Eastlake – Napoleon on the Bellerophon
HOME
TRUTHS ABOUT NAPOLEON
For
Ben Weider – in fond memory
JOHN TARTTELIN FINS – Legion of Merit
‘It was the infatuate resistance that
England made from the beginning to Napoleon that raised him to the mighty pitch
of power he attained. No sooner were the foreign powers humbled and exhausted
by the arm of his power, than fresh out-pourings of our gold stimulated them to
new resistance.’1
As the two hundreth anniversary of the
Battle of Waterloo rapidly approaches we can expect the usual vitriolic attacks
upon Napoleon and misrepresentations of his achievements and legacy, especially
here in Britain. One book published recently calls him a ‘monster’. Such
language belongs to fairy stories and whenever a supposed historian uses such
terminology he is undermining his own work by exhibiting naked and
nationalistic prejudice of the most blatant kind.
I have news for such writers. Not only are they often
wrong in terms of historical fact, people were saying the exact opposite long
before they were even born. George Home was one such person. A British sailor
who actually fought against the French, Home was a midshipman on the
Bellerophon when Napoleon sought asylum upon the vessel after Waterloo. He met
Napoleon in person and therefore his words and views count for much more than
the splenetic utterances of latter day historians who have obviously not done
their Home work.
George
Home was born on December 8th 1794 in a poverty stricken cottage lost amidst
the wild moors of Scotland and was lucky to survive his first winter. His
humble origins belie the fact that his father was ‘the heir-male and
representative of one of the most ancient families in the annals of Border
history.’2
Hence George entitled his life story Memoirs
Of An Aristocrat And Reminiscences of the Emperor Napoleon.3
Throughout his life he would try in vain to regain his noble title in a
Dickensian legal battle with another branch of his family.
Listening to the stories told by his half-blind father
– the old Commodore – of ‘the swarthy beauties of Tongataboo’4
and his circumnavigation of the globe with Captain Cook must have fired the
boy’s imagination. Indeed, the Commodore had been with the great explorer when
he was killed at Owyhee (Hawaii) and had a host of tales from that intrepid
voyage alone. So it comes as no surprise that George decided to go to sea
himself.
Born a Scot, Home fought for England against a
Corsican who had become the Emperor of France. But unlike many of his fellow
sailors, George would get to meet Napoleon in person and spend three weeks with
him aboard the Bellerophon in 1815. It was a topsy-turvy time of changing
allegiances and swapping sides for countries and individuals. The young
Napoleon had even applied to join the British Navy! Many professional soldiers
and sailors fought for nations that were not their own. The Captain of the
Bellerophon, Maitland, was also a Scot, while the brutal captain of Home’s
previous vessel had been Irish: ‘a more pestilential pigmy, and engrained petty
tyrant never trode a quarter-deck.’5
Well might Churchill encapsulate the British Navy with the phrase ‘rum, sodomy
and the lash.’ It was a harsh environment where many men were pressed into
service much against their will. Although the British Admiralty might claim
that they were fighting for the freedom of the seas, many of their own vessels
were full of pressed men, little more than slaves forbidden to set foot ashore
for months, or even years on end, in case they ‘deserted’.
Despite such a background, George Home was a
thoughtful and humane man who could clearly see the big picture. His empathy
for Napoleon and his psychological awareness of the history being made around
him makes for a remarkable account by an exceedingly perceptive eyewitness.
Meeting Napoleon in the flesh was obviously the greatest event in his life:
‘How distinct is every feature, every trait, every line of that majestic
countenance in my mind’s eye at this moment, now that two-and-twenty years have
passed away: but who could witness such a scene and ever forget it.’6
Home wrote his memoir in 1838.
