Citizen Emperor (10 page)

The defeat of the Austrian army was anything but decisive, although many historians have a tendency to write as though it were. The Austrians retreated in good order; the 5,600 men lost during the battle (reports vary), as well as the 2,900 men taken prisoner,
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represented a significant number of the troops engaged in battle that day but only a small proportion of the men Melas had at his disposal in northern Italy – at least another 100,000. Melas, however, was discouraged by the turn of events. Rather than continue the fight, he sent General Skal to French headquarters to propose a suspension of arms. Bonaparte, surprised and under the impression that the Austrians would regroup and attack the next day, immediately accepted.
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In the armistice that followed, Austrian troops abandoned Piedmont, Lombardy and Genoa and withdrew behind the River Mincio. In the words of the Prussian military theorist Heinrich Dietrich von Bülow, Bonaparte did not seize success; Melas threw it away.
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It was just as well. The French were in a much worse condition than the Austrians suspected. The French losses amounted to at least 4,700 killed and wounded.
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Moreover, the survivors were utterly exhausted and could not pursue the enemy or hammer home their advantage. This is where Bonaparte put the lessons learnt in Italy during the first campaign into practice. Over the coming weeks, months and even years, he modified his account so that he was able to represent the battle and the campaign in a more favourable light: his behaviour during the campaign was calculated, everything went according to his plans. The fact that he kept coming back to this particular battle in order to rewrite its history, more than any other battle of his career, is indicative of just how much it preoccupied him.
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Marengo was not a decisive victory. On the contrary, the manner in which Bonaparte had conducted the battle was foolhardy. He had dispersed his forces looking for the enemy and had been forced into fighting a battle with inferior numbers. In the official reports, however, the mistakes were glossed over and the reality distorted. As with the battles of Lodi and Arcola in Italy in 1796, over time Bonaparte’s role grew in the telling of the tale, as did his system of tactics.
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The battle he described in later years was an idealized account that he was running in his head, a preview of what was going to happen at Austerlitz when he deliberately retreated in order to lure the enemy into a disadvantageous position. And as with the first Italian campaign, the Austrian generals were credited with more talent than they deserved. In reality, Melas did not consult with his generals, none of whom knew what was expected of them, or even what roads they were supposed to follow.
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‘If I Die, It Would be a Misfortune’

When Bonaparte crossed the Alps, nobody knew what awaited him and nobody could predict with certainty that he would carry off a victory and consolidate his power. He might have been killed, as had happened to so many other republican generals, or he might not have been able to give a repeat performance of his first campaign in Italy. If the campaign had been a fiasco, and if he had been killed, a power vacuum would have been created. Even before Marengo, some of the leading Brumairians, worried about what would happen to the newly created political edifice if its mainstay were to die in battle, reached an agreement over Bonaparte’s possible replacement. If the details of this episode remain obscure – many of the memoirs from the period are silent about it – there is little doubt that the Brumairians, possibly fearing a return of the Bourbons, acted to fill the potential void.
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One account has Joseph as the ringleader, but this is unlikely.
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Joseph is supposed to have announced that if his brother ever vacated power, he would support Cambacérès.
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Another witness has Sieyès at the centre of intrigue.
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Even though Lucien, arrogant and ambitious, considered himself a kind of regent in the absence of his brother – he had refused to work with the Second Consul, Cambacérès, on the pretext that he received orders only from the First Consul – he was prevented from playing a greater role during this period by the sudden death of his pregnant wife, Christine Boyer, as a result of pulmonary disease. The death profoundly affected him.
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In any event, people much preferred the more modest Joseph, who was also the first to bring up the subject of a successor, on 5 May, a few days before Bonaparte left Paris to join the army in Italy. He had asked Bonaparte for a letter designating him his successor, failing which he would retire from public life.
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After all, he was the nominal head of the family, and he was not so much soliciting a favour as reclaiming his right. Bonaparte did not reply, but the problem was exacerbated by rumours of a French defeat in Italy, and indeed of the death of Bonaparte. A meeting was held in Auteuil attended by a number of deputies where those present discussed who would be most suitable to replace Bonaparte in the event of his death. After deliberating over the hero of the American Revolution Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, Carnot, the very young Duc d’Enghien, the Duc d’Orléans, Joseph’s brother-in-law General Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte and Moreau – Joseph’s name was not even put forward – they anointed Lazare Carnot, whom Bonaparte had just recalled from exile and named minister of war.
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Carnot was allegedly sounded out and accepted.
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None of this represented a real threat to Bonaparte’s power. It is, however, revealing of a number of issues that preoccupied the political elite, not the least of which was how to establish the new government on more solid foundations. The news of victory at Marengo, which reached Paris on 22 June, put a halt to their intrigues, rallied those in the army who may have had reservations and silenced the opposition, for the moment at least. There was, of course, a reckoning when Bonaparte returned to Paris, a scene at the Tuileries, although just how sincerely angry he was is difficult to gauge.
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Those who had been involved in the meetings were marginalized – Carnot was eventually eased out of his portfolio as minister for war, and Lucien appears to have been relegated to the outer circles from this time on
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– while those who had remained steadfastly loyal to Bonaparte were rewarded. Cambacérès remained in high esteem until the collapse of the Empire.

