018.
“English Civil War battlefield ‘may be in wrong place’,” BBC News, May 24, 2010, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/gloucestershire/8700709.stm. Accessed October 31, 2018. See also the UK Battlefields Resource Centre, “Battle of Stow on the Wold”: http://www.battlefieldstrust.com/resource-centre/civil-war/battleview.asp?BattleFieldId=43.
“Why the Paillet House on the opposite corner came to be misidentified as Maspero’s Exchange is unknown. That building at 440 Chartres was built soon after the fire of 1794, some years before Gurlie and Guillot built the one they leased to Maspero in 1814, but it apparently never housed Maspero’s Exchange.” Samuel Wilson, Jr., “Maspero’s Exchange: Its Predecessors and Successors,” Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Spring, 1989), p. 220.
https://originalpierremasperos.com/history. Accessed October 31, 2018.
“Virginia to move marker honoring Joshua Chamberlain,” Bangor Daily News, September 26, 2015, https://bangordailynews.com/2015/09/26/news/state/virginia-to-move-marker-to-honor-joshua-chamberlain/. Accessed October 31, 2018.
James W. Loewen, Lies Across America: What Our Historic Sites Get Wrong (New York, 1999), p. 27.
Edward Thomas, The South Country (London, 1909), pp. 150-151.
Loewen, Lies Across America, p. 5.
Ibid., p. 27.

The Battle of Leipzig, fought from October 16 to 19, 1813 in Saxony (Germany), was the largest battle of the Napoleonic Wars. Over half a million soldiers were involved. Napoleon Bonaparte and his army of roughly 200,000 men were defeated by over 300,000 soldiers from the armies of Russia, Prussia, Austria and Sweden, led by Russian Tsar Alexander I and Austrian Field Marshal Karl Philipp, Prince of Schwarzenberg. Because of the number of countries involved, the Battle of Leipzig is also known as the Battle of the Nations. It was the biggest battle in Europe prior to World War I.

The Battle of Leipzig, by Alexander Sauerweid, 1844

Context

After Napoleon’s Russian campaign of 1812 ended in disaster, the French Emperor returned to France to rebuild his Grande Armée, largely with inexperienced conscripts. In 1813, he confronted a coalition composed of Russia, Austria, Prussia, Sweden, Britain, Spain, Portugal, and some German states. As British, Spanish and Portuguese forces succeeded in pushing French troops out of Spain, Napoleon tried to hold on to territory in Germany.

Napoleon won a tactical victory at the Battle of Dresden on August 26-27, 1813, but his generals suffered defeats on other fronts. With the coalition armies closing in, Napoleon concentrated his forces around the prosperous city of Leipzig. He had about 200,000 soldiers under his command, primarily French troops, along with some Poles, Italians, and Germans from the Confederation of the Rhine. The coalition had at least 300,000 soldiers, possibly over 350,000. The Austrian army was led by Karl Philipp, Prince of Schwarzenberg; the Prussian army by Gebhard von Blücher; the Russian army by Count Levin August von Bennigsen; and the Swedish army by Crown Prince Charles John (otherwise known as Jean Bernadotte, one of Napoleon’s former marshals). A company of the British Rocket Brigade was also under Swedish command.

Tsar Alexander I of Russia, King Frederick William III of Prussia, and Emperor Francis I of Austria were all present at the Battle of Leipzig. Tsar Alexander was the supreme commander of the coalition forces, and Schwarzenberg was the field commander.

Several of the characters who appear in Napoleon in America fought at the Battle of Leipzig, including Barthélemy Bacheville, Simon Bernard, Charles Fabvier, Henri Lallemand, Claude Victor Perrin, and, on the Austrian side, Adam Adalbert von Neipperg, who later married Napoleon’s widow, Marie Louise.

The magnitude of Napoleon’s defeat was such that many French participants were too disheartened to write about the Battle of Leipzig. Louis-François Lejeune, an aide-de-camp to Napoleon’s Chief of Staff Marshal Berthier, commented:

Although on [October] 18th my regiments were engaged, and I lost many men in the suburbs of Leipzig, I do not feel equal to describing the grand tragedy. (1)

Some combatants did leave accounts of the Battle of Leipzig. As the battlefield was so vast, none cover all of the action, but they do supply some interesting vignettes.

October 16: A bloodbath of pure attrition

The Battle of Leipzig began on the morning of October 16. There was fighting both to the southeast and to the north of the city, described by one of Napoleon’s biographers as “a murderous slugging match, a bloodbath of pure attrition.” (2) By the end of the day, neither side had gained ground.

Alfred Saint-Chamans, a colonel with Napoleon’s 7th Regiment of chasseurs à cheval (light cavalry), was placed opposite a regiment of Austrian cavalry.

A terrible bombardment commenced on our right…. We were weak on this part of the battlefield; the Austrians knew this and they brought up a battalion of infantry, whose fire hindered us a lot, and a battery of artillery, which bothered us even more. They fired so well that every shot hit its target. I lost so many men and was powerless to fight back…. The fire became more intense, clearing my ranks so much that disorder began to appear; slaughtered and rearing horses drove back the others, and a number of men dismounted in order to carry wounded comrades to the rear. The morale of the regiment remained good; still, I felt it necessary to encourage my chausseurs, and I began to ride up and down in front of the regiment shouting soldierly words, when I was suddenly lifted out of my saddle and thrown to the ground where I lost consciousness.

A cannonball had grazed me, hitting my leather pouch at shoulder height, toppling me and causing immense pain (particularly in the chest), which I would continue to feel for many years….

When I came to, I found that they were carrying me in a cloak to the nearest village…. I felt my mouth filling rapidly and I spat into my hand. I saw with horror that it was blood. I was sure I was going to die. I was in severe pain and told myself it was all going to be over in a matter of hours.

I had the regiment surgeon with me. He appealed to another gentleman of the same profession…. Despite their assurances I could see that they were worried. Finally, after a thorough examination they decided that I had a massive contusion and that they would have to bleed me, which they did quickly and abundantly. I didn’t feel any relief and persisted in thinking I would be dead in a few moments.

The village was in danger of being stormed by the enemy, as the firing was getting closer and our troops were being pushed back. They decided to get me to Leipzig, about two leagues away. They loaded me onto a stretcher covered in straw and carried me off, as I screamed in agony. I was racked by atrocious pain from the nape of my neck to the base of my spine.

They had great difficulty carrying me and we advanced slowly. As we entered a large village one league from Leipzig, we saw many wounded who told us that the road to Leipzig had been cut by the Cossacks. I was set down in an inhabited house. I began to vomit clots of black blood and felt such intense pain that I begged those who had carried me to put an end to my sufferings. Fortunately they refused….

Towards evening we were told that the road to Leipzig had reopened. The enemy had been pushed back and his cavalry had been forced to withdraw. I arrived in the city around eight or nine in the evening and I was taken straight to some quarters prepared in advance. I was still in great pain and convinced that my ribs or spine must have been broken….

I did not sleep that night. I had a strong fever and I was screaming; the danger of my position worried my poor head, which was already weakened from hunger and loss of blood (they had bled me a second time). In no state to be transported, what would become of me if the French army was forced to withdraw! (3)

October 17: As if on dress parade

Although a Russian cavalry charge to the north of Leipzig drove French forces towards the city, most troops saw no action on the second day of the battle. Lieutenant Charles Parquin, a chasseur in Napoleon’s Old Guard, wrote:

During all of…the 17th, the two armies confronted each other as if merely on dress parade…. We spent the entire day cleaning our arms and equipment and by next day, the 18th, we were…in the correct style to be killed. (4)

October 18: Thousands of arrows and a hare

The Battle of Leipzig, by Alexander Sauerweid

The coalition launched a huge assault from all sides. The bloodiest fighting was in Probstheida, a village southeast of Leipzig, where more than 12,000 men were killed in three hours. Colonel Jean-Baptiste-Antoine-Marcellin de Marbot, a member of the same light cavalry division as Colonel Saint-Chamans, wrote:

The Old Guard was deployed in rear of the village, ready to aid its defenders…. The French were maintaining their position all along the line. On the left, where Macdonald and Sébastiani had held their ground between Probstheida and Stotteritz in the teeth of frequent attacks from Klenau’s Austrians and Doctoroff’s Russians, we were suddenly assailed by a charge of more than 20,000 Cossacks and Bashkirs. Their efforts were chiefly directed against Sébastiani’s cavalry, and in a moment the barbarians surrounded our squadrons with loud shouts, letting off thousands of arrows. The loss these caused was slight, for the Bashkirs are totally undrilled and have no more notion of any formation than a flock of sheep. Thus they cannot shoot horizontally in front of them without hitting their own comrades, and are obliged to fire their arrows parabolically into the air, with more or less elevation according to the distance at which they judge the enemy to be. As this method does not allow of accurate aiming, nine-tenths of the arrows are lost, while the few that hit are pretty well spent, and only fall with the force of their own weight, which is inconsiderable; so that the wounds they cause are usually trifling. As they have no other weapons, they are certainly the least dangerous troops in the world. However, as they were coming up in myriads, and the more of these wasps one killed the more came on — the vast number of arrows with which they filled the air were bound sooner or later to inflict some severe wounds. Thus one of my non-commissioned officers named Meslin, was pierced from breast to back by an arrow. Seizing it in both hands he broke it and drew the two portions from his body, but died a few minutes later. I fancy this was the only case of death caused by the Bashkirs’ arrows: but I had several men and horses hit, and was myself wounded by the ridiculous weapon. (5)

Meanwhile Lieutenant Parquin spent the day near Napoleon’s headquarters.

The regiment was held in reserve until evening, and we suffered merely a few losses from the enemy’s heavy guns. I had to deplore the death of one personal friend, a lieutenant of my regiment named Helson, who was struck by a cannon-ball that ricochetted full against his breast.

At nightfall we made our bivouac behind a hedge. As I was riding toward the spot that had been assigned for my squad, I heard my own name called. It was by one of my friends, a captain in the Guard infantry, who was in company with two other officers of his corps, from their bivouac close by. He invited me to come over to his quarters, as soon as I should be free, and join them in a modest supper.

‘I shall do so with pleasure, dear fellow; I’ll also bring with me a bottle of brandy which I obtained from a sutler.’

A quarter of an hour later, with my loaf of mess-bread and bottle under my arm, I joined Servatius — such was the name of my friend, latterly a colonel of gendarmes at Arras. When we were all seated and ready one of the officers emptied into a big tin dish a fragrant stew, made of a hare, chopped into pieces and done brown with plenty of potatoes and onions. The dish was found to be capital.

‘I see you have found means to send to the Leipzig market,’ I said to Servatius.

‘No, indeed, dear friend,’ he answered, ‘but my sergeant-major sent a bullet, not ten yards away from here, through the excellent fat hare we are now despatching, and which was so silly as to cross the battle-field near my famished company.’

‘But how is it you did not invite the sergeant-major to share with us?’

‘Well, there was a little difficulty in the way,’ replied Servatius, ‘the sergeant-major had scarcely shot and picked up the hare, and was crying out to me: ‘Captain, here is our supper for tonight!’ when he was himself hit by a cannon-ball that sent him to take supper with Pluto. The hare he gave me has turned out to be his legacy, and that is the whole history of our banquet.’ (6)

During the day, two Saxon brigades and some Württembergers deserted to the coalition, leaving a hole in the French line. Encircled, with casualties rising and ammunition running low, Napoleon realized that the battle was lost. He ordered a phased retreat westward, across the bridge over the Elster River to Lindenau.

As we had for three days beaten off the enemy and held our part of the field, the troops were much astonished and grieved to hear…that for want of ammunition we were going to retreat. Hardly were we out of our bivouac when we felt the inconvenience arising from the neglect of the imperial staff to prepare for the retreat of so large an army. Every minute the columns were stopped by broad ditches, by marshes and brooks, which might so easily have been bridged. Horses and wheels stuck in the mud; and as the night was dark there were blocks everywhere….

Day broke; the broad road was covered with troops of all arms in great number…. The Emperor came by; but as he galloped along the flank of the column he heard none of the acclamations which were wont to proclaim his presence. The army was ill-content with the little care which had been taken to secure its retreat. (7)

October 19: A climax to disasters

The French Retreat from the Battle of Leipzig, by Carle Vernet and Jacques François Swebach

As soon as the coalition became aware of Napoleon’s withdrawal, they launched a full-scale assault on the retreating French, who put up a fierce resistance in Leipzig. Combat raged from street to street and house to house.

The last kick was given to our troops by a Baden battalion which, being notorious for cowardice, had been left in the town during the battle to chop wood for the bakehouses. These miscreants, from the shelter of the windows of the great bakery, also fired on our soldiers, killing a great number. The French, meanwhile, made a brave resistance, defending themselves in the houses, and, in spite of their losses, disputing the ground foot by foot with the allied armies, while they retired in good order towards the bridge of Lindenau. (8)

Napoleon gave orders for the bridge to be blown up after the French had crossed, to prevent the coalition forces from pursuing his troops. Unfortunately, the fuse was ignited when the bridge was full of French soldiers and the rearguard was still in Leipzig.

[T]heir retreat was wholly cut off. It was a climax to our disasters….

After the destruction of the bridge, some of the French threw themselves into the Elster, in the hope of swimming across. Some succeeded, including Marshal Macdonald; but the greater number, Prince Poniatowski among them, were drowned, because when they had crossed the river they could not get up the muddy banks, which were lined, moreover, with the enemy’s skirmishers. Those of our men who remained in the town, thinking only how to sell their lives dearly, barricaded themselves behind the houses, and fought valiantly all the day and part of the night; but their ammunition failed, their hastily-raised entrenchments were forced, and nearly all were slain. (9)

Thousands were killed and some 30,000 were taken prisoner, including the wounded Colonel Saint-Chamans, who had been moved to a hotel.

It was easy to foresee that we were going to become prisoners. My companions in misfortune therefore busied themselves in carefully hiding our money, which came to around a hundred louis, leaving just one purse containing 2 or 300 francs in view, to satisfy the greed of the soldiers and save us from the search that would otherwise be made.

Having made these arrangements, we waited; only one thing worried me: that they might throw me down in trying to see if I had hidden anything in my mattress and thus cause my pains to begin anew.

Shooting began in the street, under my window, and from the cries of the people and the ‘hourras’ of the Russians it became obvious that the enemy was now master of the town. Just then we heard a commotion in the corridor. The doctor ran out to find the hotel owner being threatened by a French infantry officer, who wanted to run him through with a sword because he had refused him some bread. The doctor, who was very strong, intervened and the officer fled. (11)

A party of Prussian grenadiers appeared, took the money, and left. Some Russian generals moved into the hotel, and that night a drunk Cossack officer asked Saint-Chamans and his companions for money. Eventually, thanks to his acquaintance with a French aide-de-camp of the Swedish Crown Prince (Bernadotte), Saint-Chamans was able to join a convoy of prisoners bound for Straslund. He was fortunate. Many of those left in Leipzig became victims of starvation, reduced to eating raw horseflesh and even the flesh of dead comrades in an attempt to survive.

Casualties

Although the Battle of Borodino was the bloodiest single day of fighting in the Napoleonic Wars, overall casualties at the Battle of Leipzig were higher. Over 90,000 soldiers were killed, wounded or missing. Napoleon lost at least 38,000; the coalition about 54,000.

Aftermath of the Battle of Leipzig

The Battle of Leipzig ensured the collapse of the French Empire east of the Rhine. The coalition armies pressed their advantage and began crossing into eastern France in December 1813. The Duke of Wellington was already in southwestern France with his forces. The coalition headed for Paris, which surrendered on March 31, 1814. Compelled to abdicate, Napoleon was banished to exile on Elba.

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Louis-François Lejeune, Memoirs of Baron Lejeune, translated by Mrs. Arthur Bell, Vol. II (London, 1897), p. 292.
Frank McLynn, Napoleon: A Biography (London, 1997), p. 569.
Alfred Armand Robert Saint-Chamans, Mémoires du Général Cte. De Saint-Chamans, Ancien Aide de Camp du Maréchal Soult, 1802-1832 (Paris, 1896), pp. 238-241.
Denis Charles Parquin, Napoleon’s Victories: From the Personal Memoirs of Capt. C. Parquin, of the Imperial Guard, 1803-1814 (Chicago, 1893), pp. 256-57.
Jean-Baptiste-Antoine-Marcellin de Marbot, The Memoirs of Baron de Marbot, translated by Arthur John Butler, Vol. II (London, 1892), pp. 402-403.
Parquin, Napoleon’s Victories., pp. 259-260.
Marbot, The Memoirs of Baron de Marbot, pp. 413-414.
Marbot, The Memoirs of Baron de Marbot, p. 411.
Parquin, Napoleon’s Victories, p. 261.
Marbot, The Memoirs of Baron de Marbot, pp. 411-413.
Saint-Chamans, Mémoires du Général Cte. De Saint-Chamans, p. 242.

In 1818, British obstetrician James Blundell performed the first human-to-human blood transfusion. Although the patient died, Blundell’s transfusion experiments, and his certainty that human patients required human blood, led to advances in transfusion medicine that continue into the present. Here’s a bit of blood transfusion history. There’s even a Bonaparte connection.

A 19th-century blood transfusion. Source: Wellcome Collection

Precursors to blood transfusion

Medea…took her unsheathed knife and cut the old man’s throat. Then, letting all his old blood out of him, she filled his ancient veins with rich elixir. As he received it through his lips or wound, his beard and hair no longer white with age, turned quickly to their natural vigor, dark and lustrous; and his wasted form renewed, appeared in all the vigor of bright youth, no longer lean and sallow, for new blood coursed in his well-filled veins. – Ovid (1)

Although the idea of reviving someone by injecting blood into their veins goes back to the ancients, the first successful blood transfusion was not performed until the 17th century. The story that Pope Innocent VIII was transfused on his deathbed in 1492 with the blood of three young boys is a myth. (2) It required English physician William Harvey’s discovery of how blood circulates continuously throughout the body – announced in 1616 and published in 1628 – to make blood transfusion a serious prospect. Prior to Harvey’s discovery, physicians generally believed that the veins were separate from the arteries, and that venous blood originated in the liver, while arterial blood flowed from the heart.

First successful blood transfusion

An early blood transfusion from lamb to man, by Matthäus Gottfried Purmann. Source: Wellcome Collection

The first fully documented successful blood transfusion was performed by English physician Richard Lower in February 1665, between two dogs. Lower noted:

The most probable use of this experiment may be conjectured to be that one animal may live with the blood of another; and consequently, that those animals, that want blood, or have corrupt blood, may be supplied from others with a sufficient quantity, and of such as is good, provided the transfusion be often repeated, by reason of the quick expense that is made of the blood. (3)

This led to another successful dog-to-dog transfusion in 1666 at the Royal Society in London. On November 14, diarist Samuel Pepys wrote:

Dr. Croone told me that, at the meeting at Gresham College tonight…there was a pretty experiment, of the blood of one dog let out (till he died) into the body of another on one side, while all his own run out on the other side. The first died upon the place, and the other very well and likely to do well. This did give occasion to many pretty wishes, as of the blood of a Quaker to be let into an Archbishop, and such like. But, as Dr. Croone says, may if it takes be of mighty use to man’s health, for the amending of bad blood by borrowing from a better body. (4)

When reports of the English experiments reached Paris, French scientists began their own transfusion trials. The first successful human blood transfusion was performed in France on June 15, 1667. Jean-Baptiste Denis, a physician to King Louis XIV, transfused blood from the carotid artery of a lamb into the vein of a 15 or 16-year-old boy, who had suffered for a fever for many months and had been bled by his physicians 20 times, thus falling into “great debility and drowsiness.” (5) The boy survived the transfusion, thanks probably to the small amount of blood that he was actually given. A few days later Denis transfused sheep’s blood into a 45-year-old labourer, who also survived.

Learning of Denis’ success, Lower decided to try his luck on a human. He hired Arthur Coga, an educated man whose brain was “a little too warm,” to be the recipient of some lamb’s blood. Pepys noted in his diary:

[T]hey discourse of a man that is a little frantic (that hath been a kind of minister, Dr. Wilkins saying that he hath read for him in his church) that is a poor and debauched man, that the College have hired for 20 [shillings] to have some of the blood of sheep let into his body…. They propose to let in about twelve ounces, which they compute which is what will be let in in a minute’s time by a watch. They differ in the opinion they have of the effects of it; some think it may have a good effect on him as a frantic man by cooling his blood; others that it will not have any effect at all. (6)

The transfusion took place on November 23, 1667, “in the presence of many considerable and intelligent persons.” One week later, Pepys reported:

I was pleased to see the person who had his blood taken out. He speaks well, and this day gave the Society a relation thereof in Latin, saying that he finds himself much better since, and as a new man. But he is cracked a little in the head, though he speaks very reasonably and very well. He…is to have the same again tried upon him – the first sound man that ever had it tried upon him in England…. (7)

Coga, who reportedly spent his 20 shillings on alcohol, demanded the same amount for his second transfusion. This took place successfully on December 12, 1667, before a large crowd. Coga declined a third transfusion.

Transfusion prohibited

In France, Denis continued his experiments less successfully. Swedish nobleman Gustaf Bonde died after a second transfusion of calf’s blood. A 34-year-old house servant named Antoine Mauroy survived a first transfusion of calf’s blood, but developed a hemolytic reaction after a second transfusion. He died during a third transfusion on December 19, 1667. Mauroy’s wife accused Denis of killing her husband. When Denis brought the case to court in self-defence, he was cleared of wrongdoing. However, the case resulted in blood transfusion being prohibited by law in France in 1678. The Royal Society in London also abolished the practice and the Pope banned it. As a result, there was little further experimentation with transfusion until the early 19th century.

First human-to-human transfusion

A blood transfusion using James Blundell’s “gravitator.” Source: Wellcome Collection

In the early 1800s, British obstetrician James Blundell thought that transfusion would be of practical use in cases of hemorrhage after childbirth and other situations involving considerable blood loss. He began experimenting with transfusion on dogs, hoping to find “that the blood of animals may be safely thrown into the human vessels, in small quantities daily, for the purposes of nourishment, instead of the human blood, which it must be more difficult to procure.” However, he found that “if an animal be drained of the blood in its larger vessels and replenished with large quantities of blood derived indifferently from another genus, great danger, and in general death itself will ensue.” (8)

Blundell concluded that human blood was required for human transfusion. “[Blood] if taken indifferently from animals, and injected in large quantities, is fatal.” In addition, it was impractical to count on the availability of animal blood in an emergency.

A dog, it is true, might have come when you whistled, but the animal is small; a calf, or sheep, might, to some, have appeared fitter for the purpose; but, then, it had not been taught to walk properly up the stairs. (9)

Blundell acknowledged that there would be “considerable difficulty in obtaining arterial blood from the human body for the purposes of transfusion; but persons may be induced occasionally, sometimes from motives of affection, and sometimes for hire, to submit to the opening of an artery.” (10)

On September 26, 1818, at Guy’s Hospital in London, Blundell attempted the first documented human-to-human blood transfusion. The recipient was a man named Brazier, between 30 and 40 years old, who was suffering from a tumor in his stomach and had lost a considerable amount of blood. The donors were drawn from among the three physicians, five surgeons and other gentlemen in attendance. An ounce and a half of blood was taken by syringe and immediately injected into Brazier’s vein. The procedure was repeated 10 times during the course of 30-40 minutes. At the first the patient showed signs of improvement, but then he declined. Brazier died on the third day after his transfusion.

Blundell subsequently transfused five other patients, all of whom died. The indications for transfusion included postpartum hemorrhage, extreme malnutrition, puerperal fever, a ruptured uterus, and hydrophobia. Since each patient was critically ill, it is impossible to know whether the transfusion contributed to their death.

Finally, on December 7, 1828, Blundell completed his first unquestionably successful blood transfusion at Walworth, south of London. The patient, “a delicate woman,” age 25 and the mother of two children, was suffering from postpartum hemorrhage after delivering her third child. One of the physicians present, a Mr. Davies, was the donor. About eight ounces of blood was injected over a three-hour period. Afterwards, the woman said she felt as if “life was being infused into her whole body.” (11)

A risky procedure

Blundell continued to perform transfusions, acknowledging the risks. In 1829 he wrote:

States of the body really requiring the infusion of blood into the veins are probably rare; yet we sometimes meet with cases in which the patient must die unless such operation can be performed; and still more frequently with cases which seem to require a supply of blood, in order to prevent the ill health which usually arises from large losses of the vital fluid, even when they do not prove fatal.

In the present state of our knowledge respecting the operation, although it has not been clearly shown to have proved fatal in any one instance…it seems right, as the operation now stands, to confine transfusion to the first class of cases only, namely, those in which there seems to be no hope for the patient, unless blood can be thrown into the veins. (12)

Other practitioners also performed transfusions. The typical indication was pre- or post-partum hemorrhage, with a male donor, often the patient’s husband or other family member, providing blood. Blundell preferred men to women as donors, “as they bleed more freely and are less liable to faint.” (13)

There was so much news about transfusion that in April 1831, Napoleon’s brother Joseph Bonaparte, who was living in New Jersey, wrote to the editor of Le Courrier des États-Unis:

I have just returned from Philadelphia where I saw many of your subscribers. In general they think you have too many articles about science and even literature at a time when they are avid for political news…. [The dispatches of your Parisian correspondent] excite more interest than your articles on Blood Transfusion, which scare your readers. I am not speaking for myself, because I am interested in those articles. (14)

Sadly, Joseph’s daughter Charlotte died of hemorrhage after childbirth in 1839. She did not receive a transfusion.

The search for blood substitutes

Transfusion of goat’s blood into a woman, by Jules Adler, 1892
Source: Collection BIU Santé Médicine

The complications of transfusion and difficulties in obtaining blood led to a search for safer and more readily available substitutes.

During a cholera epidemic in Toronto in 1854, Drs. Edwin Hodder and James Bovell tried transfusing cow’s milk. According to Hodder:

I began to reflect, and to ask myself, What is the nearest analogue of the blood? and milk came to my mind… I found that Donné had inject it into the veins of dogs, rabbits, and bird, that it did not kill them, but, on the contrary, he, with Wagner, Gulliver, and others, were of opinion that the white corpuscles of the milk were capable of being transformed into red blood-corpuscles.” When he tried it on a man suffering from cholera, “The effect was magical…the vomiting and purging ceased, the pulse returned at the wrist…the man rallied, and speedily recovered without a bad symptom. (15)

Saline – first infused intravenously by Dr. Thomas Latta for the treatment of cholera in 1832 – became another popular blood substitute in the latter part of the 19th century. Its infusion was observed to be safer than, and frequently as effective as, blood transfusion.

