Klemens von Metternich, head of the Austrian government and therefore a sharp critic of Napoleon, reported that Napoleon viewed Catholicism in largely utilitarian, even cynical terms.
Figures compiled by the historian Martyn Lyons for the large southwestern city of Toulouse show that Napoleon enjoyed considerable support in 1802 when he declared himself Consul for Life but that his support eroded over time. In Toulouse, a city…
Where Napoleon was once the conqueror, the world now avenges itself. This sense of reversal, felt widely outside of France, characterized a number of the caricatures of Napoleon, and indeed of the entire Revolution.
All regions of France did not support Napoleon equally. His rule aroused most enthusiasm in the east (a prerevolutionary border region crucial in the Napoleonic wars) and the center of the country, least in the west, which had long provided a home to…
Napoleon cultivated the intense personal loyalty of his troops with engravings like this one, which suggests a personal interest in the ordinary soldier.
Even in death Napoleon was controversial. Many questions surrounded his death: Was he poisoned? His hair had high levels of arsenic in it. Did he have stomach cancer? He certainly had stomach ulcers and suffered from severe intestinal pain and…
The treaty in the spring of 1814 had accepted Napoleon’s surrender, but a general meeting of European countries convened to settle broader issues of a postrevolutionary era. While the allies were working on a number of concerns—and as a byproduct,…
