1804

Napoléon and the First French

Empire

What should you know by the end of this course?

• What might have been the feelings of the young Napoléon vis-à-vis France and the French Revolution?

• In what sense can we speak of a social ascension which is not only his own ‘‘success story’’ but that of an entire generation?

• What are the features which make Napoléon both an archaic figure and a modern reformer?

• In what sense did Napoléon leave a stronger country, in what sense a weaker country?

Napoléomania!

• 2 165 references to Napoléon in 2009 in the catalogue of the French National Library (BNF)36 198 « notices » in the same catalog on February 19, 2014

• 26 000 references to Napoléon between 1799 and 1815 according to J. Caldwell (The Era of Napoléon 1799-1815) in 1991

• 168 websites dedicated to Napoléon (9 in the United States)• 74 « images d’Epinal » praising the hero, between 1829 and

1847• 80 000 books published on Napoléon since his death (figures

of 2002)

A young and ambitious officer who takes over power through his military campaigns

• Campaigns of Italy, 1795

• Bonaparte au pont d’Arcole (by Gros)

• Autoportrait of David

Bonaparte crossing the

Alps

The Expedition of Egypt, 1798• A campaign which will turn into a military disaster• A scientific expedition which remains an important stage in the discovery of ancient Egyptian civilization

Champollion and the Rosette’s Stone

The Coup d’Etat du 18 Brumaire (1799)

Napoléon’s Coronation, 1804

Stopping the Revolution?Stabilizing it and creating

a New Order

• High Schools and « Grandes Écoles »• The Code Napoléon or Code des Français• A New Aristocracy

The Ecole PolytechniqueTwo short reels:

http://www.polytechnique.edu/accueil/l-ecole-polytechnique/histoire-et-patrimoine/les-grandes-periodes/les-grandes-periodes-de-l-histoire-de-l-ecole-10984.kjsp?RH=1255945431851

http://www.polytechnique.edu/accueil/l-ecole-polytechnique/histoire-et-patrimoine/les-grandes-periodes/les-grandes-periodes-de-l-histoire-de-l-ecole-11114.kjsp?RH=1255945431851

Le Code Napoléon

• French feminists attack the Code Napoléon in 1926

• « Join the Feminists in demanding drastic changes in the Code civil ! »

The Bicentennial of 2004• ‘‘The Civil Code represents a typically Napoleonic mix of liberalism and conservatism, although most of the basic revolutionary gains - equality before the law, freedom of religion and the abolition of feudalism - were consolidated within its laws. Property rights, including the rights of the purchasers of the biens nationaux (national properties belonging to the Church, the Aristocracy and the King) were made absolute. The Code also reinforced patriarchal power by making the husband the ruler of the household.’’Source: http://www.napoleon-series.org/research/government/c_code.html

• Introduction to the Civil Code: http://law.jrank.org/pages/8702/Napoleonic-Code.html

• The law of the state of Louisiana, a former French colony in America, is still organized according to the Code Napoléon (see Marlon Brando in A Streetcar named Desire!)

http://www.loyno.edu/newsandcalendars/loyolatoday/2004/10/frenchcivilcode.html

Military Glory and the Conquest of Europe

English Hostility Against an Ever-growing Power

• Swift, Gulliver’s Travels

• "My little friend Gruldig, you have made a most admirable panegyric upon yourself and Country, but from what I can gather from your own relation, & the answers I have with much pains, wringed and extorted from you, I cannot but consider you to be one of the most pernicious little reptiles that nature ever suffer'd to crawl on the surface of the Earth"

William Pitt and Napoléon

Three Huge Errors – A European coalition

• A (Mediterranean) family…• The Invasion of Spain• The Invasion of Russia

The Most Hated Man in Europe and in France?

• The disillusions of the European ‘liberals’ (Goethe, Beethoven for instance)

• European and French Losses• A military and authoritarian regime no longer

supported by ‘‘the people’’• An economic and demographic failure

Why the Golden Legend of the Emperor?

• A famous political opponent and a very fashionable writer, sent into exile by Napoléon: Mme de Staël

Victor Hugo in his first collection of poems - published in 1822 - mixed poetry with politics in order to sing the praises of the Bourbons and to curse the man whom, in one of his odes entitled “Buonaparte”, he compared to a "living plague".1827: He writes the very Napoleonic « Ode à la colonne de la place Vendôme ».

Napoléon keeps being the center of everything: a professor of energy

A Romantic Hero? The legend Lasts: 1927-2012

Kevin Bronlow, a great film historian, discusses Abel Gance’ s Napoléon

(1927), including excerpts of the movie https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ2kRzJajyo&list=PL2D650A6F48BFDCBD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMlnRP3qOYE

France after 1815

• An Identity Crisis• Nobody is longing for the return of the king (the

younger brother of Louis XVI), who will be imposed by the European allies

• People fear a violent regression• At the same time, the country is exhausted by the

Revolutionary Era followed by the Emperor’s wars• Would a constitutional monarchy (combining royal

tradition and social changes) be the solution?