One 19th-century analysis found that in 243 cases in which transfusion was performed for acute or chronic anemia prior to 1873, 143 (46.9%) resulted in complete recovery; 34 (14%) resulted in temporary benefit, but failed to save life; and 95 (39.1%) had no beneficial result. The operation was “almost invariably…resorted to in desperate cases.” In the vast majority of failures, death could not be ascribed directly or indirectly to the operation, but was due to other causes. In 113 of the cases, the operation was performed on account of hemorrhage during or immediately after childbirth. Of these, 67 cases ended in complete recovery, 7 showed only a temporary improvement, while 39 terminated in death, without any sign of previous improvement. (16)

After 1875, transfusion became used for a wider range of indications, and the number of severe adverse reactions and fatalities increased. Also, although it was evident that transfusions within the same species were more effective than transfusions between different species, animal-to-human transfusions continued to be performed until at least 1890.

Transfusion advances in the 20th century

In 1900, Austrian immunologist Karl Landsteiner discovered the ABO blood groups. He also found that transfusion between persons with different blood groups resulted in the destruction of red blood cells in the recipient. Based on Landsteiner’s findings, American hematologist Reuben Ottenberg performed the first successful ABO-matched human-to-human transfusion at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York.

In 1913, Richard Lewisohn, a German-American surgeon at Mount Sinai Hospital, used sodium citrate to prevent donated blood from clotting. This, combined with refrigeration, enabled blood to be collected and stored, rather than having to be donated at the time of the transfusion.

In 1937, Landsteiner and Alexander Wiener discovered the Rhesus (Rh) factor, another blood group system, which further increased the ability to match compatible donors with recipients and thus reduce adverse reactions.

Further advances, including the identification of more blood group systems, improvements in blood storage, the separation of plasma into therapeutic components, infectious disease testing, and improved screening of blood donors, continued throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, making transfusion therapy safe, effective and widely available.

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Charlotte Bonaparte: Napoleon’s Artistic Niece

Brookes More, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Vol. I (Francestown, NH, 1978), p. 249.
A. Lindeboom, “The Story of a Blood Transfusion to a Pope,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Vol. IX, No. 4 (October 1954), pp. 455-459; A. Matthew Gottlieb, “History of the First Blood Transfusion but a Fable Agreed Upon: The Transfusion of Blood to a Pope,” Transfusion Medicine Reviews, Vol. V, No. 3 (July 1991), pp. 228-235.
Charles Hutton, George Shaw, Richard Pearson, The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, From Their Commencement, in 1665, to the Year 1800, Vol. I (London, 1809), p. 131.
Robert Latham, ed., The Shorter Pepys (London, 1985), p. 692.
“Lettre écrite à Monsieur l’Abbé Bourdelot…Par Gaspard de Gurye Ecuier Sieur de Montpolly…Sur la Transfusion du Sang, Contenant des Raisons & des Experiences pour & contre,” September 16, 1667, p. 8
Latham, The Shorter Pepys, pp. 849-850.
Ibid., pp. 851-852.
James Blundell, Researches Physiological and Pathological; Instituted Principally With a View to the Improvement of Medical and Surgical Practice (London, 1824), pp. 81-82.
James Blundell, “Lectures on the Theory and Practice of Midwifery,” The Lancet, 1827-28, Vol. I (London, 1828), p. 677.
Blundell, Researches Physiological and Pathological, p. 116.
The London Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. I (London, 1828), p. 173.
James Blundell, “Observations on the Transfusion of Blood,” The Lancet, 1828-29, Vol. II (London, 1829), p. 321.
Blundell, Researches Physiological and Pathological, p. 123.
Georges Bertin, Joseph Bonaparte en Amérique: 1815-1832 (Paris, 1893), p. 356.
Edward M. Hodder, “Transfusion of Milk in Cholera,” The Retrospect of Medicine: Being a Half-Yearly Journal, Vol. 67 (London, 1873), pp. 15-16.
Charles Egerton Jennings, Transfusion: Its History, Indications, and Modes of Application (London, 1883), pp. 19-20.

Notwithstanding the unflattering caricatures, mocking songs, and other portrayals of Napoleon Bonaparte as the number one enemy of England, the French Emperor had British sympathizers during the Napoleonic Wars. They were primarily liberal Whigs, who opposed the ruling Tory Party, criticized the absolute monarchs of Europe, and did not want the Bourbons restored to power in France. Here is a look at some of the most prominent supporters of Napoleon in England.

Introduction of Citizen Volpone & His Suite at Paris, by James Gillray, 1802. Caricature of Napoleon receiving Charles James Fox and his wife, as well as Lord and Lady Holland.

Charles James Fox

Whig politician Charles James Fox initially disapproved of the coup that brought Napoleon to power in November 1799. Less than nine months later, however, Fox wrote to a friend that he had “entirely forgiven [Napoleon] and am willing to think him one of the best as I am sure he is the greatest of men…. He certainly has surpassed, in my judgment, Alexander & Caesar, not to mention the great advantage he has over them in the cause he fights in.” (1)

After Britain signed the Treaty of Amiens with France in 1802, Fox went to Paris and met with Napoleon. In November of that year, Fox stated that Napoleon “will do everything that he can to avoid war.” In December, he wrote, “I am obstinate in my opinion that Bonaparte’s wish is for peace – nay, that he is afraid of war to the last degree.” (2) For such sentiments Fox was portrayed in the newspapers and the House of Commons as an “apologist of France” and an “agent of the First Consul.” (3)

In March 1803, Fox wrote that if war between Britain and France were to resume – which it did, two months later – “it is entirely the fault of [our] ministers, and not of Bonaparte.” (4) Fox continued to believe in Napoleon’s peaceful intentions. When he became British Foreign Secretary in February 1806, he entered into peace talks with Napoleon’s foreign minister, Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand. Fox was soon dispelled of his illusions. By August, he admitted, “In the present disposition of the French government, there is, I fear, little probability that peace can be concluded on such terms as are alone admissible.” (5) One of his contemporaries wrote, “Charley Fox eats his former opinions daily and even ostentatiously, showing himself the worse man.” (6)

Charles James Fox died shortly thereafter, on September 13, 1806.

Lord and Lady Holland

Bust of Napoleon in the garden at Holland House

Fox’s enthusiasm for Napoleon was equaled by that of his nephew Henry, and especially Henry’s wife Elizabeth Vassall-Fox, otherwise known as Lord and Lady Holland. Lord Holland was a Whig politician who served as Lord Privy Seal in 1806-1807. Lady Holland was a wealthy heiress who married Holland in 1797, two days after her first husband divorced her on grounds of adultery. Together they hosted elite political and literary gatherings at Holland House, their mansion in Kensington, which was then just outside of London.

The Hollands met Napoleon and his first wife Josephine in Paris in September 1802. Lady Holland wrote to her sister-in-law Caroline Fox:

I was presented last Sunday to the Consul and Madame; they were both very gracious. Her figure and tournure are perfect; her taste in dress exquisite, but her face! ghastly, deep furrows on each side of her mouth, fallen-in cheeks, shocking, disgusting, a worn-out hag, prematurely gone, as she is not above forty years old. His head is out of proportion, being too large for his figure. It is well shaped; his ears are very neatly shaped and small, his teeth fine. The gracious smile he puts on is not in unison with the character of the upper part of his face; that is penetrating and severe and unbending. (7)

In 1814, during Napoleon’s exile on Elba, Lady Holland visited the “fatal room” at the Palace of Fontainebleau where Napoleon had signed his abdication. “Alas! Alas!” she wrote. “Why did he go to Russia and why was he so headstrong?” (8)

Lady Holland persuaded Colonel Neil Campbell, the British commissioner on Elba, to take some English newspapers to Napoleon. One of these contained a paragraph reporting that the allies were considering moving Napoleon to St. Helena. This may have been a factor in leading Napoleon to plot his departure from Elba. While in Italy, the Hollands visited Napoleon’s brother Lucien Bonaparte. They also commissioned a bronze bust of Napoleon from sculptor Antonio Canova, to be placed in the garden at Holland House. In Naples (where the Hollands heard of Napoleon’s escape from Elba), they were entertained by Napoleon’s sister Caroline and her husband Joachim Murat. In June 1815, the Hollands were in Germany when they learned that Napoleon had been defeated at the Battle of Waterloo. They visited the battlefield on their way back to England.

In July 1815, Countess Granville arrived at Holland House to find Lady Holland “seated on the grass…very cross and absurd about Buonaparte, ‘poor dear man,’ as she calls him.” (9) Dining at Holland House later that year, Countess Granville noted of her hosts that “[t]heir politics seem to be reduced to adoration of Buonaparte.” (10)

The Hollands were particularly upset by the British decision to exile Napoleon to St. Helena. In April 1816, Lord Holland entered a protest in the House of Lords against the bill on Napoleon’s detention.

To consign to distant exile and imprisonment a foreign and captive chief, who, after the abdication of his authority, relying on British generosity, had surrendered himself to us, in preference to his other enemies, is unworthy the magnanimity of a great country, and the treaties by which, after his captivity, we bound ourselves to detain him in custody at the will of sovereigns to whom he had never surrendered himself, appear to me repugnant to the principles of equity, and utterly uncalled for by expedience or necessity. (11)

As detailed by John Tyrrell on his Reflections on A Journey to St. Helena blog, the Hollands tried to influence Sir Hudson Lowe, the newly-appointed governor of St. Helena, to treat Napoleon with leniency. In March 1817, Lord Holland made a motion in the House of Lords regarding the treatment of Napoleon at St. Helena, “to rescue the character of parliament, of the Crown, and of the country, from the stain which must attach to it if any harsh or ungenerous treatment had been resorted to.” (12) Lady Holland regularly sent Napoleon gifts on St. Helena, including food, eau de Cologne, an ice machine, and over 1,000 books and periodicals.

As a token of esteem, Napoleon in his will bequeathed to Lady Holland a gold snuffbox that Pope Pius VI had given him. It was delivered to her by Generals Henri Bertrand and Charles de Montholon. Lord Carlisle urged Lady Holland to throw the snuffbox into the River Thames.

LADY, reject the gift! ‘tis tinged with gore!
Those crimson spots a dreadful tale relate:
It has been grasp’d by an infernal Power;
And by that hand, which seal’d young Enghien’s fate.

Lady, reject the gift: beneath its lid
Discord, and Slaughter, and relentless war,
With every plague to wretched man lie hid–
Let not these loose to range the world afar.…

The warning Muse no idle trifler deem;
Plunge the cursed mischief in wide Ocean’s flood;
Or give it to our own majestic stream –
The only stream he could not dye with blood. (13)

In a parody of Carlisle’s poem, Lord Byron urged Lady Holland to keep the gift.

Lady, accept the box a hero wore,
In spite of all this elegiac stuff;
Let not seven stanzas written by a bore,
Prevent Your Ladyship from taking snuff! (14)

In Napoleon in America, Lord and Lady Holland are among the guests at the party at which the Duke of Wellington learns of Napoleon’s (fictional) escape from St. Helena

Lord Byron

Romantic poet Lord Byron saw Napoleon as a heroic figure – filled with republican ideals, embodying talents of action, and illustrating human possibility. In many respects, he identified with the French general, presenting himself as “[t]he grand Napoleon of the realms of rhyme.” (15)

In February 1814, when Napoleon was battling the coalition armies advancing towards Paris, Byron recorded in his journal:

All seems against him; but I believe and hope he will win – at least, beat back the invaders. What right have we to prescribe sovereigns to France! (16)

Byron was dismayed when Napoleon decided to abdicate rather than fight to the death or take his own life. However, he was thrilled upon learning of Napoleon’s escape from Elba and return to France.

It is impossible not to be dazzled and overwhelmed by his character and career. Nothing ever so disappointed me as his abdication, and nothing could have reconciled me to him but some such revival as his recent exploit. (17)

When Napoleon abdicated for a second time, after his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, Byron was again crestfallen. Like a number of Whigs, he had pinned hopes for political reform in Britain on Napoleon’s continuing success against the absolute monarchs of Europe.

Every hope of a republic is over, and we must go on under the old system…. [T]he luck which Providence is pleased to lavish on Lord ** is only a proof of the little value the gods set upon prosperity, when they permit such **** as he and that drunken corporal, old Blucher, to bully their betters. (18)

Between 1814 and 1816, Byron wrote five poems about Napoleon: “Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte”; “Napoleon’s Farewell”; “From the French”; “On the Star of ‘The Legion of Honour (From the French)’”; and “Ode (From the French).” While the first is critical of Napoleon, the others laud him.

In 1821, when Byron’s friend Thomas Medwin told him that he could not reconcile the contradictory opinions Byron had expressed of Napoleon in his poems, Lord Byron responded:

How could it be otherwise? Some of them were called translations, and I spoke in the character of a Frenchman and a soldier. But Napoleon was his own antithesis…. He was a glorious tyrant, after all. Look at his public works; compare his face, even on his coins, with those of the other sovereigns of Europe. I blame the manner of his death; he shewed that he possessed much of the Italian character in consenting to live. There he lost himself in his dramatic character, in my estimation. He was master of his own destiny; of that, at least his enemies could not deprive him. He should have gone off the stage like a hero: it was expected of him. (19)

When Napoleon’s widow Marie Louise appeared on the Duke of Wellington’s arm during the Congress of Verona in 1822, Byron expressed his disapproval.

William Hazlitt

Writer William Hazlitt admired Napoleon’s “infinite activity of mind” and called him “the greatest man in modern history.” (20) Like Byron, Hazlitt saw Napoleon as a romantic man of action and regarded his triumphs as victories for liberty and reform. Regarding Napoleon’s escape from Elba and return to France in 1815, Hazlitt wrote:

[M]en listened with delight and wonder…to the unbarring and unbolting of those doors of despotism which they thought had been closed on them forever. All that was human rejoiced; the tyrant and the slave shrunk back aghast, as the clash of arms was drowned in the shout of the multitude…. Therefore Buonaparte seemed from his first landing to bestride the country like a Colossus, for in him rose up once more the prostrate might and majesty of man; and the Bourbons, like toads or spiders, got out of the way of the huge shadow of the Child Roland of the Revolution. (21)

In 1815, a gentleman meeting Hazlitt for the first time found him “staggering under the blow of Waterloo” and resentful of the captivity of Napoleon on St. Helena “as if he had sustained a personal wrong.” (22) A friend wrote:

[I]t is not to be believed how the destruction of Napoleon affected [Hazlitt]; he seemed prostrated in mind and body; he walked about, unwashed, unshaved, hardly sober by day, and always intoxicated by night, literally, without exaggeration for weeks. (23)

Hazlitt’s obsession with writing a massive biography of Napoleon (The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, four volumes, 1828-1830) contributed to the end of his second marriage.

John Cam Hobhouse

Politician and diarist John Cam Hobhouse shared his friend Lord Byron’s sympathy for Napoleon and dislike of the Bourbon dynasty. When Napoleon escaped from Elba and returned to France in 1815, Hobhouse hurried to Paris and chronicled events there until the defeat of this “extraordinary mortal” and the restoration of Louis XVIII to power. He noted “the injustice and impolicy of bearing back the Bourbons in triumph, over the trampled necks of Frenchmen.” (24)

Hobhouse’s reflections were published anonymously in 1816 as a two-volume series of letters in which the author attempted “to disabuse his fellow countrymen on the subject of the return and last reign of the Emperor Napoleon.” (25) The book met with criticism in England.

In the restorers of Buonaparte’s government [the author] sees nothing but pure patriotism and enlightened humanity – in Buonaparte himself he sees, and he alone, that grandeur of soul, and those regulated dispositions, which offered to France the surest pledge of political freedom under a mixed monarchical sway. In Paris he sees engaged under what he calls the last reign of the Emperor Napoleon, in the great work of political regeneration, an august body of senators, bred in the school of the revolution, and perfected for their great undertaking by the lessons and example of Napoleon the great. What may be the standing in life of this ingenious writer we know not; but the probability is that he has never heard of the horrid transactions of the revolutionary period, but in company with the stories of giants and enchanters, and cruel uncles and step mothers, related to him in his nursery; and that all these tales of blood, whether recorded of Bluebeard or Buonaparte, are forgotten together, or if remembered are no longer a subject of terror, but appear in the bright and innocent colours of infantine associations….

After fighting for so many years against Jacobinism, and the child and champion of Jacobinism, against principles of universal conquest and military despotism, against a hate avowed towards this country exceeding the measure of common hostility, after a successful termination of this unparalleled struggle, the letter-writer takes it cruelly amiss that we should presume, with our conquering army at the gate of Paris, to assist in the restoration of that state of things which seemed most likely to accomplish the end for which we had been contending, – a satisfactory and secure peace, or, in other words, our existence as an independent nation. Instead of keeping at peace with Napoleon, of whose equitable views and magnanimous moderation we have had such decisive proofs; we have ‘blasted by one vast and unnatural effort the fairest promise of rational freedom that the imperfection of humanity could admit of being displayed in France, or any other country.’ (26)

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“A Morning Among Autographs,” Putnam’s Magazine, Vol. I (New York, 1868), p. 692.
John Russell, ed., Memorials and Correspondence of Charles James Fox, Vol. III, (London, 1854), pp. 384-385.
Ibid., p. 205.
Ibid., p. 404.
Papers Relative to the Negotiation with France, Presented by His Majesty’s Command to Both Houses of Parliament, 22 December, 1806 (London, 1807) p. 87.
Orlo Williams, Life and Letters of John Rickman (Boston, 1912), p. 141.
The Spectator (London), November 8, 1913, p. 17. The Spectator Archive, http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/8th-november-1913/17/napoleon-and-lady-holland. Accessed September 19, 2018.
Linda Kelly, Holland House: A History of London’s Most Celebrated Salon (London, 2013), p. 87.
Harriet Leveson Gower, ed., Letters of Harriet Countess Granville, Vol. I (London, 1894), p. 57.
Ibid., p. 80.
C. Moylan, ed., The Opinions of Lord Holland, as Recorded in the Journals of the House of Lords from 1797 to 1841 (London, 1841), pp. 86-87.
The Parliamentary Debates from the Year 1803 to the Present Time, Vol. 35 (London, 1817), p. 1138.
Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. XV (Edinburgh, January 1824), pp. 43-44.
Thomas Medwin, Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron: Noted During a Residence with His Lordship at Pisa (London, 1824), p. 235.
George Gordon Byron, The Works of Lord Byron: Complete in One Volume, edited by Thomas Moore (London, 1842), p. 716.
Thomas Moore, Letters and Journals of Lord Byron: with Notices of His Life (Paris, 1834), p. 170.
Ibid., p. 207.
Ibid., p. 212.
Medwin, Journal of the Conversations of Lord Byron, pp. 223-224.
R. Waller and Arnold Glover, eds., The Collected Works of William Hazlitt (London, 1902), p. 45.
William Hazlitt, The Life of Napoleon Buonaparte, Second Edition, Vol. IV (London, 1852), pp. 118-119.
Charles Lamb and Thomas Noon Talfourd, The Complete Works of Charles Lamb (Philadelphia, 1879), p. 308.
Tom Taylor, ed., Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon, Historical Painter, from his Autobiography and Journals, Vol. I (London, 1853) p. 279.
John Cam Hobhouse, The Substance of Some Letters Written by an Englishman Resident at Paris During the Last Reign of the Emperor Napoleon (London, 1816), Vol. I, p. 137; Vol. II, p. 154.
Ibid., Vol. I, p. xiii.
The British Review and London Critical Journal, Vol. VII, No. XIV (London, 1816) pp. 499-500.

The Battle of Borodino, fought on September 7, 1812, was the bloodiest single day of fighting in the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon had marched his Grande Armée into Russia in June of 1812. He hoped to quickly engage the Russian army, win a decisive victory, and force Tsar Alexander I to agree to his terms. However, the Russians kept retreating, setting fire to military stores, crops, and towns along the way. Napoleon had counted on his troops being able to forage for sustenance, but as they were drawn further into Russia, they became increasingly reliant on overstretched supply lines. By September, Napoleon – who had entered Russia with more than 400,000 soldiers, one-third of them French, the rest from French-occupied or allied territories – had lost a third of his men to starvation, straggling, desertion and disease.

The Battle of Borodino by Louis-François Lejeune, 1822

A morale advantage

At Borodino, a village 75 miles (120 km) west of Moscow, the Russians under General Mikhail Kutuzov established a defensive position near the Kolocha and Moskowa Rivers (thus the French called the engagement the Battle of the Moskowa). In the centre was a hill with a large earthwork fortification known as the Grand Redoubt, surmounted by cannons.

Louis-François Lejeune, an aide-de-camp to Napoleon’s Chief of Staff Marshal Berthier, wrote:

This strongly fortified position must have greatly encouraged the Russians; but what added yet more to their confidence, and gave them an immense moral[e] advantage over us, was the fact that they had plenty of provisions and fodder, and neither men nor horses had suffered from famine. Moreover, as they were always falling back upon their reserves, their numbers daily increased. Only twenty-six leagues from Moscow, they were sure of reinforcements and help of every kind, and their General, knowing the superstitious piety of his soldiers, took care to rouse their fanaticism by making the war appear to be one in defence of their religion. He had the image of a certain canonised bishop, which it was said had been miraculously rescued from the impious hands of the French, carried through the ranks with all the pomp due to some sacred relic. It excited the greatest enthusiasm wherever it appeared, and we could hear the shouts of joy with which its passage was greeted by the 160,000 Russians making up the army.

Very different were the sentiments of the French. Not nearly so numerous as the Russians, they were yet full of confidence in the genius of the great man commanding them, and thought of nothing but the joy of entering as conquerors the ancient city of the Czars, where their labours were to end and they were to reap the reward of all their toil. Imbued with this idea, they one and all donned their best uniforms to take part in the battle which was to be the crown of their glory. (1)

In fact, the French may have had a numerical advantage. Estimates of the number of Grande Armée troops at the Battle of Borodino range from 130,000 to 190,000, and the number of Russian troops from 120,000 to 160,000.

Bad news and a portrait

Napoleon, on the eve of the Battle of Borodino, presenting the portrait of the King of Rome, by Horace Vernet, 1813

Though Napoleon’s marshals urged him to swing south around the Russian flank, the French Emperor instead planned a series of frontal assaults on the Russian lines. On September 6, the day before the battle, Napoleon received bad news from Spain. Colonel Charles Fabvier, who appears in Napoleon in America, arrived at imperial headquarters with dispatches saying that British and Portuguese forces under the Duke of Wellington had defeated French forces at the Battle of Salamanca. Napoleon desperately needed a victory.

Napoleon II, the King of Rome, by François Gérard

Napoleon also received a letter from his wife, Marie Louise, with a portrait of their son, the King of Rome, who was 18 months old. Painted by François Gérard, the artwork showed the baby holding a cup-and-ball toy.

The ball might have been taken for the globe of the world and the cup-stick for a sceptre. Napoleon contemplated his son’s picture with an emotion which was increased by the recollection of the distance which separated him from France as well as by the preparations for a battle which he had long wished for, but the approach of which filled him with anxiety. He ordered one of his valets to carry the picture outside his tent and to hold it up high enough that the sentry of the guards might see it. This sight brought all the officers and soldiers who were in the neighbourhood running up. To satisfy the curiosity of the military crowd, which kept increasing, the Emperor ordered the portrait of the King of Rome to be placed on one of the folding chairs in his tent and left it standing all day in sight of the army. The sympathy and the sentiments of all these good soldiers ended by breaking out into a manifestation which deeply touched the Emperor. (2)

Napoleon didn’t sleep well. He was suffering from a migraine, a bad cold, swollen legs, and difficulties with urination. Early in the morning of September 7, his order of the day was read to the troops.

Soldiers! This is the battle that you have longed for. Victory now depends on you: it must be ours. It will bring us abundance, good winter quarters and a quick return home. Do as you did at Austerlitz, at Friedland, at Witepsk, at Smolensk; and may your conduct today be spoken of with pride by all generations to come. May it be said of you: He was at that great battle beneath the walls of Moscow! (3)

Vomiting forth death

French troops assaulting the Grand (Raevsky) Redoubt during the Battle of Borodino, by Louis-François Lejeune

At 6 a.m., upon a signal from Napoleon, the French artillery opened fire. The Russian batteries immediately responded in kind. Jakob Walter, a German conscript in the Grande Armée, likened the barrage to “thunderbolts…both against and from the enemy. The earth was trembling because of the cannon fire, and the rain of cannon balls crossed confusedly.” (4)

Surgeon Heinrich von Roos established himself and his aides in a small valley by a stream.

At first, I went closer to the terrible game, but the hissing of a few balls of respectable caliber above my head put a brake on my curiosity. Now they brought me officers and men: Saxons, Westphalians, French, Wurtembergers, in a jumble with the Russians. For the most part, it was cavalrymen with serious wounds or broken limbs. … In general, the French were quiet and patient; many…died before their turn came to be bandaged. In contrast, a Westphalian who had lost his right arm cursed Napoleon and regretted that he couldn’t take vengeance. (5)

The focus of the battle soon became the murderous struggle for the Grand Redoubt. The French took it. Then the Russians retook it.

The wounded who arrived recounted terrible scenes that had given place to repeated assaults on the redoubt; they spoke to us of the piles of corpses building up inside and around this entrenchment, of the tenacity with which they had attacked and defended, of the destruction already started on the parapets and the burial of corpses under the rejected earth. (6)

Napoleon was not at the front of his army. He was sitting in the rear, watching the battle through his telescope, his view obscured by clouds of smoke. Many of his generals urged him to send in the Imperial Guard. He refused. “If there’s a second battle tomorrow, with what shall I fight it?” (7)

French cuirassiers (armoured cavalry) charged the redoubt, followed by infantry under the command of Napoleon’s stepson Eugène de Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy. Eugène Labaume, an ordinance officer on the Viceroy’s staff, wrote:

The whole eminence, which overhung us, appeared in an instant a mass of moving iron: the glitter of the arms, and the rays of the sun, reflected from the helmets and cuirasses of the dragoons, mingled with the flames of the cannon that on every side vomited forth death, gave to the redoubt the appearance of a volcano in the midst of the army. (8)

By 4 p.m., the Grand Redoubt was in the Grande Armée’s possession. According to Lejeune:

In the struggle the wind, which was blowing strongly, raised clouds of dust, which mingled with the smoke from the guns was whirled up in dense masses, enveloping and almost suffocating men and horses. When at last the thick clouds, augmented every moment by the fury of the combat raging on every side, rolled away, we found that the column of Russian grenadiers had been driven back into the ravine, and that we were masters of the redoubt, where the artillerymen had been cut down at their guns. Thirty pieces of cannon also remained in our hands, the violence and rapidity of our cavalry charge having been such that the enemy had not had time to drag them away. Our victory had, however, been dearly bought, for [General Auguste-Jean-Gabriel de] Caulaincourt had been killed at the gorge of the redoubt, as he led the charge. (9)

Labaume observed:

The interior of the redoubt presented a horrid picture. The dead were heaped on one another. The feeble cries of the wounded were scarcely heard amid the surrounding tumult. Arms of every description were scattered over the field of battle. The parapets, half demolished, had their embrasures entirely destroyed. Their places were distinguished only by the cannon, the greatest part of which were dismounted and separated from the broken carriages. In the midst of this scene of carnage, I discovered the body of a Russian cannonier, decorated with three crosses. In one hand he held a broken sword, and with the other, firmly grasped the carriage of the gun at which he had so valiantly fought. All the Russian soldiers in the redoubt chose rather to perish than to yield. (10)

The surviving Russians retreated to the next ridge. Nightfall put an end to the fighting. Both sides were so exhausted that in several places firing ceased without orders having been given. Lejeune wrote:

The tents of the Emperor and of Major-General Prince Berthier were pitched on the verge of the battlefield, which in itself was doubtless a token of victory, but the enemy’s army was still within gunshot of us; the Russians, too, were rejoicing over a victory, and on our side the leaders were all making preparations for the resumption of the struggle the next day. The night was very dark, and gradually the fires on both sides, all too numerous, warned us what we might expect on the morrow.