Two interesting insights can be gleaned from these political intrigues. The first is that the struggle for power in the highest echelons of government had not yet played itself out. For Bonaparte, this was a situation of his own making; by centring all power in his person he had created a state of affairs in which, if ever he were to disappear, a political tussle for power would ensue. There were still enough men around capable of assuming power, or at least men who thought they were capable of doing so. The second is that the question of a successor was being openly discussed less than a year into the new regime.

Roederer, the Brumairian, had raised the question of a successor on a number of occasions, but Bonaparte always avoided giving a definitive answer. On one of those occasions, Roederer received the famous reply, ‘My natural heir is the French people. There is my child.’
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It was meant for public consumption, or at least for those republicans willing to listen, and played to the image of Bonaparte as ‘good son of the Revolution’.
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The problem for the First Consul was that he could not think who could replace him. ‘The French’, he admitted to Roederer, ‘can be governed only by me. I am persuaded that no one other than me, be it Louis XVIII, be it Louis XIV, could govern France at the moment. If I die, it would be a misfortune.’
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This conceit is shocking but hardly surprising. It was to declare publicly that the sovereignty of the people resided in him.
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It was not until the military bulletin of 15 June that Bonaparte announced the outcome of Marengo. He managed to highlight the important events in the battle with theatrical flair: ‘Four times during the battle we retreated, and four times we advanced. More than sixty cannon were taken and retaken at different points and at different times, by both sides. There were twelve cavalry charges, with varying success.’ The bulletin also contained the stirring lines, ‘Children, remember that it is my custom to sleep on the field of battle. – Long live the Republic! Long live the First Consul!’
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The bulletin reached Paris on 22 June. The consuls immediately ordered salvoes of cannon to be fired in celebration; the bulletin was hastily printed and posted all over Paris but especially in the working-class districts. The populace exploded with joy, as though, according to one newspaper report, ‘struck by an electric spark’.
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The centre of celebrations was the Faubourg Saint-Antoine.
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Shopkeepers closed their doors and headed for the Tuileries, where a large crowd had gathered.
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That evening saw the ‘first spontaneous illumination that has taken place in nine years. Work was suspended for the whole day.’
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One contemporary entering Paris that evening through the customs barrier at the Place du Trône (today the Place de la Nation) passed more than 200 fires around which people were dancing and celebrating as he drove through to where the Bastille had once been.
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A Te Deum was improvised in the Church of Saint-Gervais (near the town hall, the Hôtel de Ville), attracting so many people that the congregation spilled out on to the street.
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That was nothing compared to the Te Deum organized in Notre Dame on 24 June, which more than 60,000 people attended.
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Bonaparte had, to paraphrase Fouché, conquered not so much Italy as France.
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The victory was celebrated not only in Paris but throughout France.
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Between Milan and Lyons, the route Bonaparte took to return to Paris was lined with people who turned out to see the victor; Lyons and Dijon reserved a welcome for him as warm as on his return from Egypt.
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The exhilaration can in part be explained not only because Marengo was the victory of the army but because, to many, it was unimaginable that the enemy coalition would now survive for long. After Marengo even Bonaparte thought peace was inevitable.
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The Hero Returns

Bonaparte’s decision to return to Paris shortly after the battle is significant. News of ‘intrigues’ in Paris had reached his ears and, because he thought a plot against him was afoot, he resolved to return to the seat of power. He left Masséna in charge of the army. From Lyons, he wrote to his brother Lucien: ‘I will arrive in Paris without warning. My intention is to have neither triumphal arches nor any other kind of ceremony. I have too good an opinion of myself to have any respect for such trinkets. I know of no other triumph than public satisfaction.’
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Was this an affectation of simplicity, or an instinctive dislike of the theatricality of a grand entrance? It was probably a mixture of both of these things, although whatever reservations he may have had about grand displays did not prevent him, as in Italy, from comparing himself to a force of nature.
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In that vein, he wanted to impress by the speed with which he travelled; he would arrive in Paris when people thought that he was still in Milan. When he stopped in Lyons on the way, his hotel was mobbed by a crowd anxious to catch a glimpse of him.
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At two o’clock in the morning of 2 July he arrived in the Tuileries accompanied by his aide-de-camp Duroc and his secretary Bourrienne.

The next day, Paris witnessed something it had not seen in a long time: workers from the
faubourgs
descended on the palace to greet the First Consul. ‘An immense crowd filled the terraces and the courtyards of the Tuileries. Never have we seen shine more universally an air of joy, contentment and gratitude on [people’s] faces. This evening, all of Paris is here.’
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The crowds were still in the streets at midnight, even though there was no music and no dancing.
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One of the principal reasons Bonaparte was so easily accepted at the outset of his regime was that he was seen as the general who could bring about peace.
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It was a recurring theme in the regime’s propaganda, at least in the early years.
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The campaign of 1800 was supported because of its potential to bring the war to an end. ‘It is to have peace,’ wrote a journalist in the
Décade philosophique
, ‘to obtain a just and honourable one, to repress ambition, and especially to guarantee its independence, that it is permissible to support the war.’
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