Napoleon: A Life

by Andrew Roberts

Judges were of course required to interpret the law in individual cases but were not allowed to make pronouncements on principles, so that specific cases could not set precedents, as under Anglo-Saxon common law.

Talma

Although La Harpe had initially enthused Alexander about Napoleon’s reforms as First Consul, when the tutor returned from Paris he was so disillusioned that he wrote a book, Reflexions on the True Nature of the First Consulship for Life, that described Napoleon as ‘the most famous tyrant the world has produced’, which had a great effect on the young tsar.

tranchants

Louis de Fontanes’ pamphlet Parallèle entre César, Cromwell, Monk et Bonaparte

Chénier, Daunou, Benjamin Constant, the ex-Girondin Maximin Isnard and the political economist Charles Ganilh.

Enlightenment thinkers and disciples of the late Marquis de Cordorcet, such as the philosopher Pierre Cabanis, Antoine Destutt de Tracy (who coined the term ‘ideology’), the history professor and editor Dominique Garat, the Constitutionalist bishop Henri Grégoire, the author Pierre-Louis Guinguené, and the lawyer-politician Comte Jean-Denis Lanjuinais,

Constant and de Staël,

Jean de Bry

William Cobbett’s Weekly Political Register and Daniel Lovell’s Statesman

Portoferraio,

General Michel Ney

Valais

Philipp Stapfer,

Charles Nodier,

Elbe and Weser

Berbice, Demerara and Essequibo.

Pont-de-Briques

at Saint-Omer, Compiègne, Arras, Étaples, Vimereaux, Paris and Amiens.

Captain Édouard Desbrière’s five-volume work, Projets et tentatives de débarquement aux îles Britanniques (published in 1900–1902),

Seventy-three small ‘Martello’ beacon towers were built along the south coast between 1805 and 1808,

Vincennes Castle,

Jean Chas’s Réflexions sur l’hérédité du pouvoir souverain

There is no more powerful example of history’s law of unintended consequences than that Napoleon should have contributed to the creation of the country that was, half a century after his death, to destroy the French Empire of his own nephew, Napoleon III.

Eylau

Passarge river,

Guttstadt

Heilsberg.

Alle,

Friedland (present-day Pravdinsk),

Posthenen.

Heinrichsdorf,

the Russians re-crossed the Niemen and burned the bridge of the last Prussian town at Tilsit (present-day Sovetsk),

Netze river and the Bromberg Canal (now the Noteć river and the Bydgoszcz Canal, both entirely in Poland).

Etruria

After the insurrection was over, Murat had groups of peasant insurgents shot by firing squad, in scenes later immortalized by Francisco Goya which can today be seen at the Prado.

Erfurt

The archduke had co-written a book on military strategy in 1806, Grundsätze der Kriegkunst für die Generale (The Art of War for Generals), and meant to put his ideas to the test.

Markgrafsneusiedl

Stettin and Küstrin (present-day Szczecin and Kostrzyn)

Breglio (now Breil-sur-Roya,

Many of the phenomena of Napoleonic warfare that had been characteristic of his earlier campaigns – elderly opponents lacking energy, a nationally and linguistically diverse enemy against the homogeneous French, a vulnerable spot onto which Napoleon could latch and not let go, a capacity for significantly faster movement than the enemy, and to concentrate forces to achieve numerical advantage for just long enough to be decisive – were not present or were simply impossible in the vast reaches of European Russia.

This was to be a campaign utterly unlike any he had fought before, indeed unlike any in history.

Viliya river and entered Kovno.

Seine-et-Marne,

Vitebsk

322

372

Katzbach river (present-day Kaczawa)

Peterswalde (now Piotraszewo, in Poland)

Tetschen, Aussig and Töplitz (now Děčín, Ústi and Teplice, in the Czech Republic).