Whilst waiting for the frugal repast which was to restore our exhausted forces, I jotted down notes of what I had seen during the day, and compared this battle with those of Wagram, Essling, Eylau, and Friedland. I was surprised that the Emperor had shown so little of the eager activity which had before so often ensured success. On the present occasion he had not mounted except to reach the battlefield, and had remained seated below his Guard on a sloping mound, from which he could see everything. Several balls had passed over his head. Whenever I returned from the numerous errands on which I was sent, I found him still seated in the same attitude, following every movement with the aid of his pocket field-glass, and giving his orders with imperturbable composure. But we did not see him now, as so often before, galloping from point to point, and with his presence inspiring our troops wherever the struggle was prolonged and the issue seemed doubtful. We all agreed in wondering what had become of the eager, active commander of Marengo. Austerlitz, and elsewhere.

We none of us knew that Napoleon was ill and suffering, quite unable to take a personal part in the great drama unfolded before his eyes, the sole aim of which was to add to his glory. In this terrible drama had been engaged Tartars from the confines of Asia, with the elite of the troops of some hundred European nations, for from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south, men had flocked to fight with desperate courage for or against Napoleon. The blood of some 80,000 Russians and Frenchmen had been shed to consolidate or to overturn his power, and he looked on with an appearance of absolute sang-froid at the awful vicissitudes of the terrible tragedy. We were all anything but satisfied with the way in which our leader had behaved, and passed very severe strictures on his conduct. (11)

Results incommensurate with losses

Detail of the panorama by Jean-Charles Langlois of the Battle of Borodino

During the night, the Russians stole away. Labaume and others returned to the battlefield early the next day.

As we passed over the ground which they had occupied, we were enabled to judge of the immense loss that the Russians had sustained. In the space of a square league, almost every spot was covered with the killed or wounded. On many places the bursting of the shells had promiscuously heaped together men and horses. The fire of our howitzers had been so destructive that mountains of dead bodies were scattered over the plain; and the few places that were not encumbered with the slain, were covered with broken lances, muskets, helmets, and cuirasses, or with grape-shot and bullets, as numerous as hailstones after a violent storm. But the most horrid spectacle was the interior of the ravines; almost all the wounded who were able to drag themselves along, had taken refuge there to avoid the shot. These miserable wretches, heaped one upon another, and almost suffocated with blood, uttering the most dreadful groans, and invoking death with piercing cries, eagerly besought us to put an end to their torments. (12)

The Russians lost an estimated 40,000-45,000 dead, wounded, or captured, and the French an estimated 28,000-35,000. Some claim there were as many as 100,000 casualties at the Battle of Borodino. Lejeune remarked:

The terrible struggle, so hotly contested, had won no results at all commensurate with the great losses sustained on both sides. The French had to mourn two generals of division, Montbrun and Caulaincourt, and eight other generals killed, thirty-eight generals wounded, ten colonels killed, and some 40,000 men killed or wounded. The Russians had lost sixty pieces of cannon, and had had thirty-five generals killed, wounded, or taken prisoners, with 45,000 men killed or disabled, and 5,000 taken prisoners.

After all our fatigues the pursuit was slack, and the Russians retired in perhaps even more admirable order than on the day preceding the battle. For several leagues their route was dotted with the wooden crosses they had hastily set up over the graves of the wounded officers who had died by the way. …

Nothing could have been more melancholy than the appearance of the battlefield covered with groups occupied in carrying away the thousands of wounded, and in taking from the dead the few provisions remaining in their haversacks. Some of the wounded dragged themselves towards Kolotskoy, where Baron Larrey had set up an ambulance, whilst others were carried thither by their comrades in one way or another. Very soon an immense number were waiting attention, but, alas! everything needed for them was wanting, and hundreds perished of hunger, envying the happier lot of those who had been killed on the spot. (13)

Roos commented on a young Russian who rose from the corpses.

Whether the first rays of the sunlight had called him to life, or whether he was awakened by the numerous comings and goings around him, he suddenly sat up amid the dead, rubbed his eyes, and got slowly to this feet. Then he took a circular look around him in astonishment and walked away in a direction where there were few of us. No one who saw him thought to stop him. (14)

Jakob Walter wrote:

Although this terrible sight looked like a kingdom of the dead, the people had nevertheless become so indifferent to their feelings that they all ran numbly like shades of death away from the piteous crying. (15)

To Moscow and back

Although Borodino was a French victory, it was a Pyrrhic one. According to Armand de Caulaincourt, Napoleon’s Master of the Horse and brother of the slain general:

The Emperor went into the town towards noon [on September 8^th]. He was very much preoccupied, for affairs in Spain were weighing him down just when those in Russia, despite this victorious battle, were far from satisfactory. The state of the various corps which he had seen was deplorable. All were sadly reduced in strength. His victory had cost him dear. When he had come to a halt on the previous evening, he had felt convinced that this bloody battle, fought with an enemy who had abandoned nothing in their retreat, would have no result beyond allowing him to gain further ground. The prospect of entering Moscow still enticed him, however; but even that success would be inconclusive so long as the Russian army remained unbroken. Everyone noticed that the Emperor was very thoughtful and worried, although he frequently repeated: ‘Peace lies in Moscow.’ (16)

The French entered Moscow on September 14, only to find the city largely abandoned. That night, fires broke out and raged for three days, destroying most of Moscow. Lacking supplies and with winter approaching, Napoleon began his long and costly retreat from Russia on October 19. As the remnants of the Grande Armée passed the field of Borodino almost two months after the battle, they came upon a horrible sight.

There lay stretched before us a plain trampled, bare, and devastated, all the trees cut down within a few feet from the surface, and farther off craggy hills, the highest of which appeared misshapen, and bore a striking resemblance to an extinguished volcano. The ground around us was everywhere covered with fragments of helmets and cuirasses, with broken drums, gun-stocks, tatters of uniforms, and standards dyed with blood.

On this desolate spot lay thirty thousand half-devoured corpses; while a pile of skeletons on the summit of one of the hills overlooked the whole. It seems as though death had here fixed his throne. (17)

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Louis-François Lejeune, Memoirs of Baron Lejeune, translated by Mrs. Arthur Bell, Vol. II (London, 1897), pp. 177-178.
Claude-François de Méneval, Memoirs Illustrating the History of Napoleon I From 1802 to 1815, Vol. III (New York, 1894), pp. 52-53.
Armand de Caulaincourt, With Napoleon in Russia (New York, 1935), p. 96.
Jakob Walter, A German Conscript With Napoleon: Jakob Walter’s Recollections of the Campaigns of 1806-1807, 1809, and 1812-1813, according to a manuscript found at Lecompton, Kansas, edited and translated by Otto Springer (Lawrence KS, 1938), p. 39.
Henri de Roos (Heinrich von Roos), Avec Napoléon en Russie (Paris, 1913), pp. 80-82.
Ibid., p. 84.
Méneval, Memoirs Illustrating the History of Napoleon I From 1802 to 1815, Vol. III, p. 53.
Eugène Labaume, A Circumstantial Narrative of the Campaign in Russia (Hartford, 1817), p. 124.
Lejeune, Memoirs of Baron Lejeune, pp. 182-183.
Labaume, A Circumstantial Narrative of the Campaign in Russia, pp. 125-126.
Lejeune, Memoirs of Baron Lejeune, pp. 186-187.
Labaume, A Circumstantial Narrative of the Campaign in Russia, pp. 131-132.
Lejeune, Memoirs of Baron Lejeune, pp. 188-190.
Roos, Avec Napoléon en Russie, p. 88.
Walter, A German Conscript With Napoleon, p. 41.
Caulaincourt, With Napoleon in Russia, pp. 104-105.
Philippe de Ségur, History of the Expedition to Russia Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812, Vol. II (New York, 1872), p. 119.

Joseph Bonaparte, King of Spain and the Indies, by François Gérard, 1808

When Joseph Bonaparte was King of Spain, he was also, by default, the ruler of Mexico, or New Spain as it was called at the time. The Mexicans didn’t like him. Did they then offer Joseph a crown when he was in exile in the United States and they were seeking independence from Spain?

Joseph Bonaparte and the Spanish throne

In 1808, Napoleon imprisoned the Bourbon rulers of Spain, Ferdinand VII and his father Charles IV, and forced them to renounce all claims to the Spanish throne. Napoleon then appointed his older brother Joseph Bonaparte as King of Spain. Although Spanish bureaucrats recognized the new monarch, the people of Spain rebelled against Joseph and the French occupation, resulting in the Peninsular War.

Joseph’s full title was King of Spain and the Indies, the “Indies” being Spain’s overseas territories, including its colonies in the Americas. When news of the imprisonment of the Spanish monarch and the French invasion of Spain reached New Spain (Mexico), the colony’s leaders refused to recognize Joseph as king. They instead adhered to the junta, eventually based in Cádiz, which maintained a rebel government in the name of Ferdinand VII.

The Peninsular War continued until 1814, during which time many native-born Spanish Americans took advantage of the chaos in the mother country to begin the quest for self-government. Mexico’s war of independence started in 1810. Neither side in the struggle displayed any love for Joseph Bonaparte, who was regarded as Napoleon’s puppet. The royalists remained loyal to Ferdinand VII, and the patriots (those seeking independence) wanted separation from Spain regardless of whether it was ruled by the Bourbons or the Bonapartes.

In 1813, Joseph abdicated the Spanish throne and returned to France after being defeated by troops led by the Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Vitoria. In 1815, after Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, Joseph fled to the United States. He settled in the Philadelphia area, splitting his time between that city and his estate called Point Breeze in Bordentown, New Jersey. A number of Napoleonic officers wound up in the United States, seeking to avoid persecution by the government of King Louis XVIII. These included Charles Lallemand and his brother Henri, Charles Lefebvre-Desnouettes, Antoine Rigaud, Emmanuel de Grouchy and Bertrand Clausel. They congregated in Philadelphia, where they socialized with each other, and with Joseph.

Rumours of Joseph Bonaparte and the Mexican throne

In the summer of 1816, there were several newspaper reports about conversations regarding Joseph Bonaparte and the throne of Mexico. In an item datelined France, July 24, 1816, the Baltimore paper Niles’ Weekly Register reported private communications as follows.

It is said that the unambitious character of Joseph, ex-king of Spain and the Indies, has been powerfully worked upon by a numerous body of generals, who regained their fame under Bonaparte, and who having fled to America for refuge, are uneasy at the state of inaction to which they have been reduced. These persons, we are told, have urged Joseph to resume his pretensions as king of the Indies, and have offered to unite their means with those of the Insurgents of Mexico, to drive the Spaniards from their colonies, and to establish a mighty empire on the shores of the Pacific. We are further informed, that nothing has prevented the immediate engagement in this enterprise, but the refusal, on the part of the government of the United States, to undertake any ostensible co-operation. (1)

The editor considered the story as “manufactured” – in other words, fake news. On August 26, the Morning Chronicle, a London paper, reported:

[W]e speak from creditable authority when we state that communications have taken place between the leading patriots and the military adherents at present with Joseph Bonaparte. That personage, it is to be recollected, was regularly crowned at Madrid King of the Indies. The commissions of many of the Captain-Generals in South America bear his signature, while the very circumstance of his being a foreigner, would probably have the effect of healing those intestine divisions that have too long existed between its various classes, as well of those who claim ascendancy from the commixture of European blood, as of the others, who feel degraded by such an unjustifiable, though, according to the Bourbon version, legitimate ground of superiority. In the revolutions of empires, nothing has disturbed the speculations of the philosophical politician more frequently than the apparent inadequacy of causes to the important events that have followed. Let us not be surprised to learn that the victims of Bourbon persecution in France have torn from the Spanish branch of Bourbon the Sovereignty of the Indies. (2)

On September 5, the Cheltenham Chronicle provided this clarification:

Communications have taken place between the leading patriots of Mexico and the military adherents at present with Joseph Bonaparte in the United States; which have given rise, at Paris, to a report of Joseph being called to the throne of Mexico. … The success of Humbert and his companions, who are represented as the leaders of a numerous army in Spanish America, produces a general wish in the French officers on half pay to emigrate to that country. The editors of all the French papers have in consequence received orders to make no further insertions relating to the events in South America. (3)

A newspaper report that Joseph had been offered a Spanish American throne reached Napoleon in exile on St. Helena. He commented:

Joseph, although he has beaucoup de talent, et d’esprit, is too good a man, and too fond of amusement and literature to be a king. However, it would be of great [commercial] advantage to England…. Joseph would not, and indeed could not trade with either France or Spain…and South America cannot do without importing immense quantities of European goods. (4)

Charles Montholon – not the most reliable of memoirists – later wrote that in July 1816, Joseph wrote to Napoleon asking for his advice on the position he should take in response to offers made to him from various Spanish American states. (5)

The Lakanal papers

In 1817, more substantial evidence surfaced of a plot to make Joseph king of Mexico. While visiting Philadelphia in late August, France’s ambassador to the United States, Jean-Guillaume Hyde de Neuville, came into possession of a package of documents addressed to “Monsieur le Comte de Survilliers, pour lui seul.” The Count of Survilliers was the title Joseph Bonaparte had adopted in the United States. The package was sealed with the insignia of the National Convention, the first government of the French Revolution. Surrounding the insignia were the words “Lakanal, Deputy to the National Convention.” Within the package were six documents, all in the same handwriting:

1) A four-page covering letter, headed “Ultimatum,” which, among other things, implied that the author had been in communication with Joseph Bonaparte before.

2) A 23-page “Report,” addressed to “His Majesty, the King of Spain and the Indies, by his Faithful Subjects, the Citizens composing the Napoleonean Confederation.” This laid out a plan to arm and equip 900 men as “flankers of the Independent Troops of Mexico.” One hundred and fifty men had already signed up; the remaining 750 would be recruited from “the Missouri Territory, the Illinois Territory, the District of Columbia, the Michigan Territory, Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio.” The new recruits would not be told the ultimate object of the enterprise, which was to “restore” Joseph Bonaparte as King of the Indies. Joseph was asked to contribute a total of 100,000 francs to the enterprise.

The certainty is thus afforded to Your Majesty of reconquering one of the first thrones in the universe, and of reestablishing Your Illustrious Dynasty! …

If Your Majesty, as worthy of reigning as you are capable of viewing a crown in its just lights, and which is so much beneath your personal virtues, do not wish to engage in anything decisive as relates to Your Majesty, may you deign not to lose sight of the import and interests of your children, and of the people who look up to you as a second father!

3) A “Petition,” in which Joseph was asked to confer upon the document’s author (presumed to be Lakanal) “a Spanish distinction,” by which was meant a title, as “this new mark of your gracious favor will give me a degree of political importance, in the eyes of your Mexican subjects, which I venture to assure Your Majesty will promote Your Majesty’s best interests.”

4) A vocabulary of the Indians on the Mexican frontier, towards Santa Fe.

5) A list of the Indian tribes in northern Louisiana.

6) A coded vocabulary, or cipher, with a Latin word corresponding to each letter. The key concluded with this rule:

Every partial correspondence should be headed with this word, ‘Oratio,’ a prayer, because it will appear merely to be an extract, whether in express terms, or in others equivalent, of the Lord’s Prayer, and because this innocent stratagem may have its effect upon the minds of the Spaniards, who are generally attentive to all religious forms. (6)

Hyde de Neuville was convinced that the documents were genuine, and that the handwriting was that of Joseph Lakanal.

Who was Joseph Lakanal?

Joseph Lakanal

Joseph Lakanal was born in Serres-sur-Arget, France on July 14, 1762. He studied theology and was ordained as a priest, but never served a parish. Instead he joined a Catholic teaching order. In 1792, Lakanal was elected to the National Convention, in which capacity he voted for the execution of King Louis XVI. He also became a member of the Committee of Public Instruction and proposed a fundamental reform of France’s education system, aimed at promoting republican morals. In 1795, he was elected to the Council of Five Hundred.

After opposing Napoleon’s coup d’état of the 18th Brumaire, Lakanal was removed from office and retired to a professorship at the École Centrale at Paris. He became a member of the Institut National (later the Institut de France). In 1809, he was made inspector of weights and measures for four French departments, with headquarters in Rouen.

When the Bourbons returned to power in 1815, Lakanal was proscribed as a regicide. In early 1816, he sailed to the United States, accompanied by his wife Marie-Barbe François and their daughter Alexandrine. They settled on a farm in Gallatin County, Kentucky, on the Ohio River, nearly opposite the French settlement at Vevay, Indiana.

The Marquis de Lafayette had provided Lakanal with a letter of introduction to Thomas Jefferson. On June 1, 1816, Lakanal wrote to Jefferson:

In this pleasant retreat I shall divide my time between the cultivation of my lands and that of letters. I propose writing the history of the United States, for which I have been collecting materials for the past ten years. The spectacle of a free people supporting with obedience the salutary yoke of law will lessen the grief which I feel in being exiled from my country. She would be happy if your pacific genius had guided her destinies. The ambition of a single man [Napoleon] has brought the enraged nations upon us. My country, prostrate, but struck by the wisdom of your administration, wishes for such as you of the new world to raise herself from her ruins. (7)

In March 1817, the US Congress granted the French exiles land in Alabama, near the present site of Demopolis. This became known as the Vine and Olive Colony. Lakanal received 500 acres, but did not move to the colony.

The American government’s response

Hyde de Neuville took the Lakanal papers to John Quincy Adams, who had just become Secretary of State in President James Monroe’s administration. Adams compared the handwriting with that in other letters by Lakanal and agreed that they were the same. He brought the documents to the attention of President Monroe, who asked William Lee, formerly the secretary of the American legation in Paris and Consul General at Bordeaux, to find out whether there was anything to the purported plan.

After talking to some of the Napoleonic exiles, Lee reported in late September that the Lallemand brothers were at the head of the scheme. He claimed they had already engaged 80 French officers and 1,000 men. The Mexican revolutionaries were reportedly eager for aid from the French exiles, and two wealthy Mexican mine owners had offered to provide funds and Mexican troops. A mercantile house in Charleston had offered money and two well-armed brigs, and some merchants in Philadelphia, New York and Boston were also involved. Charles Lallemand intended going up the Red River with his officers and about 400 men to form a base for collecting together all his forces. Although they had ample funds in Mexico, they were in want of funds in the United States. To obtain money, they planned to sell their shares in the Vine and Olive Colony to French merchants in Philadelphia. According to Lee, “all the French officers of distinction except the Lallemands” disapproved of the project. Lee also cleared Joseph Bonaparte of any involvement.

It appears certain that Joseph B. has pointedly refused all aid and assistance to this and the like schemes; that he has been solicited in every way and all means used to induce him to patronize these adventurers without success, on which account they are liberal in their epithets against him. (8)

Lee confronted Charles Lallemand in person.

I laid before him in as strong terms as I am master of, a picture of the mischief his projects were calculated to heap upon his countrymen and their friends in the U. States; the pain it would cause to the administration, to find him sacrificing his reputation by violating our laws and that hospitality and protection they had afforded him. He promised me not to prosecute his plan of attacking Mexico until next winter, when he was well assured by some influential members of Congress something would be done by that body in favor of the Spanish patriots, declaring that all he had hitherto done was under the expectation and a firm belief that this Government wished well to the revolution in Spanish America, and that his brother and himself had determined not to engage in anything of this nature if disagreeable to them. (9)

Lee later sent Adams another report which suggested that plans had changed and the expedition was actually destined for Peru.

Both Hyde de Neuville and the Spanish ambassador to the United States urged the American government to take action against the adventurers. The former intimated that the French government might demand the arrest of Joseph Bonaparte and the seizure of his papers. Adams responded that as long as there was no evidence of any overt act on the part of the suspected conspirators, the American government could do nothing. Hyde de Neuville then urged Adams to have the papers published, thus exposing the plan and bringing ridicule upon those connected with it. Adams observed “that the fact of the levy of men and of its motives had been mentioned as [Hyde de Neuville’s] allegation, and not as a positive fact… That even admitting the papers to contain, if authentic, evidence of criminal actions, this government had no evidence of their authenticity, but comparison of handwriting, which in the judicial tribunals upon criminal prosecution would not be admissible.” (10) Lakanal would probably deny authorship and sue the printer for libel. Hyde de Neuville admitted that “he could not compromit the dignity of his own government by entering into a controversy with [Lakanal] in the public prints.” (11)

Adams began to wonder whether Lakanal or a clever forger had written the documents “to obtain his own pardon, by entrapping or implicating in criminal enterprises a more important personage.” (12) He was also concerned about the effect that publication of the documents would have on Joseph Bonaparte. On October 8, Adams wrote to Monroe:

I see nothing in the papers…that tends to prove [Joseph Bonaparte] being accessory to any part of the project; and it seems hardly equitable that he should be made responsible before the public for any schemes by which madmen or desperadoes use his name without his knowledge or consent. Add to which that I could not altogether avoid the suspicion that the whole of this affair of the Napoleon confederacy has been somehow or other gotten up for that purpose; or to countenance the allied governments in their arbitrary detention of Lucien [Bonaparte] by refusing him passports to come to this country. I am unwilling to extend this suspicion to Mr. de Neuville himself; but if the papers purporting to be signed by Lakanal are genuine, the question still remains whose cause they were intended to serve, and by what real motive they were dictated? (13)

Charles Lallemand also took steps to derail any action against him. He sought an interview with Adams, in which he denied having any connection with any project contrary to the laws of the United States, and also denied knowing Lakanal. He had heard of some pretended letters from Lakanal to Joseph Bonaparte, but the latter had refused to receive them, which is why they were intercepted.

The administration initiated an investigation into levies in the West, which failed to turn up evidence of the army described in the Lakanal papers. Monroe asked his friend Nicholas Biddle to keep an eye on the movements of the Lallemands in Philadelphia. In February 1818, Biddle wrote that the two brothers had sailed from New York with two or three officers for Mobile or New Orleans. About the same time, a vessel had left Philadelphia with nearly 150 persons on board, mainly Frenchmen, to join the Lallemands. Funds for this had been raised from the sale of lands from the Vine and Olive Colony. Biddle thought the expedition was heading for Spain’s possessions in South America. It was actually heading for Texas, which was then part of Mexico, to found a short-lived Bonapartist military colony called the Champ d’Asile. Neither Lakanal nor Joseph Bonaparte took part in this expedition.

Instead Lakanal moved to New Orleans, where, in 1822, he became president of the Collège d’Orléans. The appointment was controversial. Many Creole families objected to having their sons educated by a regicide and married apostate priest. In July 1823, Lakanal resigned. He moved to Alabama, near Mobile. He returned to France in the mid-1830s, and died in Paris on February 14, 1845.

Was Joseph Bonaparte offered the crown of Mexico?

Did the Mexican patriots – who despised Joseph Bonaparte when he was King of Spain and the Indies – actually propose putting him on the throne of an independent Mexico? We may never know.

According to Joseph’s nephew Louis Napoleon (Emperor Napoleon III), while Joseph was living in Bordentown, “a deputation from Mexico came to offer him the Mexican crown.” Joseph replied:

I have worn two crowns; I would not take a step to wear a third. Nothing can gratify me more than to see men who would not recognize my authority when I was at Madrid now come to seek me in exile, that I may be at their head; but I do not think that the throne you wish to raise again can make your happiness. Every day that I pass in the hospitable land of the United States proves more clearly to me the excellence of republican institutions for America. Keep them, then, as a precious gift from heaven. (14)

As Louis Napoleon (born in 1808) was a child at the time, and living in Europe, not the United States, there is no way he could have witnessed this himself. It is possible that Francisco Xavier Mina, a Spanish revolutionist who visited the United States in 1816 in search of aid for his ill-fated 1817 invasion of Mexico, met with Joseph in Philadelphia in July of that year, thus giving rise to the 1816 newspaper reports. Spanish diplomatic officials reported that Mina had received money from Joseph, but there is no evidence that Mina’s expedition in support of the Mexican insurgents was undertaken to aid Joseph’s ascension to the throne.

In September 1821, Mexico achieved its independence. On May 19, 1822, Agustín de Iturbide became the Emperor of Mexico. He ruled for only ten months. In 1861, under the rule of Napoleon III, France invaded Mexico and installed Maximilian (the son of Napoleon’s brother-in-law Archduke Franz Karl of Austria) as Emperor. In 1867, the Mexicans executed Maximilian.

If you would like to imagine what might have happened if Napoleon had sought a crown in the Americas, read Napoleon in America.

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Jean-Guillaume Hyde de Neuville, a 19th-century Knight-Errant

Fake News about Napoleon Bonaparte

Niles’ Weekly Register (Baltimore, MD), September 21, 1816.
Morning Chronicle (London, England), August 26, 1816.
Cheltenham Chronicle (Cheltenham, England), September 5, 1816.
Barry O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile; or A Voice from St. Helena, Vol. I (Philadelphia, 1822), p. 232.
Charles Montholon, Récits de la Captivité de l’Empereur Napoléon à Sainte-Hélène, Vol. II (Paris, 1847), p. 97.
Jesse S. Reeves, The Napoleonic Exiles in America: A Study in American Diplomatic History, 1815-1819 (Baltimore, 1905), pp. 51-60.
Ibid., p. 31.
Ibid., p. 65.
Ibid., p. 65.
Worthington Chauncey Ford, ed., Writings of John Quincy Adams, Vol. VI (New York, 1916) p. 196.
Ibid., p. 197.
Ibid., p. 205.
Ibid., p. 214.
Napoleon III, The Political and Historical Works of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, Vol. II (London, 1852), p. 143. The quote originally appears in the French version of Louis Napoleon’s works: Ouevres de Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, Vol. II (Paris, 1848), p. 330. It has been repeated in many subsequent books.

