Secret Lives of the Tsars by Michael Farquhar

Author:Michael Farquhar [Farquhar, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8578-8
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2014-07-07T16:00:00+00:00

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*1 While her son disdained all the ceremony and glitter of sovereignty, and opted to live quietly, his haughty, cold, and categorical mother, Dowager Empress Maria, reveled in her royal position. “The Empress Mother is the one who displays her imperial state,” Savary reported to Talleyrand. “Every external honor, every homage is directed to that point.… The great personages of St. Petersburg are careful not to let two weeks pass without making an appearance at the Empress Mother’s. [Empress] Elizabeth [Alexander’s wife] almost never appears there, but the Emperor dines there three times a week and often sleeps there.”

*2 Napoleon’s courtesy did not extend to the monarchs of the various German kingdoms he now controlled. Indeed, they were treated as mere ornaments. During one formal dinner, King Maximilian Joseph raised his voice a little too loud for the French emperor, who snapped, “Hold your tongue, King of Bavaria!”

*3 There had long been concerns in France that Napoleon was too intoxicated by power and ambition. “The Emperor is mad, completely mad,” Minister of the Navy Denis Decrès declared; “he’ll bring ruin upon himself and upon us all.”

*4 Virtually nothing was accomplished by the assault on Smolensk, which the Russians abandoned and burned, except utter annihilation. “One had to walk over debris, dead bodies and skeletons which had been burned and charred by fire,” recalled a French officer. “Everywhere unfortunate inhabitants, on their knees, weeping over the ruins of their homes, cats and dogs wandering about and howling in the most heart-rendering way, everywhere only death and destruction.”

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