It is worth repeating, that George Home had fought
against Napoleon and was his enemy. All he would have heard from his superiors
would have been negative and hostile references to the Emperor of France. Yet
he describes how, on the Bellerophon: ‘us young gentlemen took up our station
on the poop to feast our eyes with a sight of the great man whose name had been
sounded in our ears since we drew our first breath, and become, like a second
nature to us, - a name of fear.’7
In his Napoleon’s
Wars (sic), Charles Esdaile mentions none of the following historians and
military men in either his index or bibliography: Bourgogne; Home; Maitland;
Napier; Runciman; or a single line from any of the many books by Ben Weider. Of
sources in general, the great American historian Colonel John Elting states at
the opening of his bibliography in Swords
Around A Throne : ‘In preparing this book I have used original sources
whenever possible but have ignored the alleged memoirs of Louis Bourrienne,
Paul Barras, Clare de Remusat, Laure Permon, and Miot de Melito, which are
mendacious and worthless.’8
In contrast, Esdaile quotes Bourrienne eight times; Barras six; Remusat seven;
Permon five times; and Miot de Melito twice.9
One is tempted to see a pattern here. It is strange how sources generally
accepted to be more favorable to Napoleon are never even alluded to, yet alone
quoted from. And Esdaile does not mention Colonel John Elting either…
What George Home wrote in 1838 drives a coach and
horses through Esdaile’s contrived thesis. And let us remember, Home was there, he was not writing nearly two hundred years after the
events in question. He literally knew what
he was talking about, having lived through it and experienced it. Home is an
excellent primary source on Napoleonic history. As an enemy of Napoleon his
testament is even more revealing.
Home also warns us about Bourrienne: ‘No one who has
lifted the pen has done anything like justice to the French Emperor save
Bourrienne, and even he is often carried away by prejudice and envy.’10
He goes on to explain why he is not to be trusted. Napoleon’s ‘old
school-fellow and worthy secretary was troubled with a small itching for the pecunia, which sometimes overran
discretion and exceeded the bounds prescribed by the economical Napoleon; and
in one or two instances we find, by his own confession, though under the head
of complaint, that he is very unceremoniously stripped of his ill-gotten gains
by his lynx-eyed schoolmate of Brienne…’11
Yet Esdaile appears to trust his doubtful scribblings and believes what he
says.
Similarly, Home warns us about Sir Walter Scott, the
famous novelist in regard to his biography of Napoleon: ‘really from him I
expected something good; but it proved a complete failure… Sir Walter Scott has
too much of the old school about him, and too much of the politician, I mean
that petty policy, a fear of offending the powers that be… to do justice to the
character of Napoleon.’ And Home adds: ‘The proper historian of that wonderful
man is probably still unborn.’12
Home’s description of Napoleon’s arrival on the
Bellerophon mark the situation and the man as something truly exceptional:
‘when Admiral Hotham and the officers of the Bellerophon uncovered in the
presence of Napoleon, they treated him with the respect due to the man himself,
to his innate greatness, which did not lie in the crown of France, or the iron
crown of Italy, but the actual superiority of the man to the rest of his
species.’13
From the moment he appeared on the deck of the Billy Ruffian, Napoleon electrified the whole crew, all the
officers and especially the men.
From the very start, George Home had a great deal of
sympathy for the fallen Emperor’s plight: ‘Most certainly, had he once imagined
that we were capable of treating him the way we did, he would surely have made
a desperate effort for personal liberty; but such a thought, I am convinced,
never struck him. We had never before refused the protection of our shores to a
fallen foe, or to anyone who claimed our protection.’14
One of Home’s shipmates could barely contain himself
as Napoleon’s barge approached the Bellerophon: ‘While in this state of eager
anticipation, a young midshipman, one of the Bruce’s of Kennet, I think, walked
very demurely up to Manning, the boatswain… (and) gently laid hold of one of
his whiskers, to which the boatswain good-naturedly submitted, as the youngster was a great favourite
with him. “Manning” says he, most sentimentally, “this is the proudest day of
your life; you are this day to do the honours of this side to the greatest man
the world ever produced, or ever will produce… and along with the great
Napoleon, the name of Manning, the boatswain of the Bellerophon, will go down
to the latest posterity; and, as a relict of that great man, permit me, my dear
Manning, to preserve a lock of your hair”.’15
Grabbing a handful of his friend’s whiskers, the young
midshipman ran off howling with laughter. Even in a jest, the common English
sailor knew greatness when he saw it. Meanwhile, such an epoch making occasion
was not even lost on the very youngest of the Bellerophon’s crew.