Tired of syrupy talk about royal weddings? Here’s a corrective from some earlier royal nuptials. In 1816 British journalist William Cobbett (the same Cobbett who provided advice on settling in New York in 1820) wrote a scathing article about the impending marriage of Princess Charlotte of Wales – granddaughter of England’s King George III – to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. It’s a bracing antidote for anyone suffering from royal wedding overdose.

State Physicians Bleeding John Bull to Death. Caricature by George Cruikshank satirizing the 1816 royal wedding of Princess Charlotte of Wales and Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Chancellor of the Exchequer Vansittart and Foreign Minister Castlereagh bleed coins from John Bull, which are collected by Prince Leopold, Princess Charlotte and the Prince Regent.

Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales

Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales, by George Dawe, circa 1817

Princess Charlotte was born on January 7, 1796. She was the only child of George III’s oldest son and heir to the throne, George, Prince of Wales. In 1811 he became the Prince Regent and, in 1820, King George IV. Charlotte’s mother was George’s German cousin, Princess Caroline of Brunswick, whom George had reluctantly married only for the purpose of clearing his debts and producing a child. They separated shortly after Charlotte was born. Charlotte was raised primarily by governesses.

Since Charlotte was in line to inherit the throne after her father, serious attention was given to the question of her marriage. The Prince Regent wanted his daughter to marry William, Hereditary Prince of Orange, but Caroline was opposed to the match and Charlotte didn’t want to have to move to the Netherlands. In 1815, she fixed her heart on the impoverished Prince Leopold.

Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld

Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, later King Leopold I of Belgium, by George Dawe

Born on December 16, 1790, Leopold was a member of the ruling family of the small German duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. After French troops occupied the duchy during the Napoleonic Wars, Leopold joined the Imperial Russian army as a leader of cuirassiers, or heavy cavalry. He fought against Napoleon’s troops at Lutzen, Bautzen, Kulm and Leipzig, particularly distinguishing himself at the Battle of Kulm in 1813. By 1815, he had reached the rank of lieutenant general.

Beggarly Germans put upon the throne

The Prince Regent eventually gave in to his daughter’s wishes. On March 14, 1816, Britain’s foreign secretary, Lord Castlereagh, announced the royal engagement to the House of Commons. William Cobbett, no fan of the royal family (he called the Prince Regent “a great, fat, unwieldy being”), took issue in the form of an article published on June 22, 1816 in the American edition of his newspaper, Cobbett’s Weekly Political Register.

[W]here could even…the hard, unprincipled, never-blushing Castlereagh, have found the brass to talk of the glorious manner in which the Prince Regent governed the country…. I much question, whether the man knows anything at all about his daughter’s being about to be married. However, even this eulogium on the Prince’s intellects was not so impudent as the assertion that Englishmen owe the enjoyment of their liberties to this family. Just as if our liberties had been, or could have been, or ever can be, owing, in any degree, to a set of beggarly Germans being put upon the throne, and kept there by a band of Boroughmongers as mere tools in their hands!

The next day…a proposition was made to give the young couple 60,000£ a year, and 60,000£ for an ‘outfit,’ and to settle 50,000£ a year upon the husband, in case he should outlive his wife! This is about eleven times as much as you give your President! And, indeed, we give to all our Royal brood about two hundred times as much as you give to a Chief, who has more brains in his skull than forty such broods, and who does a thousand times as much business. Such are the blessings of Royalty….

How this Prince of Saxe-Coburg must be surprised to find himself tumbling into such cheer, after being brought up upon his father’s estate, and which is, perhaps, little better than mine…. I dare say there are a hundred packs of hounds in England, each of which have finer and more extensive dwellings, and more servants to attend them, than has the Sire of this ‘illustrious personage.’ How the man must stare about him when he finds himself in possession of an income of 60,000 pounds a year! He must, if he has any sense himself, surely think us a mad people…..

If the intended husband be a man of sense and spirit, he will soon find that his situation is not so very enviable, in spite of his 60,000£ a year; for, though he may like a fat and rather ugly wife, he will hardly be able to endure with patience the sneers of the nobility and their sons, who will regard him as nothing in England, each of which have finer and more than a mere state-hireling; a poor, mean fellow, who has consented to let himself out for the sake of a good living. He is, too, of a race so very obscure; but, perhaps, it made part of the plan to select a person that the world never heard of before, and to whom a good purse was of such vast importance.

There can be no doubt, I think, that some grand intrigue is on foot. It is notorious, that the Prince mortally hates everything belonging to his wife; and that the rest of the family have the same feelings. It is notorious that the Princess once actually eloped, not for any vicious purpose, but to get out of her father’s power, and to escape to her mother. The security of the Princess, however, consists in the universal odium of those who may be supposed likely to intrigue against her. She is a woman too; but, she will certainly lose a great deal by being married. But, after all, the only rational reflection suggested by all this is that it is most shameful and degrading that any nation should have its peace and happiness endangered by the marriages or intrigues of anybody, the doctrines of the Cossacks to the contrary notwithstanding. (1)

Heartbreak

Wedding of Princess Charlotte of Wales and Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, by Robert Hicks, after William Marshall Craig

Charlotte and Leopold were married on May 2, 1816 at Carlton House, the Prince Regent’s London residence. The newlyweds moved into Claremont House, in Surrey, where they led a quiet, happy life until Charlotte died on November 6, 1817, hours after giving birth to a stillborn son. She was 21 years old.

This most melancholy event produced throughout the kingdom feelings of the deepest sorrow and most bitter disappointment. It is scarcely possible to exaggerate, and it is difficult for persons not living at the time to believe, how universal and how genuine those feelings were. It really was as though every household throughout Great Britain had lost a favourite child. (2)

Leopold, who had become a British citizen before the marriage, remained in England for many years. It is at one of Prince Leopold’s soirees that Lord Liverpool and the Duke of Wellington learn of Napoleon’s (fictional) escape from St. Helena in my novel Napoleon in America.

In 1831, Leopold accepted the crown of the newly established Kingdom of Belgium. In 1832, he married Louise of Orléans, daughter of French King Louis Philippe. They had four children, three of whom lived to adulthood. Leopold died on December 10, 1865.

In 1837, Charlotte’s cousin Victoria – born 18 months after Charlotte’s death – inherited the throne that would have gone to Charlotte had she lived. In 1840, Queen Victoria married Leopold’s nephew, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

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Cobbett’s American Political Register, Vol. 30 (New York, January to June, 1816), pp. 318-320.
Henry Brougham, The Life and Times of Henry Lord Brougham, Vol. II (Edinburgh and London, 1871), p. 332.

Women who wanted to keep fit in the early 19th century had to contend with the notion that they were too delicate for many forms of exercise. They also had to deal with clothing that constrained their physical movement. The following recommendations were aimed at women in the upper and middle classes of society. Women in the labouring class tended to get plenty of exercise just going about their work.

Calisthenics (depicted in an 1831 Journal of Health) became a form of exercise for well-to-do women in the 1820s.

Dangers of exercise for women

One barrier to women exercising in the early 1800s was the belief that it was not good for their health.

Exercise is necessary, but the constitution of women is adapted only to moderate exercise; their feeble arms cannot perform work too laborious and too long continued, and the graces cannot be reconciled with fatigue and sun-burning. Excessive labour reduces and deforms the organs, destroying by repeated compressions that cellular substance which contributes to the beauty of their contours and their colours. The exercise which women of a middling condition find in useful and indispensable occupations is the most wholesome, because it joins to the natural effects of labour, the inward satisfaction afforded by the accomplishment of a duty. (1)

Benefits of exercise for women

This belief was challenged by some in the medical profession, who argued that women’s health would benefit from regular physical exercise.

No absurdity is greater than that which associates female beauty with great delicacy of body and debility of constitution. …

Exercise only can fully unfold the muscular system in both sexes: it knits well the joints, makes them clean and small; increases the flexibility of every moveable organ; confers activity of body and cheerfulness of spirits: it is, therefore, not merely necessary for the perfection of the corporeal frame, but also for its preservation. … For females, in particular, daily and properly regulated exercise is requisite; and in those who do not attend to this, the body and the mind equally become weak and diseased. (2)

How much exercise?

Young girls could have as much exercise as they wanted.

The safest rule for exercising young girls is to leave the quantity of exercise to their own feelings of fatigue; and this can only be effected by allowing them to run and enjoy the same exercise as young boys, within a limited space. They must, however, be encouraged and even urged to motion; for the nature of female education, from the earliest periods of life, and the social habits of the sex, even in girlhood, incline many girls, in the garden and the playground, rather to sit, conversing in groups, or to saunter, leaning on one another, than to take active exercise.…

The beneficial effects of regular exercise in young girls are the same as those [for young boys]; but in young girls it is more essential, from the sedentary habits of life which are to follow, in an afterperiod of life; and also to counteract that sluggish state of the bowels which is so common in female habits, and so much at variance with health. If the exercise be taken within a limited space, the kind of it should be frequently changed, to encourage the continuance of it, by renewing the stimulus of exertion; and it should also be of that description which calls into action every muscle of the body. This, however, cannot be accomplished if the body be cased in stays; for, though the limbs and arms are free, yet the muscles of the back and loins are circumscribed in their action, and a state of debility in these parts is thereby induced; for it is an undeniable truth that a muscle which is not used soon loses its power. (3)

Once past puberty, females had to be careful not to over-exercise.

[I]f immediate injury does not result from sudden overexertion, the daily renewal of it has a more permanently bad effect, by wearing out the powers of the body and bringing on premature old age. Such a degree of exertion, indeed, is not likely to occur from almost any kind of exercise in the middle and higher ranks of life; but nothing is more common than to see young women, under thirty years of age, with the look of sixty, from having been over-worked as servants. (4)

What exercises were appropriate?

Girls had a wider range to choose from than women.

Nearly the same exercises, with the exception of wrestling, cricket, quoits, and those sports properly termed athletic, which are proper for boys, may be recommended for young girls. Trundling a hoop, battledore, trapball, and every game which can exercise both the legs and arms, and, at the same time, the muscles of the body, should be encouraged. (5)

For girls past the age of 12, however, such exercises were generally not advised. Instead, the following types of exercise were recommended, often with caveats.

Walking

Walking is the best exercise for men and women. This should be practised every day in the year, unless the inclemency of the weather absolutely forbids. The English are the healthiest people in the world, and this arises in part from their systematic exercise. Even the most delicate and high-bred ladies there take an airing almost every day, and usually walk several miles. They do not mind a drizzle or a shower. How different it is in this country [the United States]! It is here considered a matter of delicacy for a woman to keep herself immured at home, and she pays for it in a slender constitution, a pallid cheek, the early decay of her teeth, and the premature loss of all the beauty which health can bestow. (6)

Dancing

The first quadrille at Almack’s, from The Reminiscences and Recollections of Captain Gronow 1810-1860.

Dancing is the most favorite exercise of young women; and when properly taught, is healthful, and confers gracefulness of gait, resulting from the disciplined management of the whole body. In general, however, the movements are confined in the feet and legs, whilst the action of the other parts of the frame is wholly neglected. There is a wish also to imitate professional dancers in young females; but the steps are, in general, too rapid to be altogether safe for the tender frame of women who are not regularly trained to the art: the body is supported too much on the toes, and the fine elasticity of the double arch of the foot endangered; the ligaments of the ankle are apt to be strained and overlengthened, and the instep to lose its height, from the tendon of the sole of the foot being overstretched; thence, when the dance is discontinued, the gait, instead of being firm and elastic, is shuffling. Professional dancers have generally flat feet, and walk as if they were lame.

Independent, however, of the mode of dancing, it is an exercise the daily employment of which greatly benefits young females at that period of life when most of their other occupations are of a sedentary nature; but as they are universally fond of it, they are likely to carry it to excess, which should never be permitted; particularly when the more rapid and violent dances, Scotch reels, for instance, are attempted. Exertion such as these dances require, if long continued, are extremely injurious to girls of a delicate frame and with a narrow chest. Dancing is also injurious whilst the body is yet weak in convalescence from acute diseases. When too much exercised, it likewise is apt to produce ganglions on the ankle joints of delicate girls, as wind galls are produced on the legs of young horses, who are too soon or too much worked. Upon the whole, nevertheless, dancing is the exercise best adapted for young women; and one, when discreetly employed, is highly conducive to health. (7)

Horseback riding

Riding is a most salutary exercise for young women, from its engaging many of the muscles of the body, as well as those of the arms and thighs; and from the succession of changes of respirable air, which the rapid progression of the body through an extensive space, in a short time, causes to be conveyed to the lungs. But the position which women are obliged to maintain on horseback is not favorable to very young girls; and, if the exercise be often carried to fatigue, nothing is more likely to produce deformity, from diseased curvature of the spine, than the placing of a young girl too soon on horseback. If riding be recommended on account of health, girls should be taught to ride on both sides of the horse, to prevent that twisting of the body, which the continued use of the same side is apt to occasion. (8)

Calisthenics

Exercises for women, from A Treatise on Calisthenic Exercises by Signor Voarino, 1827

In the 1820s, calisthenics – the name originally given to female gymnastics – became popular in continental Europe. This form of exercise soon spread to England and America.

Calisthenics is…a reasonable, methodical, and regular employment of the exercises best calculated to develop the physical powers of young girls, without detriment to the perfecting of their moral faculties. …

Young girls have not the same freedom as boys in their out-door exercises, and their customary amusements and occupations, when not at school, are of a more sedentary nature. The consequences are, a greater tendency to stoop, and acquire false and injurious attitudes – deformity of spine and the like; together with an acquired nervousness of temperament, which makes them, in after years, a prey to dyspeptical and hysterical disorders, and an inequality of spirits distressing to themselves, and often exceedingly annoying to friends and others in whose society they may be thrown. Nor are the monstrous absurdities of their dress at all calculated to diminish these evils. For fear inaction of the muscles of their chest and back should not be sufficiently enfeebling, tight dresses, under various names, compress those parts, and almost paralyse their action. As a preventive to the various diseases thus induced, and also as a means, under suitable direction, of their cure, we may safely recommend the early and regular use of calisthenic exercises as a part of female education. The only exercise of this nature which is commonly taught to young girls is dancing, and it is a useful one. But it would be made more valuable to health, and available for the purposes of grace and easy carriage, if conjoined with others, such as regular walking – we might say correct walking, running, jumping – in the manner and with the restrictions required in calisthenics; various evolutions with the arms…and with the feet, by standing on one leg, bending the knee and body on one foot, while the other is extended out, but not allowed to touch the ground; skipping with the rope; and battledore and shuttlecock.

One of the best exercises both in gymnastics and calisthenics, is on parallel bars…. After the pupil has learned to support and balance herself on the bars, she may give herself a forward progressive movement, by advancing first one hand and then the other, so as to grasp hold of the bar, the feet all the time being kept together, and the legs hanging down perpendicularly. To this will succeed the movement by jumps – so that the pupil, by resting firmly on her hands, shall give herself a quick upward movement, letting both bars go at the same time, and lighting a little in advance, both of the hands again quickly grasping the bars. Succeeding to, and afterwards alternating with, the exercise on the parallel bars, will be those on the horizontal bar, flying the course or giant steps. One of the best means of strengthening the back, and calling both sides equally into action, is climbing the column of pegs.

Judgment, of course, is demanded in graduating the exercises to the age, strength, and peculiarities of the girl, and in guarding against fatigue. Attention also is to be paid to the dress: it ought to sit easy in every part – trowsers, and light and tolerably large shoes are to be recommended. Pains should be taken, with a view to guard against the pupils catching cold, that, after active exercise, they should not sit down or stand still, but keep moving about, at a moderate rate, until the temporary feeling of weakness has subsided, and the skin resumes its natural warmth. (9)

Although initially advocated for girls, calisthenics was also something well-off women could do in private. In 1827, an Italian, Signor Voarino, published in London A Treatise on Calisthenic Exercises: Arranged for the Private Tuition of Ladies. It was a detailed “how-to” manual, complete with illustrations. Exercises included movements of the arms, of the legs (jumping, skipping, zigzag walking), exercises using a cane, and exercises using a balance:

a moveable instrument, supported by means of a hook, strongly fixed in the ceiling of a room, from which two cords are suspended; and at the extremities of which is fixed a stick, made of a very dry piece of ash wood, four feet in length and an inch and a half in diameter. The middle of the stick should be wrapped with any sort of soft substance, such as cotton, velvet, &c. to prevent it from hardening the hands. In order to prevent the cords from twisting, a swivel must be used, so that the balance may turn in any direction. (10)

That same year, Marian Mason, England’s first female physical fitness instructor – who had trained under Swiss instructor Peter Heinrich Clias – published her own tract: On the Utility of Exercise; or A Few Observations on the Advantages to be Derived from its Salutary Effects, by Means of Calisthenic Exercises. Under the patronage of the Duchess of Wellington and Lady Byron, Mason offered weekly classes in calisthenics for ladies.

[T]hose gentle and pleasurable exercises…supply the want of exertion, other [lower class] females are obliged to use, to earn their bread by labour, and…prevent, at the same time, the numberless disorders arising from a state of inaction. (11)

In the United States, educator Catharine Beecher – whose fiancé perished (along with Napoleonic General Charles Lefebvre-Desnouettes and 44 others) in the wreck of the packet ship Albion in 1822 – became an outspoken advocate of exercise for girls and women. In 1856, she published Physiology and Calisthenics for Schools and Families, another illustrated manual.

What were women intended for?

Cane exercises for women, from A Treatise on Calisthenic Exercises by Signor Voarino, 1827

Those in favour of calisthenics and more strenuous exercise for women faced detractors. A reviewer of Signor Voarino’s book argued:

What were women intended for in civilised life? To enchant mankind by feminine loveliness of person, grace society by gentleness of mind, contrast with the rougher sex their own far more exquisite fineness of spirit and divine sensibility of soul, be angels in disposition as in form, and so beautifully discharge all those duties which humanity assigns to them as the fountains, nutrices, and consolers of the race, that they might seem rather beings to be adored than the mere equals and companions of men? Or to box a lover, horsewhip a husband, ‘whop’ a jarvey, and floor a charley?

To gentle and proper exercise for youthful females at school, no objection can be urged…. But when you come to teach grown-up women – wives, mothers, and aught we know grandmothers…how to handle a pike and jump over a dinner table – it is possible that the gymnastical part of education may be carried too far.… For our parts, we would rather that their ‘muscular powers’ were never brought into ‘full action’…. They are so delightful as they are, that we would not for the world run any risk of spoiling, or even altering them. (12)

By the late 19th century, other forms of exercise, including tennis and bicycling, became open to women, although there continued to be people who regarded vigorous physical activity as unsuitable for ladies.

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La Belle Assemblée (London), Vol. I, Issue III, April 1806, p. 144.
The Boston Medical Intelligencer, Vol. 5, No. 24, October 30, 1827, pp. 377-378.
Ibid., pp. 379-380.
Ibid., p. 380.
Ibid., p. 381.
G. Goodrich, Fireside Education (New York, 1838), p. 289 .
The Boston Medical Intelligencer, October 30, 1827, pp. 382-383.
Ibid., p. 383.
The Journal of Health, Vol. II (Philadelphia, 1831), pp. 190-193.
Signor Voarino, A Treatise on Calisthenic Exercises: Arranged for the Private Tuition of Ladies (London, 1827), p. 59.
Marian Mason, On the Utility of Exercise; or A Few Observations on the Advantages to be Derived from its Salutary Effects, by Means of Calisthenic Exercises (London, 1827), p. 12.
The Literary Gazette and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences, &c. for the Year 1827 (London, March 24, 1827), pp. 182-183.

Napoleon on St. Helena, by Charles de Steuben, 1828

Napoleon Bonaparte died on May 5, 1821, on St. Helena, an isolated island in the South Atlantic where the British imprisoned him after his 1815 defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. He probably died of stomach cancer. Napoleon noticed that his health was declining in the fall of 1820. By the end of that year, his illness had become apparent to those around him. Here are some vignettes of Napoleon’s final months, as recorded by those closest to him.

Overcome with weariness

Napoleon’s second valet, Louis Étienne Saint-Denis observed:

At the end of the year [1820] the Emperor began to feel that his health was really failing and he had less ability to work. His walks, no matter how short he made them, became more fatiguing, and insensibly his features came to bear more the impress of suffering. He felt, he said, a dull internal pain from which he suffered more particularly at night. He thought that he had liver disease. His remedies consisted only of warm napkins applied to his side, to baths, which he took frequently, and to a diet which he observed from time to time.

Long before, it had been thought that his disease was only imaginary and that what he said was designed to impose on the governor, in order to bring the English government to more humane sentiments towards him, and to decide it to allow him to go to America. What had also created the belief that his illness was not real was that at times he seemed to be very ill and at others he was extremely gay. The Emperor’s life, since he had been at St. Helena, had been pretty irregular, but it was much more so from the time when his pains became more perceptible, more positive, and more frequent. He became as uncertain in his temper as in his manner of life or his work, sometimes gay, sometimes thoughtful and absorbed. One day he would be out of the house all the time, another shut up in his rooms. For a week or two he would devote himself to work, after which he would stay for whole days on his sofa with a book in his hand, trying to sleep. Sometimes he would dress very early, sometimes he would stay in his dressing gown. He would often turn night into day and day into night. In a word, he acted like a man who is overcome with weariness and makes use of every means to shorten the time. (1)

A noticeable decline

In January 1821, there was a noticeable decline. Napoleon examined the new house that had been built for him, but refused to occupy it. Attributing his prolonged weakness to a lack of exercise, he decided to go for a carriage ride every day to revive his strength, but this resolve only lasted for a couple of weeks. He didn’t feel like dressing. He lost his appetite. On March 17 he took to his bed and rarely left it again.

Napoleon was often impatient with his doctor, Francesco Antommarchi, in whom he did not have much confidence. On March 24, when Dr. Antommarchi insisted that he take an emetic (a substance that causes vomiting), Napoleon said, “Why don’t you go jump in the lake, and take the emetic yourself.” (2)

Napoleon allowed himself to be seen by Archibald Arnott, surgeon to the British 20th Regiment of Foot, which was stationed on the island. Napoleon’s first valet, Louis-Joseph Marchand, wrote:

Several days passed without Dr. Arnott’s care and attentions bringing about any improvement in the Emperor’s health. At night, perspiration forced him to change his flannel undershirt five or six times; during the day, his restlessness was not as considerable, due to the distraction he got from conversation or reading. One evening after Count Bertrand had departed, I remained alone with him; he talked to me about Princess Pauline and her little house in San Martino on the island of Elba, his hermitage at the Madonna, and the cool shade that made a visit there so pleasant. Then he told me to read him a chapter on Syria which had been recopied by Saint-Denis, but written so small that it was difficult to read it back to him.

During each visit, the doctor always offered pills or other medication; the Emperor would reply that he did not see any objection to that, change the conversation, and always manage not to take anything. One day while Dr. Arnott was taking his pulse, he asked the Emperor how he felt. ‘Not well, doctor, I am about to return to the earth a remnant of life that seems so important for the kings to have.’ And as the doctor insisted on his taking medication, the Emperor replied: ‘Always medication? Well, Doctor, we’ll take some! What diseases are there in your hospitals?’ Then, getting out of bed, he donned his bathrobe and went to sit in front of a table on which his dinner had been served. He had the doctor taste some of the dishes and offered him a glass of claret. There was a small piece of Savoie cake on his table: he cut it in four parts and gave one to the grand marshal, one to Dr. Arnott, the third to Dr. Antommarchi, and the fourth to me.

Two days earlier, the Emperor had wanted to shave: everything had been prepared for the procedure, but it had been postponed. ‘I should be less lazy,’ he said, ‘because I feel refreshed when it is done. It is your fault,’ he said taking me by the ear, ‘if I do not shave. You must force me in the future. Poor me,’ he uttered, looking at himself in the mirror. (3)

No means of cure

On April 15 Napoleon began to dictate his last will and testament. Two days later he told Arnott that, unless the doctor could come up with better remedies, medical science could do no more for him. Arnott told Napoleon to have hope, saying he had seen many patients in an even weaker state make a recovery.

‘Words, words and phrases fit for women and children,’ Napoleon said wearily, ‘but to men and especially to soldiers like us, you should speak the truth.’

‘I have told you the truth,’ Arnott rejoined. ‘I have said what I think.’

‘What is the strongest remedy you have? Mercury?’ Napoleon asked.

‘In certain cases, but it is useless in cases of weakness,’ Dr. Arnott replied.

‘Mercury? Opium? Quinine?’ the Emperor repeated.

‘Yes, in certain illnesses, but in other cases to let blood is one of the strongest remedies.’

‘You English, you let too much blood,’ Napoleon remarked.

‘To let blood is excellent for certain types of illness; but no blood is ever let in cases of weakness.’

‘Are the English full-blooded as a rule?’ Napoleon inquired.

‘Yes, generally up to the age of forty,’ Dr. Arnott replied.

‘Nevertheless,’ Napoleon said, ‘I had thought them to be of a more lymphatic temperament. You have no sun in England.’

‘Oh yes, we do,’ Arnott replied, ‘but it is less strong than in the Mediterranean countries. In July and August the sun shines warmly in England.’

‘But Carracioli said that an English sun is not the equal of an Italian moon.’

‘Who was Carracioli, a painter?’

‘No, he was an ambassador,’ replied Napoleon, who then returned to the subject of his own health.

‘… I perceive that you have no means of curing [my illness]. It requires something more drastic than quinine.’

‘But,’ Arnott protested, ‘you are so weak that we are unable to give you anything stronger.’

‘Very well, I won’t argue the contrary,’ said Napoleon, ‘but no matter what the cause, you can see the effect. I know that I have none of the symptoms of death, but I am so weak that it would not take a cannon ball to kill me; a grain of sand would suffice.’ (4)

Docile as a child

The above conversation was reported by General Henri Bertrand, Napoleon’s Grand Marshal of the Palace. On April 28, Bertrand wrote:

‘In the morning the Emperor had asked at least twenty times whether he might be allowed to have some coffee. But every time the answer had been, ‘No Sire.’

‘Won’t the doctors allow me just a little spoonful?’

‘No, Sire. Not at present. Your stomach is over-irritated, and it might cause you to be sick a little sooner.’ He had been sick perhaps eight or nine times in the course of the day.

What thoughts spring to mind at the sight of so great a change! Tears came to my eyes, as I looked at this man, formerly so terrifying, who had commanded so proudly and in a manner so absolute, now reduced to begging for a spoonful of coffee, asking permission, obedient as a child, asking permission again and again without obtaining it…. At other periods of his illness he had sent his doctors to the devil and had done as he pleased. But at present he was as docile as a child. That was what the Great Napoleon had become, a humble and an unhappy man. (5)

One week later, Napoleon was dead.

