Napoleon by Adam Zamoyski

Author:Adam Zamoyski
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Basic Books
Published: 2018-10-08T16:00:00+00:00

28

Austerlitz

ON 1 JANUARY 1805 Napoleon wrote to George III using the address ‘Monsieur mon frère’, customary between monarchs, proposing a new peace settlement based on a division of spheres of interest. France was not interested in overseas empire, and if allowed a dominant role in Europe would not contest Britain’s dominion over the seas. The world was large enough for both nations, he argued. The offer was dismissed in a letter addressed to ‘the head of the French government’. An unintended consequence of Napoleon’s activities at Boulogne was to make the war popular in Britain for the first time since hostilities had begun over ten years before. The threat of invasion by ‘Boney’ struck a chord in all classes of the population, and the government now had the support of the country.1

Napoleon had also written to Francis I of Austria to inform him that he had magnanimously ceded all his rights over Italy to his brother Joseph, who would ascend the Italian throne and renounce his claim to that of France, thereby ensuring that the two countries would never be united under one ruler. He expressed the hope that this sacrifice of his ‘personal greatness’ would be reciprocated by goodwill on the part of Francis, urging him to reverse the Austrian troop concentrations in Carniola and the Tyrol.2

The letter had hardly left Paris when Joseph declared that he would not, after all, renounce his right to the French throne. Napoleon then offered the crown of Italy to Louis, who also refused, equally jealous as he was of preserving his right to the imperial throne. Napoleon resolved to take the crown himself and to appoint his stepson, Eugène de Beauharnais, as his viceroy. On 16 January a sick and depressed Melzi agreed to offer him the crown, and in a ceremony at the Tuileries on 17 March he was acclaimed by a number of Lombard nobles. On 31 March he left for Fontainebleau on the first leg of the journey to Milan for his coronation as King of Italy.3

Marshalled by the grand equerry Caulaincourt, carriages, horses, and three sets of court officials and servants leapfrogged each other along the way, so that when the imperial couple reached a stop everything was ready for them, with a full complement of staff, while the second set raced ahead to prepare the next stage, and the third waited to clear things up once they had left. Napoleon himself now had a travelling berline, sometimes referred to as his dormeuse, as he could sleep in it, which maximised his capacity to work. The vehicle could be turned into a study, with a tabletop equipped with inkwells, paper and quills, drawers for storing papers and maps, shelves for books, and a lamp by which he could read at night. It could also be turned into a couchette, with a mattress on which he could stretch out, and a washbasin, mirrors, and soap-holders so he could attend to his toilette and waste no time on arrival, and naturally, a chamberpot.

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