After initially being greeted as a general officer by
Captain Maitland – and not with the full honours due to him in Home’s eye –
Napoleon asked for a tour of the ship. As he followed the Captain: ‘a young
middy who, boy-like, had got before the Emperor, and was gazing up in his face,
he honoured with a tap on the head, and a pinch by the ear, and, smiling, put
him to a side, which the youngster declared was the highest honour he had ever
received in his life, viz. to have his ears pinched by the great Napoleon!!!’16
So overwhelming was the effect of the Emperor’s
presence that, when he was invited aboard Admiral Hotham’s ship the Superb, a
rumour swept the Bellerophon that Hotham’s men were going to have the honour of
carrying Napoleon back to Blighty: ‘so that our
man thought we would try the effect of our ten rounds upon the Superb,
sooner than quit Boney; and so much alarmed was our ship’s company that this
would really be attempted, that they came aft in a body to Captain Maitland, to
state their intention of resisting by force any attempt of Admiral Hotham to
detain the person of Napoleon…’17
And how many bigoted and biased British historians
have told us that Napoleon was hated and loathed by everyone in England? Here
were the men of one of His Majesty’s vessels so besotted with their new guest
that they were tempted to fire on their own Admiral rather than give him up
prematurely.
Furthermore, Home speaks at length on the underhand
method of Napoleon’s capture in the first place and his admiration for: ‘the
calm majesty of his deportment, through this most trying and truly tragic
scene. I think, in saying tragic, I do not use an expression too strong.
Castlereagh did not certainly imbrue his hands in the blood of Napoleon, but,
beyond all question, the plot for his destruction was concerted between our
minister and the Allies, even before this voluntary
surrender, destined to commence on the deck of the Bellerophon, and to end
on the scorching peak of St. Helena.’18
George Home knew in his heart of hearts, that this was
not British justice nor was it so-called English fair play.
He had his own view of what should have happened that
summer of 1815: ‘…Napoleon, instead of receiving that protection which it would
have been the proudest page of our history to record, found a barren rock, a
vertical sun, a tyrant of a governor, and a grave at Longwood.’19
Home also describes a telling incident that would
certainly never appear in a book by Esdaile, Black, Nicolson, Geyl, Strawson,
Fregosi, or the myriad other detractors of Napoleon. During the Battle of Waterloo,
Napoleon: ‘observed a young British officer lying on the ground severely
wounded, and likely to be crushed to death by the cavalry. Upon which he
ordered him to be carried to the rear and duly attended by his own medical
staff. The young man’s life was saved; - the battle was lost…’20
The victim in question was a relative of Admiral Keith
who, as fate would have it, became Napoleon’s jailor when the Bellerophon
arrived at Plymouth. A letter of thanks from the Admiral to Napoleon led to
Home asking some questions of the French party on board and thus he heard of
this life-saving intervention. And if there was ever a riposte to those legions
of ‘Napoleon-haters’, here it is in Home’s words: ‘Such an act as this, even in
the plenitude of his power, when victory and his name seemed inseperable, would
have redounded more to his praise than a battle won; but when one thinks of him
exercising such acts of humanity, at a moment when his whole soul, great as it
was, must have been absorbed in the death-struggle he was now in the midst of,
where empire, name, fame, life, and liberty, hung on the slightest turn of the
balance, I say, that no language can express the greatness and intrinsic
humanity of that man’s character…’21
A Home truth indeed.
So next time you read how Napoleon supposedly covered
the Continent in blood and never cared for the millions of individual soldiers
who died, remember it was British gold that paid for those armies to attack
him, and British politicians, safe across the Channel, who goaded their often
reluctant allies to once more attack France. Yet, despite all that, here we
have Napoleon himself, saving the life of a British
soldier. Britannia should be hiding her face in shame.