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10 Interesting Facts about Napoleon’s Family

Was Napoleon religious?

Louis Étienne Saint-Denis, Napoleon from the Tuileries to St. Helena, translated by Frank Hunter Potter (New York and London, 1922), pp. 248-249.
Louis-Joseph Marchand, In Napoleon’s Shadow (San Francisco, 1998), p.
Ibid., pp. 645-646.
Henri-Gatien Bertrand, Napoleon at St. Helena: The Journals of General Bertrand from January to May of 1821, deciphered and annotated by Paul Fleuriot de Langle, translated by Frances Hume (Garden City, 1952), 148-149.
Ibid., p. 209.

One question I am often asked is whether Napoleon Bonaparte has any living descendants, or whether a particular sibling of Napoleon has any living descendants. Another version of the question is whether there are any Bonaparte descendants living in America. Here’s a handy summary to help you keep track. An asterix (*) indicates the person has living descendants.

Napoleon with his nieces and nephews on the terrace at Saint-Cloud, by Louis Ducis, 1810. Napoleon and four of his siblings have living descendants.

Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)*

Napoleon’s illegitimate son Alexandre Walewski, circa 1855. He has living descendants.

Napoleon had one legitimate child, Napoleon François Charles Joseph Bonaparte (1811-1832), also known as the King of Rome or Napoleon II, who died childless at the age of 21.

Napoleon also had two acknowledged illegitimate sons, Charles Léon Denuelle* (1806-1881) and Alexandre Colonna Walewski* (1810-1868), both of whom have living descendants.

Joseph Bonaparte (1768-1844)*

Napoleon’s older brother Joseph had two legitimate daughters, Zénaïde* (1801-1854) and Charlotte (1802-1839). Charlotte died giving birth to her only child, who also died. Zénaïde married her cousin Charles Bonaparte* (1803-1857, son of Napoleon’s brother Lucien) and had eight children who lived to adulthood. She has living descendants.

Joseph also had two illegitimate daughters with his American mistress, Annette Savage. Pauline (1819-1823) died in an accident in Joseph’s garden at the age of 4. Caroline* (1822-1890) married an American, Zebulon Howell Benton, and had five children. She has living descendants, at least one of whom was born in America.

Lucien Bonaparte (1775-1840)*

Napoleon’s brother Lucien had 11 children who lived to adulthood. He has living descendants.

Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi (1777-1820)

Napoleon’s sister Elisa had two children who lived beyond infancy. Her son Frédéric (1814-1833) was killed in a riding accident at the age of 18. Her daughter Napoléone (1803-1869) married a wealthy Italian count, from whom she separated after a couple of years. Napoléone’s only child, Charles (1826-1853), committed suicide at the age of 26. He had no children, thus Elisa has no living descendants.

Louis Bonaparte (1778-1846)*

Napoleon’s brother Louis, who was unhappily married to Napoleon’s stepdaughter Hortense de Beauharnais (Josephine’s daughter), had two sons who lived to adulthood. Napoléon-Louis (1804-1831), who married Joseph’s daughter Charlotte, died without any children. Louis’s second son Louis-Napoléon (1808-1873) became French Emperor Napoleon III*. Napoleon III’s only legitimate child, Louis-Napoléon (1856-1879) was killed in an ambush during the Anglo-Zulu War in South Africa at the age of 23, leaving no children. Napoleon III also had at least three illegitimate children: Bonaventur Karrer (1839–1921); Alexandre-Louis Eugène Bure* (1843-1910); and Louis-Ernest Alexandre Bure (1845-1882). Eugène Bure has living descendants.

Pauline Bonaparte Borghese (1780-1825)

Napoleon’s fun-loving sister Pauline had one son, Dermide (1798-1804), who died of fever and convulsions at the age of 6. Thus Pauline has no living descendants.

Caroline Bonaparte Murat (1782-1839)*

American actor René Auberjonois, a descendant of Napoleon’s sister Caroline, in 2013

Napoleon’s sister Caroline had four children: Achille (1801-1847), Letizia* (1802-1859), Lucien* (1803-1878) and Louise* (1805-1889). Achille, who moved to the United States and married a relative of George Washington, had no children. Lucien, who lived in the United States for 23 years, also married an American, Caroline Georgina Fraser from Charleston. They had five children: four born in Bordentown, NJ, and one in France. Lucien has living descendants, including the children of American actor René Auberjonois. Letizia and Louise also have living descendants.

Jérôme Bonaparte (1784-1860)*

Napoleon’s youngest sibling Jérôme had one son with his first wife, the American Elizabeth (Betsy) Patterson: Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte (1805-1870). Jerome Jr., who was not recognized as a Bonaparte by Napoleon, had two sons: Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte II* (1830-1893), and Charles Bonaparte (1851-1921), Charles, who served in President Theodore Roosevelt’s cabinet as Secretary of the Navy and, later, as Attorney General, died childless. Jerome Napoleon II had two children: Louise-Eugénie* (1873-1923), who married Danish Count Adam Carl von Moltke-Huitfeld and has living descendants; and Jerome Napoleon Charles (1878-1945), who fatally broke his neck by tripping over the leash while walking his wife’s dog in New York’s Central Park. Although Jerome Napoleon Charles had no children, reports that he was the last of the Patterson-Bonapartes are mistaken, unless one is referring only to the male line.

With his second wife, Princess Catharina of Württemberg, Jérôme Sr. had three children: Jérôme Napoléon Charles (1814-1847), who died childless; Mathilde (1820-1904), also childless; and Napoléon Joseph Charles* (1822-1891), who had three children and has living descendants.

Bonaparte pretenders to the French throne

Jean-Christophe, Prince Napoléon, a descendant of Napoleon’s brother Jérôme, in 2006

Although Napoleon III was removed from power in 1870, and France – a republic – has not had a monarch since then, some members of the Bonaparte family are considered by some to have a claim to the non-existent French throne.

Under the law of succession established by Napoleon in 1804, only legitimate male descendants through the male line were eligible to assume the imperial crown. Lucien and his descendants were excluded from the succession plan because Napoleon disapproved of Lucien’s marriage. Over the years, the Bonaparte possessors of, or claimants to, the throne have been:

Napoleon I (Emperor of the French, abdicated in 1815, died in 1821)
Napoleon II (never actually ruled France, but briefly held the title of Emperor after his father’s 1815 abdication, died childless in 1832)
Joseph (died in 1844 with no descendants through the male line)
Louis (died in 1846)
Napoleon III (Emperor of the French, removed from power in 1870, died in 1873; no legitimate descendants)
Jérôme’s male descendants (with Catharina of Württemberg) through the male line. The current claimant is Jérôme’s descendant Jean-Christophe, Prince Napoléon (b. 1986). This claim is disputed by Jean-Christophe’s father, Charles, Prince Napoléon (b. 1950), who was excluded from the succession in his father’s will for having married without paternal permission.

The Bonapartes are not the only pretenders to the French throne. The Legitimists (successors of the senior branch of the Bourbons, ousted in 1830) and the Orléanists (successors of King Louis Philippe, ejected in 1848) also lay claim to the crown.

*Has living descendants.

You might also enjoy:

Napoleon’s Family Tree

10 Interesting Facts about Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon’s Children, Part 2 (about Napoleon’s illegitimate children)

10 Fun Facts About John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams was the first president to install a billiard table in the White House. This “gambling furniture” in the “President’s Palace” exposed Adams to much unfair criticism, and was used against him by supporters of Andrew Jackson in the presidential election campaign of 1828.

The President’s House by Henry Stone, 1826. John Quincy Adams installed the first billiard table in the White House in 1825.

A resource for exercise and amusement

John Quincy Adams, who appears as US Secretary of State in Napoleon in America, became the 6th President of the United States in March 1825. Two months later, he bought a second-hand billiard table, had it covered with new felt cloth, and installed it in the White House. For Adams, a hardworking and studious man, the game was a pleasant distraction. He wrote in his diary at the end of May 1825 that most of his evenings were “wasted in idleness or at the billiard-table, a resource both for exercise and amusement.” (1) In July 1825, he noted that he would typically “[p]lay billiards from six to seven or eight [p.m.], and generally retire to bed between eight and nine.” (2)

The President’s enjoyment of billiards did not attract public attention until March of the following year, when a House of Representatives committee chaired by New York representative Stephen Van Rensselaer submitted a report to Congress concerning the finishing and furnishing of public buildings. The report included, as one of many appendices, a detailed account of the manner in which the $14,000 appropriated for White House furnishings in the previous year had been expended. The account was compiled by John Quincy Adams’ 22-year-old son and private secretary, John Adams Jr., who declared “the expenditures have all been made with an eye to the strictest economy.” (3) Among the 124 items listed were the billiard table ($50), the new cloth and repair work ($43.44), cues ($5), billiard balls ($6), and chessmen ($23.50).

Gambling in the White House?

John Quincy Adams by Gilbert Stuart, 1818

When John Quincy Adams learned of the report, he told Van Rensselaer that the inventory – which John Jr. had not run past him before submitting – was wrong. Adams had paid for the billiard table and related items with his own money. But the Congressional report had been printed, and no public correction was issued.

Supporters of Andrew Jackson – Adams’ opponent in the 1824 and 1828 presidential elections – seized on the purchase as an opportunity to embarrass the President. Although billiards was a popular game in Europe (see Was Napoleon good at billiards?), it was less common in the United States and had an unsavory reputation.

The very term ‘billiards’ evoked an image of a secluded room where players and loungers wasted countless hours, smoking cigars, imbibing spirituous liquors, and wagering upon the fortunes of the game, all the while employing language and swapping stories that would have offended disapproving wives, sweethearts and mothers. Because the game was commonly associated with gambling, it was illegal in many states. (4)

In one of many disparaging editorials, Duff Green, editor of the United States Telegraph (Washington, DC), wrote:

It appears…that a portion of the public money has been expended in the purchase of a BILLIARD TABLE for the President’s House. The fact cannot be denied…if a refutation of the charge was at hand, the ‘authority presses’ would have given it along ago…. The sum expended, it is true, is not very large…. Yet the amount expended…does not remove the objection. I would ask seriously, what public good can possession of this table answer? Will it contribute to the dignity or usefulness of the Chief Magistrate of the nation? Will it raise him in the estimation of foreign Courts? Who wants, while on a visit to the President or at Congress to play at Billiards? Can it be that the President’s House is to be converted into a place of resort, where gamblers may idle away an hour? Is it right that the President, as the head and father of a moral, religious and money-saving people, should set such an example – should throw the weight of his character and situation on the side of games of hazard? Who can number the cases, in which young and old already justify their gambling practices by the example – at least by the Billiard table of the President? (5)

In fulfilment of Green’s prophecy, in November 1826 a jury in Vicksburg, Mississippi, refused to convict the owner of a public billiard table under a state anti-gambling law after the defence counsel argued his client had “as good a right to establish a billiard table as the President of the United States.” (6)

In December, Green railed:

If the people tolerate the trifling expense of a billiard table, balls and chessmen, out of the public funds, what may they next expect? … a bill something like this:

To Jack Anapes for fifty decks of cards $12.50
To Ben. Roulette for a table $25.00
To Squire Swift, for four race horses $2000.00
To Jonathan Plough, for race-field $1000.00
To Divers Sundries for preparing race track, stands, &c. $1000.00
To Sundry losses of Presidents wife, at billiards $23.50
To [ditto] of President at billiards, chess, cards, &c. &c. $233.33

… Next, we may have parks, stocked with deer, elk, buffalo, wild boars, &c. &c. that the President or his wife may take royal sport, ‘for the benefit of their health,’ and as ‘advised by their physicians,’ all at the expense of the people. (7)

Clarification

After months of criticism, in response to which supporters of Adams made a weak and inconsistent defence, Representative James Clark of Kentucky wrote to Van Rensselaer on March 2, 1827, to clarify whether public funds had, in fact, been spent on the President’s billiard table. Van Rensselaer immediately replied:

[T]he committee on the public buildings, of which I was chairman at the late session, in the discharge of their duty, found it necessary to have an account or schedule of the furniture in the President’s house, obtained in virtue of a previous appropriation by Congress. We had no communication with the President on the subject; nor do I suppose that he had any knowledge, either of what we applied for, or what was furnished us. Our application was to his private Secretary, and the inventory or account, as handed to us by him, was annexed to our report without examination by us, and both the report and inventory were ordered to be printed, neither the one nor the other having been first read in the House, the reading having been dispensed with as is usual in cases of reports of committee.

Soon after the report and inventory had been printed, and some days before the discussion arose in the house on the report, I learned from the President that the inventory, so far as it related to the billiard table, &c. was entirely erroneous and that no part of the public appropriation had been or would be applied, to any such purpose. I regret that circumstances prevented me from making this explanation afterwards, when the conversation on the subject took place in the House; had I done so, it is probable so many remarks might not have been indulged in before the public. (8)

A vile example before the view of the nation

Van Rensselaer’s letter was published in the newspapers, but this did not put an end to the attacks.

If the account of the billiard table was erroneous, have we not reason to believe there has also been a misapplication of the public money, to clothe the President’s family, with these ‘dry goods’? …. If the ‘billiard table &c.’ was not purchased with the public money, how came John Adams Jr. to include it in his account of the expenditures of the $14,000.00? (9)

Now, which shall we believe, Mr. Adams, who wishes to screen himself in the eyes of the nation, or his son, who had not motive to disguise the fact of the case?

Is it not probable that a part of the money was applied as stated by the son; that afterwards in consequence of the sentence of condemnation having been passed upon it by the voice of the nation, some subterfuge was resorted to with the view of clearing the President of the censure, that Mr. Adams told Gen. Van Rensselaer this story, to obtain the sanction of his name in support of a miserable apology in his favor, and then procured the application to be made for it through Mr. Clarke? To us, this appears to be highly probable; and we doubt whether any other face can be put upon it.

It is not, however, denied that the President keeps the gambling apparatus in his house; and it is here that the great mischief lies. The feelings of the people are violated, in having an example so vile set before the view of the nation. (10)

Imitating court etiquette

In what the Administration hoped would be the final word on the subject, Joseph Nourse, Register of the Treasury certified on June 21, 1827:

that on the settlement of the furniture account of the present President of the United States, there is not any charge made by him, nor payment made by the United States, for a Billiard Table, Cues, Balls or any appurtenance whatever, in relation thereto; neither has there been any charge or payment made for Backgammon Boards, Dice, or any appurtenance in relation thereto; nor for Chess Boards or Chess Men, or any appurtenance in relation thereto. (11)

However, this still left Adams open to charges of being aristocratic in his tastes and activities, and of encouraging the vice of gambling. Visiting Washington in December 1827, British naval officer Basil Hall observed:

I had read so much in the public papers of the discussions in Congress about the extravagance of the President, in the outfit of this house, especially respecting the monstrous fact of his having ordered a billiard table as part of his furniture, that I looked sharply about for this dreadful engine of vice, which, innocent or insignificant as it may appear, was actually made to play a part in the great electioneering presidential question – which seemed to turn all men’s heads. I myself heard this billiard-table spoken of in Congress more than once, with perfect seriousness, as a sort of charge against Mr. Adams, who was then President. I may add, that this was only one of a thousand petty darts which were levelled at the same person; and which, though insignificant, taken separately, were like those that subdued Gulliver by no means to be despised when shot by multitudes. The following paragraph from a letter published in the papers, is a fair specimen of this Lilliputian warfare: ‘I cannot support John Q. Adams,’ says the writer, ‘because he has introduced a billiard-table into the President’s house, for the amusement of its inmates and visitors; thus holding out inducements to engage in a captivating vice – departing from plain republican manners – imitating the court etiquette of regal powers, and furnishing an example to the youth of our country, which, I conceive, can neither be too generally nor too severely reprehended.’

This appears ludicrous to us, and so I imagine it is considered by rational Americans. Even by many sensible men in that country, however, the doctrine of simplicity in manners, in connexion with refinements in sentiment and in taste, is very often, as I think, quite misunderstood. If these refinements be carried too far, they may certainly run into extravagance or affectation; but, on the other hand, it seems to be forgotten, that if the graceful and innocent pleasures of life be systematically and generally despised over any country; there will be some danger of the inhabitants falling into coarseness both of thought and action, the very opposite to real simplicity. (12)

The billiard table and the 1828 election

The issue of the billiard table contributed in a minor way to Adams’ defeat by Jackson in the 1828 Presidential election.

Its significance lay primarily in setting the overall tone of the Jacksonian campaign against the President. … Adams was accused not only of being extravagant in his use of public funds to furnish the White House, but also of waxing fat at the expense of the people throughout his public life. …

[T]he circumstances under which his billiard table was placed in the White House suggested to his opponents the sort of campaign that might be used successfully against him in that presidential canvass. Resentment by Adams’ followers of what they justifiably considered to be unwarranted abuse of the President prompted them to respond in kind by equally vicious personal attacks upon the private character of his opponents. Thus the President’s billiard table played a part in giving rise to ‘one of the most woeful’ political campaigns in American history. (13)

You might also enjoy:

John Quincy Adams’ Swimming Adventures

John Quincy Adams’ Report Upon Weights & Measures

The Inauguration of John Quincy Adams

The John Quincy Adams Portrait by Gilbert Stuart & Thomas Sully

The New Year’s Day Reflections of John Quincy Adams

John Quincy and Louisa Adams: Middle-Aged Love

Louisa Adams, First Foreign-Born First Lady

When Louisa Adams Met Joseph Bonaparte

A Skeleton City: Visiting Washington DC in the 1820s

Charles Francis Adams, ed., Memoirs of John Quincy Adams, Vol. VII (Philadelphia, 1875), 22.
Ibid., p. p 38.
Register of Debates in Congress, Comprising the Leading Debates and Incidents of the First Session of the Nineteenth Congress, II, Part II (Washington, 1826), p. 2656.
Edwin A. Miles, “President Adams’ Billiard Table,” The New England Quarterly, Vol. 45, No. 1 (March 1972), pp. 31-32.
United States Telegraph (Washington, DC), August 11, 1826.
“The National Billiard Table,” from the Vicksburg (MI) Eagle, United States Telegraph (Washington, DC), November 21, 1826.
United States Telegraph (Washington, DC), December 13, 1826.
Niles’ Weekly Register (Baltimore, MD), Vol. 32. No. 815 (April 28, 1827), p. 150.
United States Telegraph (Washington, DC), May 16, 1827.
United States Telegraph (Washington, DC), May 26, 1827.
Scioto Gazette (Chillicothe, OH), September 13, 1827.
Basil Hall, Travels in North America in the Years 1827 and 1828, III (Edinburgh, 1830), pp. 15-16.
Miles, “President Adams’ Billiard Table,” pp. 40-41, 43.

Spring Cleaning

How do you feel about spring cleaning? For some, it’s a welcome opportunity to freshen the home; for many, a detestable chore; and for others, something not worth bothering with. At least anyone undertaking the task today can rely on modern appliances to help. Spare a thought for 19th-century housekeepers, for whom spring cleaning involved considerable time, elbow grease, and disruption.

Topsy-turvy the order of the day

American writer Susan Fenimore Cooper (daughter of James Fenimore Cooper) described the upheaval involved in spring cleaning in Cooperstown, New York in April 1848.

The great spring house-cleaning [is] going on in the village just now, and a formidable time it is in most families, second only as regards discomfort, to the troubles of moving. Scarce an object about a house seems in its proper place – topsy-turvy is the order of the day: curtains and carpets are seen hanging out of doors, windows are sashless, beds are found in passages, chairs are upside down, the ceiling is in possession of the white-wash brush, and the mop ‘has the floor,’ as reporters say of Hon. M.C.’s. Meanwhile, the cleaners, relentless as Furies, pursue the family from room to room, until the last stronghold is invaded, and the very cats and dogs look wretched.

Singular as it may appear, there are some active spirits in the country – women spirits, of course – who enjoy house-cleaning: who confess they enjoy it. But then there are men who enjoy an election, and it was settled ages ago that there is no arguing upon tastes. Most sensible people would be disposed to look upon both house-cleaning and elections as among the necessary evils of life – far enough from its enjoyments. One would like to know from which ancestral nation the good people of this country inherit this periodical cleaning propensity; probably it came from the Dutch, for they are the most noted scourers in the old world, though it is difficult to believe that such a sober, quiet race as the Hollanders could have carried on the work with the same restlessness as our own housewives. …

Most civilized people clean their dwellings: many nations are as neat as ourselves; some much neater than we are; but few, indeed, make such a fuss about these necessary labors; they contrive to manage matters more quietly. Even among ourselves, some patriotic women, deserving well of their country, have made great efforts to effect a change in this respect within their own sphere, at least; but alas! in each instance they have, we believe, succumbed at length to general custom, a tyrant that few have the courage to face, even in a good cause.

It must be confessed, however, that after the great turmoil is over – when the week, or fortnight, or three weeks of scrubbing, scouring, drenching are passed, there is a moment of delightful repose in a family; there is a refreshing consciousness that all is sweet and clean from garret to cellar; there is a purity in the neighborhood, the same order and cleanly freshness meet you as you cross every threshold. This is very pleasant, but it is a pity that it should be purchased at the cost of so much previous confusion – so many petty annoyances. (1)

Complaints of a literary housekeeper

Another American writer, Sara Payson Willis Parton (Fanny Fern), offered these reflections on spring cleaning, published in 1857.

‘Spring cleaning!’ Oh misery! Ceilings to be whitewashed, walls to be cleaned, paint to be scoured, carpets to be taken up, shaken, and put down again; scrubbing women, painters, and whitewashers, all engaged for months ahead, or beginning on your house to secure the job, and then running off a day to somebody else’s to secure another. Yes, spring cleaning to be done; closets, bags, and baskets to be disemboweled; furs and woolens to be packed away; children’s last summer clothes to be inspected (not a garment that will fit all grown up like Jack’s bean-stalk); spring cleaning, sure enough. I might spring my feet off and not get all that done.

When is that book of mine to get written, I’d like to know? It’s Ma’am, will you have this? and Ma’am, will you have that? and Ma’am, will you have the other thing? May I be kissed if I hadn’t more time to write when I lived in an attic on salt and potatoes, and scrubbed the floor myself. Must I turn my house topsy-turvy, and inside out, once a year, because my grandmother did, and send my [manuscripts] flying to the four winds, for this traditionary ‘spring cleaning.’ Spring fiddlestick! Must I buy up all Broadway to be made into dresses, because all New York women go fashion-mad? What’s the use of having a house, if you can’t do as you like in it? (2)

Instructions for spring cleaning

Spring Cleaning in the 19th Century A manual for young housekeepers provided these instructions for spring cleaning in 1869.

Were you, reader, some day in spring, generally in the week before Easter, to take a walk through villages which we know, you might be ready to suppose that a general emigration was contemplated. You would see chairs and tables, kneading-toughs and cradles, bedsteads and bedding, all put out for an airing, while the busy cottagers are scrubbing and whitewashing, and perhaps painting and papering within doors. Neither is the practice confined to the poorer class only….

Perhaps not many even inexperienced housekeepers would begin at the downstairs passages and parlours, and proceed upstairs to bedrooms, &c. Still it may not be quite needles to some to say, begin at the top, and work on downwards. Should you clean the lower rooms first, they will be sadly dusty by the time the rest are completed.

While sweeping keep all doors shut, that the dust may not spread. And let those who are not active assistants in the operations know as little as possible of what is going on; have no brooms and brushes here and there to proclaim it, and no water-pails and dust-pans standing about to endanger people’s shins.

The first thing to be done in a room is to remove any drapery and carpets, to be carried out, and brushed and shaken; and if for this purpose they are put into a charwoman’s hands, it may be well to see that they are not thrown down in the yard or doorway, to be trampled upon until it suits her to attend to them.

Pictures, looking-glasses, and ornaments are best moved and cleaned under the care of one who is an interested owner of them.

If circumstances prevent a room from being entirely emptied out…all that is left in it should be covered over; and before any cleaning commences, the chimney, if needing it, should be swept, and the ceiling and walls brushed down before the floor is scoured.

If boards are very dirty, a handful of unslaked lime thrown into the water assists in cleaning them; or wood-ashes, used with soap, will make the boards very white and sweet.

Housekeepers who wish to avoid expense…will find it by no means necessary to employ a plasterer to whitewash a ceiling; any active charwoman can do it, by laying on with a brush a mixture of either quicklime and water, or whiting and water. …

If a good wall paper is soiled, it may be refreshed by rubbing it lightly with a piece of bread-crumb. …

Should the carpets have soils, which brushing and shaking will not remove, they may be cleaned by soaping the dirty parts, and then using a clean scrubbing-brush dipped in boiling water, and then well rubbed with a rough dry cloth.

China ornaments may be cleaned by washing in warm water with a little soap and soda; a bit of flannel or a soft brush should be used to the crevices, and then well dried and polished with a soft cloth.

A soapy flannel is the best thing to clean looking-glasses, but it requires the greatest care not to touch gilded frames with anything damp. … The frame may be dusted with a brush, and polished with an old silk handkerchief. An old handkerchief is the best rubber for highly polished tables. For mahogany that is not French polished, there is nothing better than bees’-wax and turpentine, provided it be rubbed afterwards until the rubber and the rubbed are quite warm.

For paint, use soft soap and a sponge to clean it; then clear it of soap with cold water, and polish with a soft cloth. …

Cleaning-up time gives a good opportunity for putting, with a feather, a little oil to creaking hinges or rusty locks.

Emery paper, with elbow grease, will be wanted for the fire-irons and polished parts of the grate, and the latter article with black-lead for the black parts of the grate, though these articles are, of course, used every week, if not every day.

Bedrooms which are in use should be scoured early in the day, that there may be time for them to thoroughly dry and be set in order before night.

If one sunny day in the year, at least, all bedding could have a good airing out-of-doors, it would be very beneficial: a feather bed put in the sun for a day will have received almost as much benefit as if it had been sent to be cleaned and steamed. A feather should be put into all the screwholes and crevices of a bedstead, to clear it of dust; and if there is suspicion of any unwelcoming visitors, the feather should be dipped frequently in turpentine.

Nearly all the foregoing remarks may of course be as suitable for any other time of the year as spring; and we hope no young housekeeper will suppose that we are recommending neglect of cleanliness all the year through, to be atoned for at that particular season. (3)

A man’s view of spring cleaning

This poetic grievance about spring cleaning, penned by someone identified as “a sufferer” (presumably male), was published in 1853. It might be considered an example of stupid news, as it regularly reappeared in newspapers over the next 30 years.

