to the newly fashionable “Titus cut” of short curls combed over the forehead. Napoleon’s youthful curtain of shoulder-length hair had been clipped to this Roman fashion to disguise a prematurely receding hairline.
There were also enough epaulettes, medals, velvets, silks, and leathers to outfit a dozen American armies. Here in Paris men could be peacocks, strutting in uniforms costing a year of laborer wages. How brilliantly they would ride into battle! They had the gusto of survivors from the catastrophe of revolution. It had been computed that of the original 1,080 members of the Convention after the fall of King Louis, 151 revolutionaries had been executed or murdered, had committed suicide, or had been driven into exile. Those remaining felt reprieved.
The few women present were just as glorious, hair pinned into towers roofed with slanting hats and colorful plumes. My wife, on the advice of Catherine, had parrot feathers. To revive the silk and velvet industries that had gone moribund in the revolution, Napoleon was encouraging a move away from gauze and muslin, meaning dresses had become more opaque, with higher necklines and longer trains.
The air was rich with Catholic incense, tobacco, and perfume.
The crowd clustered around the empire’s new nuclei, the eighteen marshals Napoleon had appointed on May 19. Some generals I remembered from the Egyptian campaign. There was the handsome and redoubtable Lannes, the gloriously black-curled Murat, the stern and balding Davout, and the severe Bessieres, who commanded the Guard Cavalry. Their uniforms were outrageous rainbows of blue, red, white, green, and yellow. Murat by rumor had spent one hundred thousand francs on his. There were buttons enough to require half a morning of fastening. Sabers clanked and rattled. Boots creaked from polished leather. Spurs jangled.
“The French can be governed through their vanity,” Napoleon had reportedly said.
The marshals also represented a new tangle of marriages, appointments, and opportunities as complex as a medieval court. Catherine recited this new order with envy. Murat was married to Caroline Bonaparte, Napoleon’s sister, and rumor was that both thought the cavalryman would make a more able emperor—or at least a more dashing one—than his shorter brother-in-law. Lannes, the farmer’s son turned warrior, had returned from a profitable tenure as ambassador to Portugal with enough pocketed bribes to purchase a Paris mansion. Davout had married the sister of Charles Leclerc, and thus was brother-in-law to Leclerc’s widow Pauline, Napoleon’s sister. Massena had evolved from Italian smuggler to French military hero. Bernadotte was married to Desiree Clary, the beauty who had once been engaged to young Napoleon. Bernadotte’s sister-in-law Julie was married to Napoleon’s brother Joseph.
Napoleon was building a clan worthy of Machiavelli. A study of the army lists and genealogical tables showed France boasted 240 generals in some way related to one another. Half a dozen were publicly known to have conspired against Napoleon, and their new emperor needed war to keep them campaigning instead of plotting. The French victories at Hohenlinden and Marengo were four years past, and there was hunger for new glory. They swaggered. If they could come to grips with England’s small army, they’d rip it apart.
I was surprised to have been given gold tickets that admitted us to the main floor, since I’d little chance of being inducted into anybody’s legion of honor.
I had a different kind of celebrity and was both flattered and frightened when the odious and limping Charles-Maurice Périgord—better known as simply Talleyrand, or the “lame devil,” and the foreign minister of France—approached. His narrow head was erect, as if braced, with the limpid stare of a fish, and lips tight as a virgin. It occurred to me that the towering policeman Pasques served as a useful lighthouse in this jammed church for any
There were also enough epaulettes, medals, velvets, silks, and leathers to outfit a dozen American armies. Here in Paris men could be peacocks, strutting in uniforms costing a year of laborer wages. How brilliantly they would ride into battle! They had the gusto of survivors from the catastrophe of revolution. It had been computed that of the original 1,080 members of the Convention after the fall of King Louis, 151 revolutionaries had been executed or murdered, had committed suicide, or had been driven into exile. Those remaining felt reprieved.
The few women present were just as glorious, hair pinned into towers roofed with slanting hats and colorful plumes. My wife, on the advice of Catherine, had parrot feathers. To revive the silk and velvet industries that had gone moribund in the revolution, Napoleon was encouraging a move away from gauze and muslin, meaning dresses had become more opaque, with higher necklines and longer trains.
The air was rich with Catholic incense, tobacco, and perfume.
The crowd clustered around the empire’s new nuclei, the eighteen marshals Napoleon had appointed on May 19. Some generals I remembered from the Egyptian campaign. There was the handsome and redoubtable Lannes, the gloriously black-curled Murat, the stern and balding Davout, and the severe Bessieres, who commanded the Guard Cavalry. Their uniforms were outrageous rainbows of blue, red, white, green, and yellow. Murat by rumor had spent one hundred thousand francs on his. There were buttons enough to require half a morning of fastening. Sabers clanked and rattled. Boots creaked from polished leather. Spurs jangled.
“The French can be governed through their vanity,” Napoleon had reportedly said.
The marshals also represented a new tangle of marriages, appointments, and opportunities as complex as a medieval court. Catherine recited this new order with envy. Murat was married to Caroline Bonaparte, Napoleon’s sister, and rumor was that both thought the cavalryman would make a more able emperor—or at least a more dashing one—than his shorter brother-in-law. Lannes, the farmer’s son turned warrior, had returned from a profitable tenure as ambassador to Portugal with enough pocketed bribes to purchase a Paris mansion. Davout had married the sister of Charles Leclerc, and thus was brother-in-law to Leclerc’s widow Pauline, Napoleon’s sister. Massena had evolved from Italian smuggler to French military hero. Bernadotte was married to Desiree Clary, the beauty who had once been engaged to young Napoleon. Bernadotte’s sister-in-law Julie was married to Napoleon’s brother Joseph.
Napoleon was building a clan worthy of Machiavelli. A study of the army lists and genealogical tables showed France boasted 240 generals in some way related to one another. Half a dozen were publicly known to have conspired against Napoleon, and their new emperor needed war to keep them campaigning instead of plotting. The French victories at Hohenlinden and Marengo were four years past, and there was hunger for new glory. They swaggered. If they could come to grips with England’s small army, they’d rip it apart.
I was surprised to have been given gold tickets that admitted us to the main floor, since I’d little chance of being inducted into anybody’s legion of honor.
I had a different kind of celebrity and was both flattered and frightened when the odious and limping Charles-Maurice Périgord—better known as simply Talleyrand, or the “lame devil,” and the foreign minister of France—approached. His narrow head was erect, as if braced, with the limpid stare of a fish, and lips tight as a virgin. It occurred to me that the towering policeman Pasques served as a useful lighthouse in this jammed church for any
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