Home was also impressed by Napoleon’s personal manner
and his attitude to the crew in general: ‘Nothing seemed so much to surprise
him as the slowness of promotion in our service, and that men from before the
mast, or soldiers from the ranks, were rarely promoted, be their services what
they might.’22
The last thing the so-called aristocratic elite in power in Britain wanted was
promotion on merit or careers open to talent. Heaven forfend! Officers bought
their rank and the common soldier was brutally flogged at the drop of a hat.
Whereas in France such punishment had been banned. As Home well knew: ‘With the
French army, it was totally different; the most of Napoleon’s officers had been
private soldiers, and owed their promotion entirely to their own merit and
bravery. In his army, as well as in every other department of the state, the
door was open to the humblest individual and promotion certain if the person
possessed integrity and courage. With us it has been notoriously the reverse…’23
As he studied Napoleon, Home felt that likenesses he
had seen of the Emperor were accurate. He often put his hands in his breeches
pocket rather than pose with his hands folded across his chest, or stood with
one hand in his waistcoat while in the other his held his snuff-box.
Accentuating the status of the Bellerophon’s guest even more Home adds: ‘But
these are trifling matters, only worth recording of one man in a thousand
years, and Napoleon being the most remarkable of the last four thousand, being
thus particular in such trifles may be pardoned.’24
When introduced to the officers of the Billy Ruffian, Napoleon had bowed
slightly and smiled at each of them. Similarly, he knew how to appeal to the
common man. One of the lieutenants of the marines suggested a play to while
away the time: ‘What the piece was I do not recall, but when it was announced
to the Emperor, by Captain Maitland, and the immortal honour of his imperial
presence begged, for a few minutes, he laughed very heartily, consented
instantly… Napoleon and his whole suite attended. He was much amused with those
who took the female parts… after good-naturedly sitting for nearly twenty
minutes, he rose, smiled to the actors, and retired.’25
There was no divine right hauteur with Napoleon. Can anyone imagine Louis
XVIII, D’Artois, or even Wellington, deigning to pass the time with ‘the scum
of the earth’?
In one very moving passage, George Home shows both his
sympathy and profound empathy with Napoleon. The occasion was the Emperor’s
last sighting of Ushant – the very last glimpse of his beloved France. By sheer
chance, Home had the morning watch: ‘I shall never forget that morning we made
Ushant. I had come on deck at four in the morning… when, to my astonishment, I
saw the Emperor come out of the cabin at that early hour, and make for the
poop-ladder. Had I known what human misery is as well as I do now, when I have
myself experienced the most cruel injustice and persecution on a lesser scale,
the restlessness of Napoleon, or his being unable to close an eye, would have
in no way surprised me. If a petty care can break our sleep, what must have
been his feeling who had lost the
fairest empire on the face of the globe; nay, who had lost a world?’26
Anxious for the illustrious passenger’s safety on the
slippery newly washed deck, Home offered him his arm and helped Napoleon up the
ladder to the poop deck: ‘nodding and smiling thanks, for my attention, and
pointing to the land he said, “Ushant, Cape Ushant.” I replied, “yes, sire,”
and withdrew.’27
Once again, how many royals or members of the privileged elite of any of the
European powers would have thanked a mere commoner for anything?