The melancholy days have come, the saddest of the year,
Of cleaning paint, and scrubbing floors, and scouring far and near;
Heaped in the corners of the room, the ancient dirt lay quiet.
Nor rose up at the father’s tread, nor to the children’s riot;
But now the carpets are all up, and from the staircase top,
The mistress calls to man and maid to wield the broom and mop.

Where are those rooms, those quiet rooms, the house but now presented,
Wherein we dwelt, nor dreamed of dirt, so cosy and contented?
Alas! they’re turned all upside down, that quiet suite of rooms,
With slops and suds, and soap and sand, and tubs and pails and brooms;
Chairs, tables, stands, are standing round at sixes and at sevens,
While wife and housemaids fly about like meteors in heaven.

The parlor and the chamber floor were cleaned a week ago;
The carpet shook, and windows washed, as all the neighbors know;
But still the sanctum had escaped – the table piled with books,
Pens, ink and paper all about, peace in its very looks –
Till fell the women on them all, as falls the plague on men,
And then they vanished all away, books, paper, ink and pen.

And now, when comes the master home, as come he must of nights,
To find all things are ‘set to wrongs’ that they have ‘set to rights,’
When the sound of driving tacks is heard, though the house is far from still,
And the carpet woman on the stairs, that harbinger of ill,
He looks for papers, books or bills, that all were there before,
And sighs to find them on the desk, or in the drawer no more.

And then he grimly thinks of her who set this fuss afloat,
And wishes she were out at sea in a very leaky boat,
He meets her at the parlor door, with hair and cap awry,
With sleeves tucked up, and broom in hand, defiance in her eye –
He feels quite small, and knows full well there’s nothing to be said,
So holds his tongue, and drinks his tea, and sneaks away to bed. (4)

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Susan Fenimore Cooper, Rural Hours (New York, 1850), pp. 43-44.
Sara Payson Willis Parton (Fanny Fern), Fresh Leaves (New York, 1857), pp. 289-290.
The Young Housekeeper as Daughter, Wife, and Mother, Forming a Perfect ‘Young Woman’s Companion,’ (London, 1869), pp. 105-107.
“Spring Cleaning,” Littell’s Living Age, Vol. 37 (Boston, April-June 1853), p. 754.

Napoleon at Fontainebleau on March 31, 1814 by Paul Delaroche, 1845. Napoleon attempted suicide when he was at Fontainebleau.

Having lost his empire, his throne, his wife and son, and his followers, Napoleon Bonaparte tried to commit suicide in the early hours of April 13, 1814, rather than resign himself to a life in exile on Elba.

Napoleon’s thoughts on suicide

When he was young, Napoleon occasionally expressed suicidal thoughts. In May 1786, as a 16-year-old artillery officer with the La Fère Regiment at Valence, he wrote a short essay entitled “On Suicide.”

Always alone in the midst of men, I come back to my rooms to dream with myself, and to surrender myself to all the vivacity of my melancholy. Towards which side is it turned today? To the side of death. …

What is there to do in this world? Since I must die, is it not just as well that I should kill myself? If I had already passed my sixtieth year, I should respect the prejudices of my contemporaries, and wait patiently till nature had finished me in its course; but since I begin to experience misfortune, and since nothing is a pleasure to me, why should I support a life in which nothing prospers for me? (1)

During his exile on St. Helena, Napoleon told Charles de Montholon that he had seriously contemplated taking his own life when he was in Paris after the December 1793 siege of Toulon. His mother and his younger siblings were living in poverty in Marseilles. They needed money, but Napoleon was broke.

I went outside as though driven by an animal instinct towards suicide, and I walked along the quays feeling my weakness, but without being able to overcome it. A few more moments, and I would have thrown myself into the water. (2)

He was saved by a chance encounter with a former classmate and fellow officer, Alexandre des Masis, who gave him 30,000 francs to send to his mother.

In August 1795, again in Paris as an under-employed general of brigade, Napoleon described himself in a letter to his brother Joseph as “little attached to life, contemplating it without much solicitude, constantly in the state of mind in which one is on the day before a battle, feeling that, while death is always amongst us to put an end to all, anxiety is folly – everything joins to make me defy fortune and fate; in time I shall not get out of the way when a carriage comes.” (3)

As a commander, however, Napoleon sought to deter his men from committing suicide. In May 1802 he issued the following order when two men in his guard killed themselves within a month of each other owing to disappointments in love.

That a soldier ought to know how to overcome the grief and melancholy of his passions; that there is as much true courage in bearing mental affliction manfully as in remaining unmoved under the fire of a battery. To abandon one’s self to grief, without resisting, and to kill one’s self in order to escape from it, is like abandoning the field of battle before being conquered. (4)

Napoleon expressed similar thoughts to Irish physician Dr. Barry O’Meara on St. Helena.

It has always been my maxim, that a man shows more real courage in supporting and resisting the calamities and misfortunes which befall him, than by making away with himself. That is the action of a losing gamester, or a ruined spendthrift, and is a want of courage, instead of a proof of it. (5)

I do not like to commit suicide; it is a thing that I have always disapproved of. I have made a vow to drain the cup to the last draught. (6)

Nonetheless, after nearly being captured by Cossacks at Maloyaroslavets in October 1812, Napoleon asked his doctor to make up a suicide potion that he could swallow if he were taken prisoner. During the remainder of the Russian campaign, and the subsequent military campaigns in Germany and France, Napoleon wore a mixture of belladonna, white hellebore and opium, “the size and shape of a clove of garlic,” in a black silk pouch around his neck. (7) Whenever he stayed in Paris, the pouch was locked in his travelling case.

Napoleon’s suicide attempt at Fontainebleau

By early 1814, Napoleon and his army had been driven back to France. British forces pushed northward from Spain, while Russian, Prussian and Austrian forces invaded from the east. Paris surrendered to the Allied Coalition on March 31. On April 2, the French Senate passed a resolution that declared Napoleon deposed. Napoleon, who had advanced as far as Fontainebleau with an army of about 70,000 men, wanted to march on Paris, but his marshals and senior officers refused. On April 4, Napoleon abdicated in favour of his three-year-old son, the King of Rome, with his wife, the Empress Marie Louise, as regent. This was unacceptable to the Allies. On April 6, Napoleon abdicated unconditionally.

Napoleon remained at the Palace of Fontainebleau while his representatives, General Armand de Caulaincourt, Marshal Jacques MacDonald and Marshal Michel Ney, negotiated the terms of his removal with the representatives of Austria, Russia and Prussia. On April 11, the negotiators signed the Treaty of Fontainebleau in Paris. It stripped Napoleon of his powers as ruler of the French Empire, but allowed him to keep his title of Emperor and made him ruler of the island of Elba. It also made generous financial provisions for the Bonaparte family. Napoleon’s signature was required for ratification.

On the afternoon of April 12, Caulaincourt and MacDonald brought the treaty to the Palace of Fontainebleau for Napoleon to sign. By this time Napoleon had been deserted by most of his soldiers, court and servants.

Those to whom he had distributed riches, honors, dignities in the time of his power, on whose fidelity he had a right to count, these had disappeared little by little and had gone to Paris, to salute the new power which had arrived at the tail of the baggage wagon of the enemies of France. (8)

Napoleon’s wife and son – whom he had not seen since January and would never see again – were at Orléans, soon to depart for the Château de Rambouillet, where Marie Louise’s father, Emperor Francis I of Austria, was to join them.

In the course of a lengthy conversation, Napoleon told Caulaincourt:

I have lived too long… Poor France… I don’t want to see her dishonored… A little more energy, a few more months of suffering, and she would have triumphed over all her enemies…. When I think of her situation, of the humiliation imposed upon her by foreigners, life is intolerable. (9)

Though he was supposed to dine with Caulaincourt and MacDonald, Napoleon went to bed before dinner, saying he felt unwell. His chamberlain had taken the precaution of removing the gunpowder from his pistols. Sometime after midnight, Napoleon called the valet on duty, a man by the name of Hubert, and asked for his dressing gown.

Hubert, after placing the light on a table, helped the Emperor to put on his dressing gown, his trousers with feet, and his slippers. Having done this, the valet uncovered the fire and fed it. The Emperor, intending to write to the Empress, told him to go and get some paper. Hubert hurried down to the study and brought back paper, pens, and ink, which he placed on the little table; he moved this up to the sofa which was before the fireplace and on which the Emperor was sitting, and withdrew to the antechamber, but leaving the door ajar in order that he might hear the better if the Emperor should happen to call him, and also in such a manner as to be able to see the Emperor without being seen.

The Emperor began to write, but, dissatisfied with the lines which he had written, he tore up the paper and threw it into the fire. He took up the pen again, wrote once more, and, as little satisfied as the first time, the leaf was likewise torn up and thrown into the fire. Finally, a third letter was begun and met the same fate as the two which preceded it. Shortly afterward the Emperor rose and went toward the chest of drawers opposite the fireplace. At this moment Hubert, seeing the Emperor standing up, closed the door a little further, in order not to be seen.

On this chest of drawers there were usually two glasses on a plate, covered with a napkin, a little teaspoon, a sugar bowl, and a beside it a carafe full of water. But by chance the sugar bowl was not there, because, as the servant had delayed too long in having it refilled the day before, it was in the room where Hubert was. It should be added that there was usually melted sugar in one of the two glasses, but that from forgetfulness or some other reason there was nothing in the glass. While Hubert was listening in order to answer the Emperor, he heard water being poured into a glass and then the noise of the little spoon which was being stirred about in order to melt something. Knowing that there was no melted sugar in the glass, Hubert could not imagine what it was that the Emperor was stirring, but after a moment’s consideration he thought that the Emperor, not seeing the sugar bowl which was usually with the two glasses, had taken some sugar out of his dressing case.

When the Emperor had stopped stirring the glass there was a moment of silence, after which the Emperor came to the door and told Hubert to send for the Duke of Vicenza [Caulaincourt], the Duke of Bassano, the Grand Marshal [Henri Bertrand], and M. Fain. At that moment…the Emperor’s features were as calm as though he had just drank a glass of water. (10)

When Caulaincourt arrived around 3 a.m., Napoleon asked him to deliver a letter he had just written to Marie Louise. He foresaw that the Empress and his son would be separated from him, that there were all kinds of humiliations in store for him, that someone would try to assassinate him, that life on Elba would be dismal. He couldn’t resign himself to being at the mercy of a conqueror. He said, “Soon I will exist no more.” Napoleon told Caulaincourt he had taken some opium mixed with a bit of water. He said he had a repugnance for other means of dying, which could leave blood or a mutilated face. He wanted his Old Guard to be able to recognize him. (11)

Caulaincourt sent for Dr. Alexandre Yvan, who had prepared the poison for Napoleon during the campaign of 1812. Either because Yvan administered an emetic, or of his own accord, Napoleon began to vomit up everything he had swallowed in a series of violent spasms. By 7 a.m., his pangs had eased. Those present surmised that Napoleon survived because the poison was old and had lost its potency. Others later suggested that Napoleon simply took an overdose of opium, not intending to kill himself, but rather to help him sleep.

When Marshal MacDonald went to Napoleon’s apartments at 9 a.m. on April 13 to collect the signed Treaty of Fontainebleau, Caulaincourt and the Duke of Bassano were still there.

[Napoleon] was seated before the fire, clothed in a simple dimity [lightweight cotton] dressing-gown, his legs bare, his feet in slippers, his neck uncovered, his head buried in his hands, and his elbows resting on his knees. He did not stir when I entered, although my name was announced in a loud voice. … his complexion was yellow and greenish. (12)

When Napoleon did acknowledge MacDonald, he appeared to have woken from a dream. He said “I have been very ill all night.” (13)

According to Montholon, Napoleon later provided the following explanation for his suicide attempt.

My life no longer belonged to my country. The events of the last few days had again rendered me master of it. ‘Why should I endure so much suffering?’ I reflected, ‘and who knows that my death might not place the crown on the head of my son?’ France was saved. I hesitated no longer, but leaping from my bed, mixed the poison in a little water, and drank it with a sort of feeling of happiness. But time had taken away its strength; fearful pains drew forth some groans from me; they were heard, and medical assistance arrived. God didn’t want me to die yet. Saint Helena was my destiny. (14)

In my novel Napoleon in America, Napoleon again puts a pouch of poison around his neck, resolving never to allow himself to be taken prisoner again.

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Oscar Browning, Napoleon, the First Phase: Some Chapters on the Boyhood and Youth of Bonaparte, 1769-1793 (London, 1905), p. 283.
Charles de Montholon, Récits de la captivité de l’empereur Napoléon à Sainte-Hélène, Vol. II (Paris, 1847), p. 413.
The Confidential Correspondence of Napoleon Bonaparte with His Brother Joseph,” Vol. I (London: John Murray, 1855), p. 13.
“Napoleon on Suicide,” The Standard (London, England), October 10, 1834.
Barry O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile, Vol. I (London, 1822), p. 54.
Ibid., p. 131.
Louis Étienne Saint-Denis, Napoleon from the Tuileries to St. Helena, translated by Frank Hunter Potter (New York and London, 1922), p. 66.
Ibid., p. 66.
Armand de Caulaincourt, Mémoires du Général de Caulaincourt, Duc de Vicence, Grand Écuyer de l’Empereur, edited by Jean Hanoteau, Vol. III (Paris, 1933), p. 343.
Saint-Denis, Napoleon from the Tuileries to St. Helena, pp. 66-67.
Caulaincourt, Mémoires du Général de Caulaincourt, Vol. III, pp. 360, 363.
Camille Rousset, ed., Recollections of Marshal MacDonald, Duke of Tarentum, translated by Stephen Louis Simeon (New York, 1893), pp. 327-328.
Ibid., p. 328.
Montholon, Récits de la captivité de l’empereur Napoléon à Sainte-Hélène, Vol. II, pp. 418-419.

Foot washing, or the Washing of the Feet, is a religious ceremony performed by many Christians on the Thursday before Easter. The ceremony, also known as Maundy, commemorates Jesus’s washing of the feet of the 12 disciples at the Last Supper. As recounted in the Gospel of John (13:1-15), Jesus instructed his disciples to follow his example and wash one another’s feet. The act is considered a sign of humility, among other things.

Jesus performing foot washing on his disciples, by an anonymous Sicilian painter, early 1700s

Jesus Washing the Feet of the Disciples, by an anonymous Sicilian painter, early 1700s

Royals and Maundy Thursday

During the medieval period, European monarchs participated in Maundy services. To show their humility before God, they washed the feet of a select group of paupers. They also distributed alms as an act of charity. By the 18th century, most kings and queens had stopped personally washing the feet of the poor. However, the Habsburg rulers of Austria kept up the practice until the collapse of their monarchy at the end of World War I.

On March 23, 1837, English writer Frances Milton Trollope attended the Maundy Thursday Fusswaschung (foot washing) performed by the Emperor and Empress of Austria at the Hofburg Palace in Vienna. The Emperor was Ferdinand I, the son of Francis I of Austria. He was the brother of Napoleon’s second wife Marie Louise and the uncle of Napoleon’s son, the Duke of Reichstadt, who died in 1832. Somewhat mentally and physically deficient as a result of his parents being double first cousins, Ferdinand was a kind and devoutly religious man. His wife, the Empress, was Maria Anna of Savoy, the daughter of King Victor Emmanuel I of Sardinia and Archduchess Maria Teresa of Austria-Este. Maria Anna was charming, good-hearted, and as devout as her husband.

At the time of the foot washing witnessed by Mrs. Trollope, Ferdinand was 43 years old and Maria Anna was 33. They had been married for six years. Ferdinand had been Emperor for two years. Another participant in the ceremony was Archduchess Sophia (Princess Sophie of Bavaria), the then 32-year-old wife of Ferdinand’s brother, Archduke Franz Karl of Austria.

What follows is Frances Trollope’s account of the imperial foot washing. She gives us a touching glimpse of Empress Maria Anna, Archduchess Sophia and some elderly residents of Vienna.

Arrival of the Emperor and Empress

Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria by Leopold Kupelwieser, 1847

A long narrow table was spread down each side of the room, raised on an estrade covered with carpet; on the inner side of each table were twelve arm-chairs, and about an hour after the spectators who lined the walls had taken their places, twelve old men and as many old women were led in, each by two supporters, and placed in them. They were neatly and warmly clothed for the occasion, but the form of their garments looked as if they were coeval with the institution.

After they had been some time seated, the usual three announcing taps were heard upon the floor, the throng of officers and high officials of the court fell back, and the Emperor and all the archdukes at present in Vienna, all in military uniforms, walked up the room. Immediately afterwards, the Empress, Archduchess Sophia, and a dozen attendants followed. They mounted the estrades on which the tables were placed; the Emperor and his suite on the side allotted to the men, and the Empress, archduchess, and their ladies, on the other.

The graceful Empress placed herself opposite a tidy little old woman, whose superiority of age (she only wanted one year of a hundred) gave her the first place, the archduchess stood next, and they had both a grande-maîtresse behind them; while ten noble ladies in attendance stationed themselves each one opposite an old woman, all of whom were placed in order, from the venerable ninety-nine, down to the cadette aged eighty-four. On the other side of the room the Emperor, the archdukes, and gentlemen in waiting did the same.

Serving the meal

Empress Maria Anna of Austria by Johann Nepomuk Ender, late 1820s or 1830s

As soon as the court had thus placed themselves, and each old pensioner received a kind word or two, which in more than one instance called up a blush of pleasure and agitation on the faded furrowed cheek of age, a double file of servants in state liveries marched up the room, each bearing a tray laden with what appeared to be very dainty viands, but of which meat of course made no part.

The top of the female table was immediately before the place we occupied, and the Empress being stationed at that end of it, our attention was naturally fixed upon her, and certainly no one ever went through a ceremony with greater perfection of demeanour in every way. The first part of the humble Christian office she had lent herself to perform consisted in placing with her own hands the various dishes provided for the venerable senior upon whom she waited; and this was done with a quiet, gentle sweetness that made us almost forget the Empress in admiration for the woman.

Her august sister-in-law, and each fair dame in order, followed the edifying example, and the table was speedily covered. Nothing, however, was eaten by the guests but soup; it having been ascertained for some years past that sending home untouched the portion served to each, for their private enjoyment and that of their friends, gave them more pleasure than eating a nervous meal in the imperial presence, and having the remnants sent after them. Three entrées, and a dessert, comprehending I imagine as much food as would serve a family for a week’s feasting, were successively placed on the table, and removed by royal and noble hands with all the zeal and activity of careful attendants.

I suppose one of the old women looked wistfully at the parting dishes as if she were hungry; for the Archduchess Sophia bent across the table, spoke a few words to her, and then proceeded to cut off a slice of bread from a loaf that flanked her plate, and gave it to her. It was eaten with much apparent appetite, aided perhaps by the draught of what I presume was wine, which the poor soul drank with evident and hearty good will from a goblet that stood before her. This draught was, I think, taken by all, and was in every way well timed, as it served to drink to the health of their imperial hosts, to recruit strength and spirits that must undoubtedly have been somewhat tried by the whole scene, and to have fortified them against the effects of the severe cold without.

Washing the feet

The dinner having been thus placed and removed, the tables were withdrawn with great celerity, and the most remarkable part of the ceremony began. Pages approached with gold basin, ewer, and napkins; the beautiful Empress drew off her gloves, and tied a white linen apron round her waist, while every lady on the estrade knelt down before the poor old woman opposite to her, and pulled off her shoe and stocking. When this was completed, they drew back, and a long line of white linen cloth was placed by some of the attendants over the row of naked feet to prevent their being unnecessarily exposed. Meanwhile a priest placed himself at a desk prepared for him….

The gospel, from whence the necessity of performing this act of humiliation is drawn by Roman Catholics, was read; and it was then that one might perceive how truly the Empress of Austria submitted herself to the performance of this lowly office from genuine religious feeling. She had hitherto performed the part she had taken upon her with an air of smiling kindness, but her countenance, which is one of great feeling, is rather grave than joyous, and even her smile expresses more of goodness than of gaiety; but, while she placed the dainty dishes that were to be their portion before the poor people seated at the board, her look and manner spoke, without the slightest shade of affectation, a well-pleased gracious hospitality that had no mixture of penance in it. But no sooner did the priest begin to pronounce the words of the gospel than her soul seemed to retire into itself, her lips moved in prayer, and though neither her hands nor eyes were raised to heaven, nor gesticulations of any kind used to produce the external appearance of devotion, there was something in her whole person that might have helped a painter at need who wished to represent, not the martyrdom, but the holy self-devotion of a saint.

When the preparations were completed, she drew near the first woman in the line, and, kneeling down, dipped the corner of a napkin in water, and touched the foot, which having wiped, she bent low her fair imperial head, and kissed it.

The performance of such an office as this must affect the spectators entirely according to the manner in which it is executed. Protestant princes do not believe themselves called upon by the gospel to perform this act of humility, and Protestant subjects are content to give them credit for a due proportion of the great Christian virtue which it exemplifies, without their making any public display of it; but, however well we may all of us be satisfied by our own arrangements, I think it impossible that any real Christian, let the form of his Christianity be as simple and undemonstrative as it may, to see this gracious creature drag herself along upon her knees in the performance of this painful ceremony, without feeling that she had humbled her heart before God.

Giving alms

On rising from her knees she was very pale, and I saw tears in her fine dark eyes; but she presently resumed her usual tranquil air, laid aside her apron, drew on her gloves, and concluded the business of the morning by throwing over the neck of each poor old soul a ribbon, from which depended a little purse containing forty pieces of silver, adding, what really from the manner of its reception seemed more precious still, the favour of her extended hand to kiss. Even this, however, was not enough to satisfy the feeling she inspired, for, after she had passed by, I saw one of the old women stretch out a palsied hand to seize her dress, which she pressed fervently to her lips, and I almost envied the good soul her opportunity, for I should have well liked to kiss the hem of her garment myself.

We were in the front row of the tribune, which was so placed that the gentlemen who were walking about the room were able to converse with those placed in it, and I overheard a young scape-grace say as he passed,

‘N’est-ce pas jouer la comédie?’ [‘Isn’t this play-acting?’]

‘Au moins la pièce est fort belle,’ [‘At least the play is very beautiful,’] was the answer.

The kind-hearted Emperor appeared to perform his part of the ceremony in serving the table, with great activity and good nature; but we were too far from his estrade to see very well what was done upon it.

The paupers

The twenty-four people were all dressed in new uniforms for the occasion: the women in gowns of grey cloth, with large round black hats; over which, though they were flexible enough, the ribbon that sustained the purse was not passed without some little difficulty. The caps, pinners, and aprons were all most delicately white. The dress of the men was of the same material as the gowns of the women, and their hats very nearly similar; the greatest singularity of the male attire was a sort of white muslin tippet round their necks, such as we often see in the pictures of Holbein. Their grey beards, which had been permitted to grown in honour of the ceremony, added greatly to their venerable and picturesque appearance. The ages of the men varied from ninety-nine to eighty-three, those of the women from ninety-nine to eighty-four; the aggregate of age among the females surpassing, by eight years, that of the males; the old ladies, too, appeared considerably the most active and robust. They are twenty-four of the oldest poor people to be found in the city, capable of being brought to the palace. (1)

After the Revolutions of 1848, Emperor Ferdinand abdicated in favour of his nephew, Franz Joseph, the son of Franz Karl and Sophie. Ferdinand and Maria Anna retired to Prague Castle, where they devoted much time to religious pursuits. Ferdinand died on June 29, 1875 at the age of 82. Maria Anna died on May 4, 1884, age 80. They had no children.

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Frances Trollope, Vienna and the Austrians, Vol. II (London, 1838), pp. 325-331.

Miss Ann Thropy reading stupid news. Print by Henry Heath after unknown artist, circa 1824-1835. Source: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

Ever get the feeling that you’ve seen a particular news story before? Is it a story about a supposedly interesting or unusual occurrence that gives the appearance of having just happened, but in fact has been circulating for months, or years, on many different sites, and is not even very interesting or unusual? You’re not alone. Stupid news has been around for at least 200 years. Here’s what one early 19th-century writer thought of these ‘little sneaking fetid nothingnesses.’

Silly nothings

“No one can take up a newspaper without being disgusted with a number of stupid little paragraphs that go the rounds of the press. The course of the stars is not more certain than that of these niaiseries when once they are set going, and an experienced quidnunc will calculate their revolution to a day. Some particularly silly nothing, of about half a dozen lines, just fills up a column in a morning paper; it is copied into all the evening papers, and the other morning papers of the next day cannot forego such a clever little thing, that just closes the chinks, and packs their lumber close.

“The weekly papers are sure to adopt it, seeing how popular it has been with all the daily journals: then it goes the rounds of the country, as the editors of the provincial papers, finding it in all the London papers, copy it as a matter of course into their pages.

“By the time it has circulated in this way through the United Kingdom, to say nothing of its foreign travels, it is quite forgotten in the place of its birth, except by the unhappy constant readers of newspapers, who have always memories miserably tenacious of rubbish. It then travels back to the metropolis, and the editor of some London paper, in want of six lines, with the scissors dangling at his fingers’ ends, espying it in the Ballynacrasy Newsletter, straightaway cuts it out as a novelty, and transfers it to his columns; then it is again set up, and again takes the same circuit, and again comes back like a bad penny, again to go forth.

“I assure you that I have been so haunted by a paragraph of this kind, that though forewarned of its nature by the customary commencement, ‘It is an extraordinary circumstance,’ or ‘It is a singular coincidence,’ I have, after having passed it over with a pshaw in fifty different papers, read it at last in absolute despair, in order to know the worst.

They always begin with an ‘it’

“You may generally distinguish these niaiseries by this token, that they always begin with an it, and end with a note of admiration. They begin with it, because a man who has nothing to write always starts with it; it is the most pregnant of pronouns, and there is a charming vagueness in its demonstrative quality that leaves it open for the addition of any nonsense; to use the favourite phrase of the trivia, it is agreeable to any thing. Put a pen into the hands of a scribbler, and set him writing against time, and my life on it he beings with an IT, for that useful little world is never out of place, and always ready for an amplification; you write it first, and contrive to tack something to it afterwards. At all events it is a good round-about road and imposing sweep to any nothing a man has got to say. Does he wish to intimate to the universe that the moon is not made of green cheese, see how he ennobles the position by coming to it by the way of it – ‘It is an undoubted truth that the moon is not made of green cheese.’ By virtue of this pronoun the sentence is exactly doubled, and a meagre proverb is made into a good sonorous mouthful, fit for Dr. Johnson’s use.

