Naming his brother Lucien to the key post of minister of the interior, Bonaparte quickly moved to establish his political control over the country. He set up “prefects” for every administrative region known as a department; these appointees had final…
De Staël was the daughter of Jacques Necker, Louis XVI’s Swiss Protestant finance minister. She published novels, literary tracts, and memoirs and became one of the best-known writers of the early nineteenth century. Napoleon exiled her in 1803. In…
Where once cartoonists focused on classical images of death to signal the doom of monarchs and aristocrats, they now used these same symbols to drag Napoleon into the netherworld.
In this passage, Bonaparte’s secretary describes the importance and effect of Bonaparte’s propaganda in the form of the military bulletin from an army in the field. Glory and military virtue were emphasized; generals vied to be included.
One of Napoleon’s first priorities was to reestablish good relations with the papacy, which had fought the revolutionary church settlement tooth and nail. Napoleon gained everything he desired in the Concordat: he appointed the bishops and…
In his memoirs, André François Miot de Melito, a special minister from the French government to Piedmont, tells of his first impressions of the young Napoleon Bonaparte, who was only twenty-seven but already an important general because of his…
After the defeat in Russia, with renewed allied forces arrayed against him, Napoleon prepared once again to defend France. Yet in 1813 at Leipzig, the Emperor was defeated. This allowed the allies to press a successful campaign, leading to the…