Home could only imagine what Napoleon was thinking,
but in his heartfelt sympathy he demonstrated a depth of humanity and feeling
light years ahead of his ‘betters’ in London. Pocket-glass in hand, Napoleon
stared at the shore, for hour, after hour, after hour: ‘In this position, he
remained from five in the morning to nearly mid-day, without paying any
attention to what was passing around him, or speaking to one of his suite, who
had been standing behind him for several hours.’28
Home continues: ‘No wonder he thus gazed, it was the
last look of the land of his glory, and I am convinced he felt it such. What
must have been his feelings in those few hours, how painful the retrospect, and
how awful the look forward! – there
still lay before him that land which he had made so famous, where his proud
name had risen until it “o’er-shadowed the earth with his fame;” there had he
been worshipped almost as a god, and bowed to by every servile knee, that now,
in the hour of bitter adversity, had basely deserted and betrayed him.’29
Napoleon had lost everything, his empire, all his
power and influence, all those he had ever loved. They were gone forever,
forever… It was enough to crush the soul of a stoic, yet Home admired the way
Napoleon faced his fate. He said absolutely nothing: ‘his emotion was visible,
he hung upon the land until it looked only a speck in the distance… He uttered
not a word as he tottered down the poop ladder, his head hung forward, so as to
render his countenance scarcely visible…’30
Yet, on his daily walks upon the quarter-deck: ‘when
the five children of Lady Bertrand were sure to find their way to the Emperor’s
side, and, by touching his hand or taking hold of the skirts of his coat,
endeavoured to attract his attention, looking imploringly up at him to be
honoured with a smile or a tap on the head; this was never denied the tiny
supplicant
…’31
Napoleon had lost all his power and prestige, yet he
had always had the time for a wounded British soldier or a simple child. So
much for the puerile espousers of vitriol who called him an ‘ogre’; so much for
Esdaile branding him the ‘ubiquitous brigand’; so much for Robert Harvey or
Nigel Nicolson calling him a ‘monster’.32
So much tosh.
Such verbal chaff had been common currency for years
back in Blighty as the British Establishment scythed through Napoleon’s
reputation and achievements and denigrated him as a man and as a ruler in any
way they could. The result was apparent to George Home when the Bellerophon
docked at Torbay. Captain Maitland sent dispatches to Lord Keith via a first
lieutenant who was conveyed to the shore by Home. Almost immediately the small
boat was besieged by a bevy of young ladies who had heard that Napoleon was on
the ship. This is the sort of nonsense he heard: ‘What like was he – was he
really a man? Were his hands and clothes all over blood when he came on
board?... Were we not all frightened of him? Was his voice like thunder? Could
I possibly get them a sight of the monster…’33
Cartoons by Gilray depicting Napoleon as a malignant
dwarf had also fed into the mix of slander and mockery flying in the Emperor’s
direction. Home replied: ‘that the reports they had heard were all nonsense;
that the Emperor was not only a man, but a very handsome man too; young withal,
had no more blood upon his hands and clothes than was now upon their pure white
dresses; that if by chance they got a look of him at the gangway, they would
fall in love with him directly; that so far from his hands being red with
blood, they were as small, white, and soft as their own charming fingers, and
his voice, instead of resembling thunder, was as sweet and musical as their
own. This account of the Emperor’s beauty perfectly astonished the recluses of
Torbay; some misbelieved altogether, while the curiosity of others was excited
beyond all bounds.’34
The most famous man on Earth was soon at Plymouth
Sound, the Bellerophon riding at anchor. No wonder thousands of small vessels
all crowded around the ship, their occupants eager to catch the merest glimpse
of the fallen Emperor. Napoleon had become ‘Enemy Mine’ and everyone wanted a
piece of him. Home speaks of ‘the enormous rush that was made from every part
of the country to Plymouth Sound, to get a single glance of the hero of Marengo
and Lodi Bridge, he must have conceived that he was as much admired by the
English, as by his own beloved French. The Sound was literally covered with
boats; the weather was delightful; the ladies looked as gay as butterflies;
bands of music in several of the boats played favourite French airs, to
attract, if possible, the Emperor’s attention, that they might get a sight of
him, which, when effected, they went off, blessing themselves that they had
been so fortunate.’35
A strange reception for a monster and an ogre that…
Then came the terrible news that the famous prisoner
was to be banished to Saint Helena, a tiny speck of rock lost in the wilderness
of the southern Atlantic Ocean. Napoleon was stunned and horrified. To rub salt