“Then, as for the notes of admiration with which a niaiserie generally concludes, these marks are ordinarily the tributes which a man pays to his own genius: when he writes a good thing, he puts one of them as a sentinel or guard of honour over it, lest it should pass unnoticed in the crowd; the facts of newspapers being for the most part brilliant strokes of invention, the inditers of them are kept in perpetual admiration of their own creative faculty, and bestow the meed of applause of their powers of fancy in these notes from themselves to themselves. Did you ever, Mr. Editor, hear the story of the Irish journalist who killed a child to fill his paper? Good manners must compel you to say – No, so I will tell it you. The printer of the paper bawled up the speaking trumpet to the editor, ‘Sir, we want just three lines to fill the paper.’ ‘Kill a child at Waterford then,’ replied the editor. Anon the printer was again at the trumpet, ‘Sir, we have killed the child at Waterford, but still want a line to fill the paper.’ ‘Contradict the same, then,’ rejoined the editor. Now can we be surprised that men who thus hold life and death in their hand do not exactly understand the rule nil admirari? Nay, may we not find excuses for them if they are apt to wonder a little too much at their own wonders.

“A good flim-flam is not the thing to which I object, but what I abominate are the little sneaking fetid nothingnesses that are copied from paper to paper. During the session of parliament when the two houses are sitting, the collective wisdom of the nation finds the newspapers abundantly in nonsense; indeed I am decidedly of the opinion that those assembles have no other earthly use. But when the houses are up, or during the summer, there issues forth such a delivery of jests, stale even to stinking, and such swarms of standing niaiseries of all orders, as render the perusal of newspapers an operation the most trying to a man of an irritable temper. Let me disgust you with a few specimens.…

Examples of stupid news

“The following is an interesting article of intelligence that appears, mutatis nominibus, some twenty or thirty times in the course of every year.

Bell-ringing. The ringers of the village of Hollywell, in the parish of Dunderhead, in the East Riding of the county of York, met on Saturday, the 17th inst., and rung round a merry peal of triple bob majors, in the key of D, in the short space of fifty-nine minutes and seventeen seconds (the tenor weighed three hundred and eighty-one pounds); after which the gentlemen partook of an excellent dinner at the sign of the Cat and Bagpipes, at West Barking, in the same parish. In the course of the evening many good catches were sung, and the party did not break up till Aurora, with rosy fingers, unbarred the portals of the East!

“There is also a perpetual paragraph:

Horticultural phenomenon. It is a remarkable fact that is now growing in the garden of Augustus Frederick Tottie, Esq. of Mount Pleasant House, near Whitton, in the neighbourhood of Hounslow, Middlesex, an extraordinary large turnip, weighing eighty-two pounds one ounce, and admeasuring sixty-three inches round the waist. It is a curious circumstance that exactly forty years ago, a turnip weighing one hundred and thirty-seven pounds eight ounces was produced in the grounds of the same gentleman, and presented to the late king by his gardener. An interesting account of this extraordinary vegetable will be found in the Gentleman’s Magazine for the year 1785.

“One is always sure to find a sort of stuff particularly out of place or improbable under the head of FASHIONABLE NEWS.

It is a remarkable fact that within the last twenty-three years there have been no fewer than four individuals serving the office of head beadle of Mary-le-bone parish of the name of Smith!! And what makes the coincidence the more singular, three of the churchwardens during the same period were named John!!! These individuals were in no way related to each other, and they all died before they arrived at the advanced age of ninety!!!! …

Narrow escape. As a gentleman was walking on the Chain Pier at Brighton, on Tuesday night, his hat was blown off by the fury of the boisterous element, and had a narrow escape of falling into the briny deep. It is a curious circumstance that the same individual nearly lost a hat in the very same way some years ago when walking on the pier at Margate! …

Curious Coincidence. It is a curious coincidence that James Hogg, aged thirty-three, was hung for house breaking at the debtor’s door, Newgate, on Monday, the 5th of March, and that, strange to say, the father of this very man died at York at the age of fifty-two, on the 7th of August, 1819!!!!

Uncommon Mildness of the Season. Mr. Polhill, of Penryn, has now a rose in blossom in his garden.

Unparalleled Severity of the Opera Season. Such as been the unparalleled severity of the Opera Season, that the fashionables at the Hay-market Theatre, on the first night of its opening, were all frost-nipped. …

Remarkable Instance of Sagacity in a Dog. On Saturday last, a labouring man named Baldwin, in the employ of Mr. Stokes, of Weymouth, had his dinner brought to him as usual by his second daughter, an interesting little girl of nine years of age, in a covered wicker basket. But being unexpectedly called away for a few moments, his faithful dog (which is a sagacious quadruped, of the terrier breed, curiously dotted over his eyes with light brown, or tan-coloured spots, and partially web-footed) most unaccountably abstracted the poor man’s fare, for, on his return, the basket was found lying upon its side, and quite exhausted!!! …

Retirement of Lord Liverpool! It is confidently asserted in the higher circles, that Lord Liverpool is about to retire from his majesty’s councils, his lordship having unfortunately lost the royal favour, as it is said, from his persisting to wear in the morning ill fashioned, baggy, blue kerseymere pantaloons, tied with worsted strings at the ankles, with white cotton stockings, and surprisingly large leather bound shoes; a style of dress to which his majesty has more than once expressed his most unqualified dislike. The noble earl, however, with that independence which marks his character, refused to compromise his inexpressibles, and a rupture has consequently taken place.” (1)

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Lord Liverpool was not a Ninny

How to Make Small Talk in the 19th Century

Spring Cleaning in the 19th Century

How was Napoleon’s death reported?

“Niaiseries of the Newspapers,” The London Magazine and Review, New Series, Vol. I (April 1825), pp. 515-520.

New Orleans, where Napoleon lands in Napoleon in America, was an accommodating place for his supporters in the years after 1815. French speakers constituted about three-quarters of the city’s population of some 27,000. Many of the French and Creole inhabitants were sympathetic to Napoleon. They disliked England, their opponent in the Battle of New Orleans. Something of the feeling of the time can be gathered from a riot that took place in the city over a French flag on a British ship in March of 1817.

New Orleans – Taken from the Opposite Side a Short Distance above the Middle or Picayune Ferry, by W. J. Bennett from a sketch by A. Mondelli, 1841

A British ship & its French flag

Trouble arose after a ship from Liverpool, called the Hamilton, under Captain Colshead (Colshed), docked next to a French vessel, the Pacifique, along the levee at the foot of St. Louis Street. On its masthead, the Hamilton flew the Union Jack and, below it, “a small vane [short triangular flag], which bore some resemblance to the tri-colored flag.” (1) Though it was no longer the French flag – that was the Bourbon white flag – the tricolour had been the flag of revolutionary and Napoleonic France.

On March 17, when both ships were loading, a dispute arose between the British and French crews about the landing stage leading to the levee. Although the Hamilton had been in port for three weeks, it was now “discovered that [the] vessel’s vanes had a tri-coloured tail, and this, it was industriously propagated, was intended as an insult to the French part of the community; it was immediately seized upon by a certain class of persons long known in [the] vicinity, whose purposes it suited.” (2)

Encouraged by the mate of the Pacifique, who addressed the crowd with a sword in his hand, spectators started yelling at the Hamilton to take down the flag. Some of the crowd boarded the Hamilton, but after threats from the captain and crew they returned to the levee and began to throw brickbats and oyster shells at the ship. The city guard approached and the crowd dispersed.

The next morning, March 18, people again assembled on the levee. A couple of sailing masters of vessels in the vicinity of the Hamilton told Captain Colshead to take down the French vanes, as their continuing display could endanger the safety of himself, his crew and his vessel. Colshead said he would do so if it was against American law to keep them raised. The sailing masters then called on Commander Daniel Todd Patterson of the US Navy and asked him to have the vanes pulled down, indicating that Colshead would abide by Patterson’s direction. Patterson replied that “as the vanes had been represented to him, they contained nothing offensive to the government of the United States or in violation of its laws, and that were he in the captain’s place, he would not haul them down by compulsion.” (3)

Stirring up the mob

Around two in the afternoon, British businessman James Stuart arrived at the Hamilton, at which time a crowd was gathering on the levee, one of them with a large stick. Stuart advised Colshead to ask New Orleans mayor Augustin de Macarty for assistance. Colshead told the mayor that a crowd was collecting around his ship and he wanted them dispersed. He also wanted the man with the stick to be arrested, as he “seemed to be going about with a view of stirring up the mob.” The mayor told him to get the man’s name and to go to a justice of the peace. He also informed Colshead that “he understood it was intended by the crowd that evening to take down the vanes and drag the English colors through the streets.” (4)

Colshead returned to the Hamilton in the company of John Davidson, the British consul to New Orleans. Davidson looked at the vanes, observing “he could find nothing in them that could give offence to any one.” Around four p.m., Stuart went to the ship and “saw the crowd driven away by the crew of the ship, who were armed with staves, and the flour they were engaged in loading was thrown off the stage by the crowd.” (5)

The captain was advised to go on board and protect his vessel; he was then standing at the end of the stage with two American masters of vessels. [Stuart] went on board with the captain and some others, when the mob endeavoured to force their way up the stage, armed with swords and pistols, about 15 in number. Shortly after the mayor came on board and told the captain he would take charge of the vessel. The captain immediately ordered his crew to desist from further opposition, and go forward; at the same time informing the mayor he expected everything would be left in the same condition as when he took charge of the vessel, even to the vanes that were then flying. The mayor observed he would be responsible, and told the captain to go below, where [Stuart] accompanied him with others, under a belief that the mayor had taken charge of the vessel, as he was then on deck.

A few minutes after going below they were called to from the deck to come up, as the mob was boarding. [Stuart] discovered, on coming on deck, the crew retreating, pursued by the mob with pistols, swords, and cutlasses. [Stuart], in looking round, saw one of the crew pursued by one of the mob with a dirk, when another advanced & shot him through the neck with a pistol. The captain and those with him again returned to the cabin and shut the cabin door after them. As the captain went down, the mob fired a pistol after him.

[Stuart] seeing no convenient mode of retreat, and being pursued by one of the mob, with a cutlass in one hand and a pistol in the other, stood still and waited the approach of the assailant, and in the act of drawing the stroke with the cutlass, [Stuart] caught his arm, and being on a higher part of the deck, gave the assailant a push, who fell against the companion door. [Stuart] immediately stepped upon the hen coop, and from thence to the bowsprit of the Tennessee, where he remained until the arrival of the United States’ troops. [Stuart] saw during the affray the British consul struck three times on the shoulder by the mob. (6)

A seaman was murdered, the mate of the ship and four of the crew severely wounded, the rioters then tore down the vanes, cut away the rigging, chopped the main and mizzen-masts, broke the skylight, through which they fired several pistols into the cabin, in which were…the British Consul, the captain of the ship, and several other persons and, when they could find nothing else to vent their spleen, they gallantly tied a monkey’s chain round his neck and threw it overboard, and most magnanimously cut an English duck’s head off.

What they would have found next to indulge their malice on, or where they would have stopped, it is impossible to say, had not Col. Reynolds, the marshal, went down to headquarters to request military assistance to preserve the peace of the city. (7)

Arrival of the troops

On being informed of the riot, Major General Eleazer Wheelock Ripley marched out soldiers from his garrison. By the time they arrived, the assailants had already made their escape, except for two or three who were taken by the military. Ripley stationed a strong guard on board the Hamilton and cleared away the crowd. Several more people were subsequently arrested.

A later report claimed that the culprits were led by Captain Pierre Liquet, a member of a group of smugglers and pirates who haunted the region of Barataria Bay, south of New Orleans. (8) The Barataria gang was loosely under the control of pirate Jean Laffite and his brother Pierre. Liquet had commanded a privateer during the Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812. One of his ships was called the Napoleon. He was also a slave smuggler. In addition to the Barataria men, the mob consisted of sailors from the French ships in port and some Bonapartists from the French population of New Orleans.

Feverish reports

Feverish reports of the New Orleans riot soon made their way across the country. According to an extract of a letter from New Orleans to a gentleman in New York, dated March 20:

Gen. Ripley ordered out his men, and secured about 15 of the fellows, and was obliged to fire on the remainder to disperse them. This morning the mayor ordered the prisoners to be released, which was done. In consequence of which the sea captains formed a line and attempted to take the mayor and tar and feather him, but did not succeed. The whole town is in an uproar and ere it ends there will be much blood shed. The Hamilton had all her masts cut away, and about 100 shots were fired in the cabin from the docks. A guard of men, with Major Humphreys at their head, has just past me with 10 or 12 prisoners, whom he says he will not deliver to the civil authority but will have them tried by military laws. The press, for fear of this affair coming public, has been ordered not to mention particulars, and nothing of importance has been seen in any paper – the ladies are frightened to death. The captain (former mate) of the Hamilton has given his ship up as a prize to the American government by the advice of the English consul. He says that his ship was taken in an American port by force of arms, and his colors pulled down – himself and the living part of the crew taken prisoners – consequently he thinks that the ship is a lawful prize, and himself and men prisoners of war. This affair will be of serious consequence. The English consul has also offered to give himself up as a prisoner of war, and some of our petit maitres begin to look a little blank on the occasion. This morning every British ship in port has hoisted the same colored vane, and have armed their men, who are determined to protect their ships or die in the attempt. Every man in the city has a sword by his side and pistols in his pockets. (9)

Affair greatly exaggerated

This was an exaggeration, soon corrected by the following.

We have the best authority, of gentlemen who were eye-witnesses of the whole of the late disturbance at New Orleans, for saying that the affair has been greatly exaggerated in all the accounts that have been published of it. There was an affray, it is true, originating in a dispute between two vessels, about wharfage, or something of that sort. When people are disposed to quarrel, the slightest pretext is sufficient. In this way, probably, the tri-colored vane excited the assault on the British vessel. One person only was killed, instead of several, as represented. The British captain was not hurt, nor was the vessel greatly injured. The mob dispersed before the military arrived; and of course they had no occasion to fire. There are other particulars mentioned in the private letters published, for which there appears to have been no sufficient foundation. The imaginations of the writers appear, in a moment of trepidation, to have enlarged every object, and clothed every circumstance with horror. (10)

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François Guillemin: Spying and Scandal in 19th-Century New Orleans

General Jean Joseph Amable Humbert: Soldier, Lothario, Filibuster

Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau

A Murder and Hanging in Louisiana in the 1820s

“Riot at New Orleans,” National Advocate (New York), April 17, 1817.
“Riot at New Orleans,” [From the Louisiana Gazette of March 22] Maryland Gazette and Political Intelligencer (Annapolis, MD), April 24, 1817.
“Riot at New Orleans,” Maryland Gazette, June 12, 1817.
“The Riot at New Orleans,” National Intelligencer (Washington, DC), May 31, 1817.
Ibid.
Ibid.
“Riot at New Orleans,” Maryland Gazette and Political Intelligencer (Annapolis, MD), April 24, 1817.
“Narrative of the Riot on the 15th, 16th, and 17th of March 1817 in the City of New Orleans,” Daily Picayune (New Orleans, LA), November 29, 1843.
“Riot at New Orleans,” National Advocate (New York), April 17, 1817.
“The Riot at New Orleans,” National Intelligencer (Washington, DC), April 24, 1817.

The “Napoleon delusion,” a form of mental illness in which a person believes he is Napoleon Bonaparte, has long been a popular stereotype, as depicted in the short film Maniac Chase (1904), among others. “Delusions of grandeur” accounted for more than 25 percent of diagnoses of insanity in France in the 1830s. (1) In 1840, the year that Napoleon’s remains were returned to France, over a dozen “Napoleons” were admitted to the Bicêtre asylum on the outskirts of Paris. (2) While there is only one identified case of a woman claiming to be Napoleon, many women claimed to be Napoleon’s wife. What follows is a description of such a “Josephine,” as reported by an unnamed writer in Philadelphia in 1817.

Napoleon’s Marriage to Josephine, Caricature by George Cruikshank. Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France

The case of Margaret Bonaparte

“A few years since I was personally acquainted with a lady of a reputable family, who had an inordinate attachment to splendour and equipage; which the circumstances of her husband would not permit him to indulge. Her mad love of gaudy, but ideal bliss, together with the disappointment of her extravagant wishes, produced a chronical distemper of the mind. Her dress became highly expensive and fantastic: and she would take possession of any elegant carriage which she found drawn up at a neighbour’s house; giving the coachman directions to drive to some spacious abode, which she deemed her own. In one of these excursions she was driven to the Lunatic Asylum; and, rather against her will, detained there. It was, however, ‘her Palace;’ and all the other insane inhabitants of the place were either her servants, or her guests. Among others who occasionally visited the Asylum, she saw the writer.

“At this time Napoleon Bonaparte enjoyed the wealth and dignity of a powerful emperor; and who should be the husband of our lady, but the potent monarch of France, and temporary creator of the destinies of Europe! She imagined herself Josephine; and, although, in reality, she had never seen him who is now the exile of St. Helena; yet she had seen an engraving of his face; and the profile was like — yes, it was like that of the writer. For many months he was the Emperor, and she was his spouse; confined by him in a splendid castle, that he might make severe trial of the strength of her affection for him. Her husband and daughters she would not so much as recognize, or deign to answer, during all this time of her imaginary exaltation to a throne and a crown. Any thing which the keeper desired me to request of her, she would perform; and any thing which he could persuade her I had ordered was a matter of gratification. Her white satins and florentine silks were not abandoned in the place of confinement; but she would daily appear in all the stateliness and pride of universal domination.

“The means of writing were not always afforded her; but when they were, Napoleon was the subject of every line. One Lords-day she solicited pen and ink, and was indulged by the keeper, under this express agreement, that she should write only on a serious subject: and so she filled all the blank leaves of a Psalm-book with a rhapsody which began thus: ‘I am required to write only on a serious subject. What subject can be more serious to me, than my present separation from my dear Napoleon?’

“That your readers may have some opportunity of becoming acquainted with her talents, and her state of mind, I shall subjoin the copies of two letters which she addressed to your correspondent.

Margaret’s first letter to Napoleon

Spain, March 26th, [1811]

Dear Napoleon,

How novel the style — how various and impressive the emotions! I desired greatly this privilege of addressing you — can scarcely realize the indulgence — and yet, how astonishing! I certainly address the Emperor of the world as my own dear husband, and consider the implements of conveying a thought, a wish, the greatest favour! Possessing them, what can I say to you? A volume could not contain it, and yet my pen is mute; nor can my hand, my tremulous hand, retrace the great, the vast, the awful ideas that nearly overpower my imagination; nor engage in that converse sweet that is comprised in objects more minute. I certainly have caught the contagion, or mania of objects that surround me. I am bewildered. The sublime, the profound, the infinite; the burlesque and trifling; the tender and endearing; the repulsive and forbidden; sham quarrels, and checked reconciliations: grandeur, magnificence in prospect; real sufferings, indignities and respect; the sway of the hearts and affections of millions in submissive subjection to a small single control, &c. &c. are so blended and confounded, that I can give no intelligible expression to any one of them.

The present hour, aided by the powerful stimulant of sense, predominates, and urges you, in all the language that is persuasive or pathetic, by every motive that can affect the heart, towards an object beloved; — yes, beloved, — to put a period to my present probation. Let candour prevail, and inform me what depends on myself that may abridge the period of my residence at this Palace, that bars me from intimate communion with you, and causes all this delirium and rhapsody.

‘Dear husband; our union, so frequently confirmed by the expression of our will, so repeatedly solemnized by our affectionate subjects, in the various cathedrals and chapels we have attended, cannot now be affected by the voice or will of others, be their inclination or influence what it may. Hasten then to the relief of your spouse. An army would be superfluous: your presence and authority would dissolve the charm, and unbar the gates that withhold me from your embrace. Mount your swiftest, fleetest courser, and speed — fly to the relief of your Margaret. Say that this day shall end the perturbation of her mind, or turn all the energies of her emotions into a new channel, by a transit of situation; or hush them into peace and sweet tranquillity by the soothings of endearment and affection, the kindly office of tender friendship, of conjugal love. I wish to say much: do you imagine all for me; being under restraint lest some of the enemy’s scouting parties should intercept this, and give it publicity, which would be painful to delicacy, and tenderness that shrinks from the observation and criticism of others. I will only add, hasten to the relief of your affectionate wife Margaret — your own dear MARGARET BONAPARTE.

P.S. This is conveyed with great risk, by the keeper of the castle. I hope it may arrive safe, and my answer be from your own lips. M.B.

Margaret’s second letter to Napoleon

Thermadore —

Dear Napoleon,

Thank you for this means of address, my husband! I am wretched at our separation. What can I urge that has not already become tiresome by repetition? Does any thing depend on me? Why not put it in my power; and convey intelligence? I tax not my husband with want of gallantry, but myself with impropriety or indelicacy.

Oh! no — are you not my husband? Does not that title convey to you indescribable sensations, immense prospects, endearing, mutual obligations? Does my Napoleon realize the character he has thus assumed; and can he hold at a distance, try with relentless severity and perseverance, all the soul of his afflicted Margaret? Does not my dear husband see that the severity and durance of these trials have really an unfriendly effect on his own heart? I will not again ask, ‘Have you a heart? Is it callous?’ Yes, you have one, and it is in your Margaret’s possession. With all your sang froid and smiling indifference, it has a language better understood, perhaps under a well acted part, by some small tokens, that the manner and language were not real, were only the expression of the ‘sovereign austere,’ not of the tender, sympathizing friend! Again, let me ask — does any thing depend on me?

Nearly six months since we met in the German Chapel!!! Oh! my dear husband, I entreat you to exert yourself — leave nothing to me, but fetch me home. Bid me come to you, come without disguise to me: come now! come on receipt of this order. The bar of communication removed from between us, need I appoint the manner or means that would be acceptable? Oh! spare your Margaret; at least spare me. What is the obstacle? There was none to our marriage — it was publicly performed. Was it then my local situation? I came here in entire obedience, implicit obedience to your commands; and can be detained here by no other authority. Has any person dared to make use of your name, unauthorized — he is amenable to you: still am I solely subject to the mandate in your name that conveyed me here.

I care not for the carriage, horses, or driver: if yours, they are at your command, or any other, set me down again, if you do not choose to come for me yourself To the slightest communication of your will I have endeavoured to conform, so far as known: but enough of this repetition. Why is my Napoleon separated from his

MARGARET BONAPARTE.

N.B. — — will hand you this. I beg you will commission him with a message in return, for which he is requested to wait. Adieu, for a very little time, when I hope we shall meet without restraint, to the relief and happiness of your affectionate

JOSEPHINE.

A convincing Josephine?

“Margaret is her own Christian name; and Josephine, I presume, must be her name of empire. A little inconsistency must be expected in a crazy person: but may I not be permitted to say, that very few ladies, were they really in the situation in which she imagined herself to be, would have written with more ingenuity, persuasion, art, and tenderness? She blames Napoleon, while she apparently intends to accuse only herself; and she entreats him with genuine eloquence.

“In the foregoing lines I have stated facts; and the letters are copies of genuine epistles which are still in my possession. Had Mrs. — contemplated the greatest monarch of the world, driven away like an eagle to the top of a sea-beaten rock, as forsaken, forlorn, and unable to flutter out of his nest, she would not probably, in her ambition, have imagined him to be her husband, nor would she have thought that she saw her ‘Dear Napoleon’ in the writer.

Philadelphia, June 12, 1817.” (3)

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Laure Murat, The Man Who Thought He Was Napoleon: Toward a Political History of Madness, translated by Deke Dusinberre (Chicago, 2014), p. 127.
Ibid., p. 107.
“Review of Reid on Insanity,” The Analectic Magazine, Vol. X (Philadelphia, 1817), pp. 70-73.

Quodlibet (Letter Rack) by Cornelius Norbertus Gysbrechts, 1675, shows letters marked with sealing wax

‘The time has come,’ the Walrus said,
‘To talk of many things:
Of shoes and ships and sealing-wax,
Of cabbages and kings.’ (1)

One king, or rather an emperor, Francis I of Austria (the father of Napoleon’s second wife Marie Louise), was known for his skill in making sealing wax.

Like door knockers, sealing wax used to be a feature of everyday life. Sealing wax was used to securely close letters and other documents before the introduction of gummed envelopes in the late 19th century. When stamped with an engraved stone or piece of metal, such as a signet ring, sealing wax was also used to confirm the identity of a document’s signatory. Particularly before the advent of mass literacy, seals were a common means of authenticating contracts, wills and other documents.

Wax seals could be placed directly on a document, or attached by a ribbon, cord or strip of parchment. Cheaper forms of sealing wax were used to seal wine bottles and fruit preserves. Sealing wax is still available today, though it is used more for show than security.

Characteristics of sealing wax

Good sealing wax is easy to melt; sticky enough to adhere firmly to parchment, paper, ribbon, cork or glass, but not enough to cling to a polished stone or metal seal; and pliable enough to hold an impression stamped upon it. Sealing wax hardens quickly as it cools, retaining any impressed image, and forming a bond that is difficult to break without leaving signs of tampering.

How to use sealing wax

Heat one end of a stick of sealing wax over the flame of a candle. When the wax starts to melt, either drip or smear some melted wax onto the desired position. If you want to add a design, quickly and firmly press a seal into the soft wax, and then release. Let the wax cool. Be careful not to get melted wax on your hands. It can burn you.

Francis I and sealing wax

Sealing wax maker Francis I of Austria, by Josef Kreutzinger, circa 1820

According to an organical statue of the family of Habsburg all the Archdukes are obliged to learn a trade. The Kaiser, Francis the First, was a sealing wax maker…. The statute is intended to maintain in the family a positive and speculating spirit. (2)

Emperor Francis I of Austria (b. 1768 – d. 1835) was a man of simple tastes. His dress was plain, and his manners unpretentious. He disliked public spectacle. The Viennese court exhibited less pomp and luxury than the other major European courts of the time. Francis was said to be happy “when engaged in his workshop stamping seals onto sealing wax or merely cooking toffee at the stove.” (3)

Francis learned how to make sealing wax when he was young. He also made varnish, lacquered and carved boxes, and birdcages. Travelers to Austria circulated jokes about his fondness for sealing wax.

There was, some years ago, a story current in the diplomatic circles, that when the treaty with Napoleon Bonaparte, which annihilated [Francis’s] power in Italy, was brought to him, he was observed to ponder upon it, and examine the seal for some time, as if almost afraid to investigate the contents. At last he was heard to exclaim to himself – ‘Um – it is not better than I can make’ – meaning the wax of the seal! (4)

[The Saxons] laugh not a little also at the Emperor Francis, whose reputation all over Europe is that of having the thickest skull, and one of the best hearts, of modern times. His love of making sealing wax, and his having been actually thus engaged, when the French were at the gates of his capitol, seems universally believed here. (5)

Sealing wax recipes

An Austrian seal, made of gold and mother-of-pearl, circa 1810. The word “seal” is used both for the device used to make an impression on sealing wax, and for the resulting wax impression.