into the wound, news came from the Admiralty saying that from henceforth he was
to be addressed only as ‘general’ and not as Emperor. George Home was
disgusted: ‘How ridiculous and contemptible was this conduct in or ministry. We
had exchanged prisoners with him repeatedly as Emperor of France, and we had
made peace with him as First Consul of the French Republic; but Castlereagh
took his cue from the holy allies, who grudged him a mouthful of air, far less
the title of Emperor…’36
He goes much further in denouncing the policy of his own government: ‘I never
think of the proceedings which I then witnessed, without feeling my blood boil
with indignation, and my face blushing crimson for my degraded country.’37
Home was as psychologically perceptive as ever: ‘Then why display such a mean
fear of him, for our very cruelty bespoke our terror.’38
Home compares Napoleon with Socrates: ‘both done to
death by petty tyrants who feared and hated them.’39
Of England’s many wars with the French, he is equally forthright. In the
disastrous Russian campaign of 1812, Napoleon ‘lost the most numerous, best
disciplined, best appointed, and most heroic army that ever the world
witnessed, in the trackless regions of the frozen north. His invincible courage
and perseverance, however, had re-assembled a second army, nearly as numerous
as the first… even with those green troops, so mighty was the genius of the
man, and so terrible his name, even in adversity, that the scales hung long
nearly equally balanced between him and combined Europe.’40
And when France was invaded in 1814: ‘Still, I think, at that moment, Napoleon
appeared greater than at any former period of his unparalleled career…
Treachery, however, did what numbers could not effect.’41
Home is scathing about the resultant peace and of how
‘most beneficial it might have been to this country, had the conclusion of the
treaty fallen into the hands of a man of sense, or in his senses, or one who had the good of his country at heart;
but Castlereagh sacrificed the best interests of the nation to a vain feeling
of disinterested glory, instead if making those continental despots, into whose
countries we had been pouring our money, as if our hordes were inexhaustible,
for the previous twenty years, relinquish their mercantile advantages to us,
who had saved them from destruction…’42
He calls it ‘a useless and unprofitable war, which, but for the catastrophe of
Napoleon’s grand army in Russia, must have terminated in the complete
subjugation of Europe to the French yoke and the downfall of this country.’43
Notwithstanding his admiration for Napoleon, George
Home was a patriot.
He further decries all the poverty and misery suffered
by the British people after the war ended as the country was virtually bankrupt
after all the colossal subsidies it had given to its continental allies.
Of Napoleon’s final campaign in 1815 Home says: ‘Thus,
not unprepared for war, he asked for peace, which was indignantly rejected,
and, of course, he had nothing for it but to submit his fate to the chance of
arms, which ended in a wanton sacrifice of the lives of fifty thousand of the
flower of Europe.’44 Yes,
Esdaile, Black, Nicolson et al – Home blames the British Government for this
unnecessary bout of renewed carnage.
To Home, Napoleon’s legacy is obvious: ‘ He shewed us
what one little human creature like ourselves could accomplish in a span so
short. The fire of his intellect communicated like electricity to all around
him and while under its influence, men performed actions quite beyond
themselves.’45
When Napoleon left the Bellerophon: ‘Here, indeed, was
adversity, and here was true greatness struggling against it; but to a mere
mortal it was a heart-rending scene.’46
When the moment came for the Emperor to disembark, it was a scene much more
dramatic than any of Shakespeare’s plays: ‘What a horrid gloom overhung the
ship: had his execution been about to take place there could not have prevailed
a more dead silence, so much so, that had a pin fallen from one of the tops on
the deck, I am convinced it would have been heard; and to any one who has known
the general buz of our seventy-fours, even at the quietest hour, it is a proof
how deeply the attention of every man on board must have been riveted.’47
Quoting Gibbon, Home says: ‘when a nation loses its
generosity, it is a proof of its being on the decline,’48
and adds: ‘we must only attribute the barbarous treatment of Napoleon to the
vile faction by which the country was then governed, and not the absolute
degradation of principle in the nation at large.’49
Home continues: ‘It will, however, be a vile
stain upon our name to the latest ages; and the more the character of Napoleon
gains its true place in the page of history, the more dastardly will appear our
conduct. Could only Castlereagh and the Holy Allies feel the odium of indignant
posterity, it would be well; but it is England, upon England will the odium
fall…’50
Thus does a true patriot describe the treatment of his
Great Enemy.
Home struggles to understand how ‘England’s great name
was so degraded,’51
and how his own country could be so much in the wrong: ‘I have often asked what
had we to do with the French and Napoleon. To drive him within his own
frontier, I confess, our right extended, but no farther.’52
As for Napoleon’s return to France and the
Hundred Days, Home describes how the French: ‘with shouts of love, almost
amounting to adoration, they received in their bosom their glorious chief,
covered with the laurels of a hundred victories…. But I still say, what had we
to do with Napoleon and the French people? They hailed him to a man… yet
nothing would serve England and the Allies, but they must depose Napoleon, and
thrust a hated Bourbon upon France, even in the final struggle, at the expense
of fifty thousands souls, the choicest in Europe.’53
There are few things more noble in life than to offer
succour to a vanquished foe. George Home’s attitude and behaviour is eminently
worthy of respect and praise. As a great Briton, I salute him. Home’s disgust
and revulsion with the political posturing and flagrant warmongering of his own
government is still ringing down the years. After apportioning blame, his
conclusion regarding England’s wars against Napoleon is stark and unforgiving:
‘Our very resistance had made him the great man he became.’54
The very last thing that loathsome politicians like Castlereagh, Canning,
Liverpool and Pitt wanted to do, was to give peace a chance.
©
2014 John Tarttelin FINS
A
Souladream Production
Notes
1. Home George Memoirs Of An
Aristocrat And Reminiscences of the Emperor Napoleon (London: Whittaker
& Co., 1838) Republished by Forgotten Books 2012 www.forgottenbooks.org 257
2. Ibid. 3
3. He also adds: By A Midshipman of the Bellerophon
4. Ibid. 4
5. Ibid. 171
6. Ibid. 252
7. Ibid. 237
8. Elting Colonel John R. Swords Around A
Throne (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989) 735
9. Esdaile Charles Napoleon’s Wars
(London: Penguin Books Ltd 2007) He quotes :-
Barras, Paul de 27, 29, 33-7, 39,
49, 56
Bourrienne, Louis de 19-20, 28, 31,
55-6, 62, 93, 112, 192
Permon, Laure 22, 31, 57, 150, 152
Miot de Melito, André 50, 55-6
Rémusat, Claire de 63, 127, 129, 142, 192, 207, 358
10. Home op. cit. 220
11. Ibid. 221
12. Ibid. 223
13. Ibid. 226-227
14. Ibid. 212
15. Ibid. 218
16, Ibid. 225.
17. Ibid. 230
18. Ibid. 231
19. Ibid. 236
20. Ibid. 241-242
21. Ibid. 242
22. Ibid. 232
23. Ibid. 232
24. Ibid. 238
25. Ibid. 238-239
26. Ibid. 233
27. Ibid. 233
28. Ibid. 234
29. Ibid. 234
30
Ibid. 234-235
31. Ibid. 236
32. Esdaile describes him thus on the
back cover of Michael Broers’ new book Napoleon:
Soldier of Destiny. Robert Harvey and Nigel Nicolson call him a ‘monster’
in their books The War of Wars: The Great
European conflict 1793-1815 and Napoleon
1812.
33. Home op. cit. 239
34. Ibid. 240
35. Ibid. 243
36. Ibid. 246
37. Ibid. 246
38, Ibid. 246
39. Ibid. 96
40. Ibid. 145-146
41. Ibid. 146
42. Ibid. 147
43. Ibid. 147
44. Ibid. 211
45. Ibid. 223
46. Ibid. 252
47. Ibid. 253
48. Ibid. 254
49. Ibid. 254
50. Ibid. 254
51. Ibid. 255
52. Ibid. 255
53. Ibid. 256
54. Ibid. 258
Bibliography
Elting Colonel John R. Swords Around A Throne (London:
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1989)
Esdaile Charles Napoleon’s Wars (London: Penguin Books Ltd 2007)
Home George Memoirs Of An Aristocrat And Reminiscences of the Emperor Napoleon
(London: Whittaker & Co., 1838) Published by Forgotten Books 2012 www.forgottenbooks.org
A
Must Read for all serious Napoleonic Scholars