It’s not clear what recipe Francis used to concoct his sealing wax. During the Middle Ages, sealing wax was made from beeswax and “Venice turpentine,” a resinous extract of the European larch tree. By the 17th century, sealing wax was also being made from shellac, a resin secreted by the female lac insect on trees in India and Thailand. Sealing wax was usually coloured red with cinnabar or vermilion, or black with lampblack (soot from burning resin). Sometimes it was perfumed. The ingredients were melted together, well-mixed by stirring, and, while still soft, either cast into moulds of the desired shape or rolled into sticks on a smooth surface. Here are some sealing wax recipes from the early 19th century.

Art of Making the Best Red Sealing-Wax

To every ounce of shell-lac, take half an ounce of resin and vermilion, all reduced to a fine powder. Melt them over a moderate fire; and, when thoroughly incorporated, and sufficiently cool, form the composition into what are called sticks, of any length or thickness, and either flat or round, as may be thought best. On account of the dearness of shell-lac, seed-lac is usually substituted, even in what is denominated the best Dutch sealing-wax. Boiled Venice turpentine may be used, with good effect, instead of resin. Thus may be made a fine red sealing-wax; which will not only do, what is often falsely impressed…on very bad wax – ‘Burn well, and hold fast;’ but look well also. A more ordinary sort, but sufficiently good for most occasions, may be made by mixing equal parts of resin and shell-lac with two parts of red lead and one of vermilion, instead of all vermilion…. In a still commoner sort, the vermilion is often entirely omitted; and even a very large proportion of whitening, strange as it may seem, is actually introduced.

Black Sealing-Wax, &c.

This sealing-wax is made by stirring into any quantity of melted gum-lac, or shell-lac, half its weight, or less, of finely levigated ivory-black; adding, to improve the beauty of the wax, as well as to prevent its becoming too brittle, half their united weight of Venice turpentine. When the whole is properly melted, and incorporated by sufficient stirring, over a slow fire, it is poured on a stone or iron plate which has been previously oiled over; and while soft, rolled into sticks. The sticks, both of red and black wax, are lastly exposed to a proper degree of heat for acquiring an agreeably glossy surface. In a similar way, [by] substituting verditer, Prussian blue, and other proper powders, for ivory-black, may easily be made sealing-wax of any desired colour.

Soft Sealing-Wax, for Impressing Seals of Office, &c.

This sealing-wax, which is seldom used for any other purpose than that of receiving the impressions of seals of office to charters, patents, proceedings in chancery, &c. is prepared when to be used white, or rather uncoloured, by mixing half a pound of bees-wax, an ounce and a half of turpentine, and half an ounce of sweet oil; and carefully boiling them together, till the compound becomes of a fit consistency for moulding into rolls, cakes, or balls, for use. Where colour is wanted, it is readily obtained by stirring into the melting mass about half an ounce of a proper pigment, as in making the red or other coloured hard sealing-wax. (6)

Another use of sealing wax

Seal of Holy Roman Emperor Francis II, 1792. In 1806 Francis dissolved the Holy Roman Empire, after being defeated by Napoleon at the Battle of Austerlitz. He retained the title Emperor Francis I of Austria.

There is no word on whether Francis made the sealing wax employed in the following escapade during the Battle of Rivoli in 1797.

A very intelligent secret agent sent from Vienna, was seized by a French sentinel as he was clearing the last post of the French army before Mantua. He was forced to give up his dispatches, which he had swallowed, enclosed in a little ball of sealing wax. This dispatch was a letter written in a very minute hand, signed by the Emperor Francis. (7)

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Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (London, 1882), p. 75.
M. Kubrakiewicz, Revelations of Austria, Vol. I (London, 1846), p. 5.
Harold Nicolson, The Congress of Vienna (New York, 1946), p. 38.
James Kirke Paulding, A Sketch of Old England, Vol. II (New York, 1822), p. 236.
Henry E. Dwight, Travels in the North of Germany in the Years 1825 and 1826 (New York, 1829), p. 345.
The Family Receipt-Book: Or, Universal Repository of Useful Knowledge and Experience in all the Various Branches of Domestic Oeconomy (London, 1810), p. 34.
Emmanuel-August-Dieudonné de Las Cases, Memorial de Sainte Hélène: Journal of the Private Life and Conversations of the Emperor Napoleon at Saint Helena, Vol. II, Part 3 (London, 1823), p. 177.

A Wellington Door Knocker. Source: Charles Graham Architectural Antiques and Fireplaces, http://www.architecturalantiquesandfireplaces.co.uk/

Napoleon in America opens with a knock on a door, disturbing Sir Hudson Lowe at his toilet. Though that particular door on St. Helena did not sport a door knocker inspired by the Duke of Wellington, many doors in England did. Door knockers were a common feature of 19th-century life, until they were replaced by the electric doorbell.

Bray’s Wellington Door Knocker

The Wellington Door Knocker was invented by David Bray, an ironmonger located at 16 Cranbourn Street in Leicester Square, London.

Bray’s Wellington Door Knocker [represents] the Hand of our immortal Hero grasping the Wreath of Victory, and the Baton of Field Marshal, as being the highest rank that can be conferred on military fame: the Lion’s face represents British valour overpowering the arms of Tyranny and Usurpation, by striking on the breast of its bitterest enemy, the French Eagle, who was at first knocked under by the prowess of its noblest adversary, the British Lion, and annihilated by our magnanimous and generous Allies. To be had in Brass, Bronzed, or Japan. (1)

Bray first offered the door knocker for sale in May 1814, shortly after Napoleon’s exile to Elba. Thus Bray was honouring the Duke of Wellington’s victories in Spain and Portugal, rather than his subsequent triumph in the Battle of Waterloo. This last victory, in June 1815, added to the door knocker’s popularity.

A correspondent observes that one of the most ingenious and pleasing inventions of the present day is assuredly the Wellington Door-knocker; exclusive of the unique elegance of the article, the design is truly appropriate to the fame of our immortal hero, and has this peculiar circumstance attending it, that every knock brings home to the bosom the recollection of the heroic deeds achieved at Waterloo, and the final downfall of the enemy of the rights and liberties of mankind. (2)

The decline of door knockers

The Duke of Wellington’s death, in 1852, generated another spike in the sale of Wellington memorabilia, including the Wellington Door Knocker. By the late 1800s, however, door knockers had gone out of fashion, thanks to the availability of electric doorbells.

Door bells are a relatively modern invention and have only come into general use in London since the introduction of the electric button. Down to a quarter of a century ago the only modish means of summoning domestics to attend the house door were knockers, and in the fashionable districts, as well as in those populated by the humbler classes, every house door was adorned with a knocker of a more or less ornate character. The bells, such as they were, were reserved exclusively for the servants’ area and for the kitchen use, and in those days anybody possessed of social pretensions would have considered it as an infraction of dignity and self-respect to announce his or her presence at the entrance otherwise than by means of the knocker.

The knocking went on all day long and constituted so important a feature of metropolitan existence that it is difficult to realise how in the world it can have been so easily dispensed with and banished from the doors of all save the aristocracy. Thus, if there was a person who had died in the house, the knocker was ornamented with a bow of crape; if a birth had taken place a white glove on the knocker announced the fact, while if any one was killed the knocker was swathed in felt, and a marriage was proclaimed by a bunch of flowers fastened to the knocker.

Each caller at the house had his own particular knock. There was the postman’s knock and the doctor’s knock and the tax and rate collector’s knock, and the knock of the master of the house. In fact, there was no end to the number of characteristic signals of this kind, and in long streets the noise of these knockers was as uninterrupted as it was deafening. …

Nowadays knockers are only to be found on the doors of distinguished people, and their presence there generally indicates a taste for art and archaeology on the part of the owner of the mansion. (3)

Door-Knockers of the Aristocracy

Knocker wrenching

Door knockers were a common object of theft, and not only by the lower classes.

Knockers…constituted an important feature of sport and entertainment to the youth of the metropolis. Much of the watchfulness on the part of the police detailed for night duty was devoted to the preservation of the knockers from being stolen. Knocker-wrenching was a favourite form of diversion for rich and poor alike, and an aristocrat as well as shop boy looked upon the stolen knockers that constituted the trophies of his midnight prowess much in the same way as an Indian brave was wont to regard his collection of scalps.

First and foremost among these knocker-wrenchers was Lord Charles Beresford, though he was run close by his brother, Lord ‘Bill.’ Some of the knockers were such large brass affairs, and were fastened so firmly to the doors, that they defied the efforts of the marauders. Of such a nature were the big bronze dolphins which serve as knockers to the doors of the town house of the Marquis of Bath, on the west side of Berkeley Square. Lord Charles had tried several times to wrench off these particular knockers, but without success.

Determined not to be baffled, he hit upon another plan. Late one night he drove up with his intimate friend and chum in a hansom to the residence of Lord Bath. By the initiated the features of the cab driver might have been recognised as those of Lord Ribblesdale. As soon as the hansom halted, Lord Charles hopped out, carrying a stout rope. One end of this was attached to the knockers and the other to the body of the cab, the titled driver then being ordered to ‘whip up.’ This he did. The horse sprang forward and out came not only the knockers, but also the panels of the door.

An exploit of this kind could not be long kept secret, and very soon Lord Bath was in possession of the names of the robbers. What next followed was wrapped in mystery, but before a week had elapsed knockers and panels had disappeared from the bachelor ‘diggings’ of Lord Charles and had been restored to their proper place in the doors of the Bath mansion in Berkeley Square. (4)

Hatchments and finger plates

The decline of door knockers was accompanied by the loss of other adornments.

With knockers have also disappeared those hatchments which down to twenty years ago adorned the facades of so many London houses. These hatchments consisted of large black frames, four or five feet in each direction, enclosing a panel entirely black, or else a black and white ground upon which were painted the arms and crest. …

Lastly the curious old custom of finger plates on doors is following knockers and hatchments into oblivion, though it is to be confessed that the plates are dying harder than either of the two latter relics of good old times. They were introduced in the days when drunkenness was considered good form and sobriety as discourteous. They were placed above and below the knob of the door mainly with the object of enabling gentlemen coming home late to get their bearings when they wished to open a door. This being the case, one might have imagined that they were no longer of any use in the present mild era of lemon squash and weak claret. But this is not the case. Instituted for the use of the masters of the house, they are preserved in many mansions in London for the benefit of the servants, who are proverbially unable to open a door by the part provided for the purpose, namely the handle. Doors are frequently painted a delicate white and cream, or else made of some satin wood, on which the imprint of every hand in the least bit soiled remains. The servants, as a rule, are not as particular about their personal cleanliness as are their masters and mistresses, and it is with the object of preventing them from leaving traces of this nature upon the beautiful woodwork in opening and shutting the doors that finger plates are still maintained in many of the houses of the aristocracy in London. (5)

If you would like to revive the door-knocking tradition with your own Wellington Door Knocker, visit Charles Graham Architectural Antiques and Fireplaces, who kindly provided permission to use the image at the top of this article (see product reference DF06).

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The Morning Post (London, England), May 19, 1814.
The Morning Post (London, England), January 16, 1816.
“Concerning Door-Knockers,” Daily Mail (London, England), July 2, 1896, p. 7.
Ibid.
Ibid.

In doing research for my novel Napoleon in America, I came across the following sad tale of a murder committed by a Frenchman in Louisiana in 1824. It was written by clergyman Timothy Flint, a native of North Reading, Mass., who visited Natchitoches in early 1825.

Murder in the 1820s

A sad spectacle

While here [Natchitoches], I witnessed a sad spectacle, which left a deep impression, and which I will take leave to relate. A French surgeon of the name of Prevot, who was said to have received a regular education to his profession in France, came here at the age, probably, of thirty-six. He was arrested, treated with gross and unwarrantable indignity, and brought to this town for commitment to jail. He was liberated on a writ of habeas corpus, and conceived a deep purpose of revenge towards the district attorney, who made out the instrument of his commitment.

On a certain evening he supped with this gentleman, and after supper walked with him apart, challenged him, as he said, and offered him his choice of weapons. Mr. Mills refused to fight him, and, as he avers, added the epithet menteur [liar], which, he said, no Frenchman could ever forgive. He drew his dirk, and plunged it into the bosom of Mr. Mills, giving him a wound, of which in a few minutes he expired. Prevot walked deliberately away to the bridge that leads over the river, and was there arrested. He was tried, and condemned sometime in autumn, and had been lying in prison under sentence of death until my arrival.

Three days before his execution, I called upon him in prison, and offered him my services as a minister. He inquired if I were a Catholic priest, informing me, that if I came, as he phrased it, with any of the mummery of confession, mass, &c. he wished to have nothing to say to me. I answered, that I was a Protestant. He eagerly rejoined, ‘vous avez raison donc,’ adding, that he should be glad to see me. He explained that he had been brought up in the school of Voltaire and Delambert, and amidst the storms of the revolution; ‘a bad kind of discipline,’ he rejoined, ‘to make a good Christian.’ He averred that he did not repent of his murder, and that under similar circumstances he should repeat the act. I visited him repeatedly, and still found him in the same frame of mind. He requested me to attend him to the gallows.

He was executed half a mile from the prison, in the pine woods. A cart with a coffin was brought to the prison, and in the midst of a vast concourse, the poor wretch, after a long confinement in a dark prison, was brought forth to die. He had a fine countenance, was pale and emaciated, and was supposed to be still under the influence of arsenic, by which he had attempted to poison himself the night before. The view of a brilliant sun seemed to have a bewildering effect upon him. I persuaded him to walk rather than ride. He took my arm, and we were a most melancholy pair, the one as pale and feeble from disease as the other was from long confinement and the scene before him. As we ascended the bluffs to the pine woods, he bowed gracefully, and with true French ease, to all that he recognised among the assembled multitudes.

Arrived at the summit of the bluff, from which the pleasant village and a vast extent of delightful scenery were visible, he gave a long and fixed look at the outstretched prospect before him. He then looked up to the sky and the sun. He waved his head, with a kind of convulsive shudder, as he seemed to be taking his final leave of nature. ‘Ah!’ said he, ‘je suis las du coeur; mais c’est pour la dernière fois.’ ‘I am oppressed at heart, but it is for the last time!’

When we arrived at the gallows, he remarked that it was a spectacle terrible to poor, feeble human nature. ‘But I must finish,’ said he, and we helped him mount the cart. He then held out his hand and said, ‘Adieu, ministre!’ I requested leave to pray, and prayed, according to his wish, in English, which he did not understand. But he seemed to understand the heart-felt tone of the prayer. When it was finished, he seemed softened, and begged me to say to the people that he asked the mercy of God, and died in charity with all the world. He then added, with emphatic earnestness, ‘Adieu, ministre! Je vous remercie.’ He then desired the sheriff to proceed, and remonstrated against longer delay.

The moment before the cart was driven from under him, he took out his snuff-box, took in each nostril a large and deliberate pinch of snuff, was returning his snuff-box to his waistcoat pocket, but recollecting that he would have no further use for it, he laid it down on the coffin, intimated that he was ready, and was launched into eternity. (1)

Dr. Charles Prevot & Spotswood Mills

Newspaper reports from the time indicate that around nine p.m. on Friday, July 23, 1824, Spotswood Mills, district attorney for Louisiana’s sixth district, was stabbed through the heart in the street as he was retiring to his lodging in Natchitoches. Witnesses identified the assassin as Dr. Charles Prevot (or Prevost or Provost), a French physician who had recently arrived in the parish. In late November, Prevot was tried by a jury, found guilty of murder, and sentenced to death.

He heard his condemnation without emotion and without remorse. He confessed that he was the murderer of Mr. Mills, and…stated it to have been his intention to kill two other persons, had he not been arrested. (2)

Louisiana Governor Henry Johnson refused Prevot’s application for a pardon. In late January 1825, Prevot was executed by hanging at Natchitoches.

Spotswood Mills was born in Albemarle County, Virginia on November 14, 1791. He studied law in Virginia and moved to Louisiana no later than 1819, where he served as a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives for Natchitoches Parish. Mills was also a major of the 18th Regiment, Fifth Brigade, of the Louisiana militia. He was unmarried and had no children. (3)

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Timothy Flint, Recollections of the Last Ten Years Passed in Occasional Residences and Journeyings in the Valley of the Mississippi (Boston, 1826), pp. 367-369.
The Boston Recorder & Telegraph (Boston, MA), January 1, 1825.
Genealogies of Virginia Families: From Tyler’s Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Magazine, Vol. I (Baltimore, MD, 2007), pp. 688-689.

When Napoleon Bonaparte became the leader of France, he was an upstart general from Corsica. Unlike other European rulers of the time, he did not come from a royal or a noble background. He seized power through a coup d’état. How could Napoleon give his regime the appearance of legitimacy? By creating a court with rules of etiquette drawn from the monarchy that the French Revolution had done away with.

Napoleon Receiving the Delegation from the Roman Senate by Innocent-Louis Goubaud, 1809

Giving government ancient character

Napoleon became the First Consul of France in the coup of 18 Brumaire (November 9, 1799). On February 19, 1800, he moved into the Tuileries Palace, the traditional Parisian residence of the Bourbon kings, which used to sit next to the Louvre. For his apartments, he chose rooms that had belonged to Louis XVI, the last monarch to occupy the Tuileries, before being guillotined during the French Revolution. The Second Consul, Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès, wrote that Napoleon was obsessed with “the idea of giving his government the ancient character which it lacked. He would have preferred to have drawn a veil over the authorities which had preceded him after 1792 and to have made the consular power the heir of the monarchy.” (1)

In a country in which considerable blood had been spilled to ensure that all citizens were equal, Napoleon re-introduced elements of hierarchy and ceremony. Antoine Claire Thibaudeau, a member of the Council of State, observed:

We held in those day so high a respect for the dignity of Civil Magistrates, and so deep a contempt for the servants of a Court, that the Councillors of State were scandalised to see a former Minister of the Interior, one of their own colleagues, with an usher’s rod in his hand acting as Master of the Ceremonies or Groom of the Chambers to the First Consul. … So far we had none of those titled domestics known as Chamberlains; their duties were performed by Bonaparte’s aides-de-camp, while his entourage on state occasions consisted of the Ministers and Councillors of State, but it soon made itself evident that a regular Court and a system of Court etiquette would soon be held as necessary for the Tuileries as a ritual and an officiating clergy for a church. … The new Court ceremonies formed a highly novel spectacle, both to the actors who took part in them and to lookers-on. (2)

Napoleon initiated a regular schedule of receptions for ambassadors, senators, generals and other dignitaries. Every two weeks a grand parade of troops took place. He became particular about his wife Josephine’s guests, restricting them to the wives of leading military and civilian officials. “Monsieur” and “Madame” replaced the Revolutionary “Citoyen” and “Citoyenne.”

In 1802, Napoleon began to use the Château of Saint-Cloud, west of Paris, as his country residence. Sunday mass in the chapel at Saint-Cloud became a court event. Napoleon gave audiences immediately afterwards. By surrounding himself with formalities, he gradually made it more difficult for people to approach him.

On Easter in 1802, Napoleon’s household appeared in livery for the first time. Military uniforms were replaced by civil costumes. Court swords and silk stockings took the place of sabres and riding boots. Male visitors to court began to wear queues and powdered hair. Josephine, who disliked extreme etiquette, at least ensured that women did not return to hoops and panniers. In practice, court life was rather dull. People were not allowed to applaud or to boo at the court theatre. Yawns had to be stifled. Courtiers were expected to keep their eyes open, even if they fell asleep.

Consulting every old courtier

By the time Napoleon was proclaimed “First Consul for Life,” on August 2, 1802, his court resembled that of a sovereign. To determine its rules of operation, Napoleon deliberately looked at how things had been done under the French kings.

Every code of etiquette was ransacked, every old courtier or valet was consulted. How was this done? How was that managed? The orders of the day in the interior of the palace were to return to the usages and customs of the good old times. Those who longed for a return to monarchy, and those who were indifferent as to the form the government chose to assume, were filled with admiration, amounting with some to positive ecstasy. (3)

Many royalists who were intimately familiar with the old Bourbon court ridiculed Napoleon’s attempt to imitate its etiquette. And liberals who had fought to remove the constraints of monarchy regarded Napoleon’s court and its protocols with a mixture of scorn and horror.

[I]t was at once astounding and pitiable to watch the importance now attached to the merest trivialities, the pains which people took to bind all the talent of the nation with links of slavery, and the impatient energy with which men hastened to replace on their necks the shameful yoke of superannuated forms, with even more speed than they had thrown them aside. When they compared the First Consul of 1804 with the First Consul of 1800, with the General of the Army of Italy who had founded so many Republics as our allies and auxiliaries, with the victor over Royalism at Toulon and in Paris…they could not refrain from such bitter reflections as these: ‘This, then, is the ultimate end and object of so many fine words, lofty thoughts, and glorious exploits. Was it only to return to our old paths that France launched herself so gloriously on her new career, and watered the road with the noblest and purest of her blood?’ (4)

Germaine de Staël wrote:

Would not one have thought that a nation, so prompt at laying hold of improprieties, would have delivered itself up to the inextinguishable laugh of the gods of Homer, at seeing all those republicans disguised as dukes, counts, and barons, and making their attempts in the study of the manners of great lords, like men repeating a part in a play. … [D]id the ribands and keys of a chamberlain, with all the other apparatus of courts, suit men who had stirred heaven and earth to abolish such vain pomp? …

[Napoleon] loved the flattery of the courtiers of the former reign because they were more skilful in that art than the new men, whatever might be the eagerness of the latter to distinguish themselves in the same career. As often as a gentleman of the old court called back to recollection the etiquette of the days that were gone, and proposed an additional bow, a certain mode of knocking at the door of an antechamber, a more ceremonious manner of presenting a despatch, of folding a letter, or concluding it with such or such a form, he was received as if he had made a contribution to the happiness of the human race. (5)

Etiquette under Emperor Napoleon

Napoleon became Emperor of the French on May 18, 1804. In March 1805, the first edition of Étiquette du Palais impérial was published by the imperial printer. Subsequent editions came out in 1806, 1808 and 1810.

This book of etiquette provided rules for the operation of Napoleon’s imperial court. It codified the practices Napoleon had already established, based on the French monarchical past. It listed all the officers of the crown (Grand Almoner, Grand Marshal of the Palace, Grand Chamberlain, etc.), set out their duties, specified who was allowed to enter which rooms in the palace and in what manner, and gave instructions for the smooth running of religious functions, meals, balls, concerts, parades, ceremonies, imperial travel, court mourning, and other things.

For example, when their Majesties dined in public (au grand couvert), the Grand Chamberlain held a finger-bowl for the Emperor to wash his hands in; the Grand Equerry offered him his armchair; the Grand Marshal of the Palace presented him with his napkin. The First Prefect, the First Equerry and the First Chamberlain performed the same functions for the Empress. The Grand Almoner went to the front of the table, blessed the meal, and then retired. During the meal, the Colonel-General in waiting stood behind the Emperor’s armchair; the Grand Chamberlain stood on the Colonel-General’s right; the Grand Equerry on his left. Carafes of water and wine were placed on a golden platter, the glass on another platter, to the right of the place setting. When the Emperor wanted to drink, the First Prefect poured out the wine and water and handed the glass to the Grand Marshal, who transmitted it to his Majesty. When the Empress desired a drink, the First Equerry mixed and the Second Prefect handed over the glass. And so on. (6)

In formalizing his court and its code of etiquette, Napoleon wanted to show he was of the same rank as the other crowned heads of Europe, who held their thrones by virtue of royal blood. But this was not his only goal.

His aim was not so much to surpass in splendour the kings who preceded him and the sovereigns who were his contemporaries; it was especially to restore to the embodiment of authority all the splendour with which it was surrounded before the Revolution; it was to attach to his new government a considerable number of ambitious men who, of their own accord, would come and occupy the positions he had designed for them, and who, to recover the titles which they had borne, or to receive similar titles, would abandon their ancient masters; it was to promote expenditure by the festivities which he would command, and thus foster national industries; it was to re-establish a centre from which should radiate an example of politeness, of manners, and of fashion; it was lastly, by the numerous barriers and the distance placed between the emperor and the people, to increase the veneration of the multitude. (7)

Napoleon did not adopt the entire etiquette package of the old court. His court performed fewer personal duties for the monarch. For example, Napoleon changed the nature of the grand lever, doing away with the rising and dressing part of the ceremony. In general, Napoleon retained a substantial private life, conducted in his interior apartments, in which etiquette played a minimal role. This allowed him to get things done.

When Napoleon married Marie Louise, a member of the Austrian royal family, he picked members of the old aristocracy to serve as her attendants. Napoleon subjected Marie Louise to far more rigid etiquette than that he had imposed on Josephine. However, when Marie Louise’s life was in danger during the birth of their royal-blooded son, Napoleon II, “all the etiquette which had been studied and ordered was disregarded, and the child put on one side, on the floor, whilst everyone was occupied about the mother only.” (8)

Etiquette on St. Helena

The inhabitants of St. Helena addressing their new Governor. Napoleon caricature Source: Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, http://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/

The inhabitants of St. Helena addressing their new Governor. Source: Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford, http://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/

When Napoleon was banished to the remote British island of St. Helena in 1815, he insisted on being addressed and treated as Emperor of the French, even though his British captors dignified him only as General Bonaparte. Napoleon’s Grand Marshal of the Palace, General Henri Bertrand, was one of the few courtiers who accompanied Napoleon into exile. He retained that title in Napoleon’s establishment on St. Helena. In practice, Napoleon’s small number of servants, confined quarters and limited budget at Longwood House made displays of courtly etiquette difficult. The rituals that were maintained were the result of force of habit of Napoleon’s French companions, and the respect they felt for him, rather than any etiquette manual. According to one member of Napoleon’s suite, Count de las Cases:

The Emperor behaved to us in the kindest manner, and with a paternal familiarity. We were, on our part, the most attentive and respectful of courtiers. We uniformly endeavoured to anticipate his wishes; we carefully watched all his wants, and he had scarcely time to make a sign with his hand before we were in motion.

None of us entered his apartment without being sent for, and if any thing of importance was to be communicated to him, he was previously made acquainted with it. If he walked separately with any of us, no other presumed to intrude. In the beginning, we constantly remained uncovered near his person, which appeared strange to the English, who had been ordered to put on their hats, after the first salute. This contrast appeared so ridiculous to the Emperor that he commanded us, once and for all, to behave like them. Nobody, except the two ladies, took a seat in his presence, unless desired to do so. He was never spoken to but at his own peculiar insistence, and when the conversation became general, which was always and in all cases, under his control and guidance. Such was the etiquette of Longwood, which entirely was, as it must be evident, that of our recollections and feelings. (9)

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