as a latter-day Roman emperor throwing back the barbarian hordes, namely the Alexandrine dream of a joint march to India.3
To General Vandamme he gave a more perfunctory reason for going to war. ‘One way or another, I want to finish the thing,’ he said, ‘as we are both getting old, my dear Vandamme, and I don’t want to find myself in old age in a position in which people can kick me in the backside, so I am determined to bring things to a finish one way or the other.’4 In effect, he had assembled the greatest army the world had ever seen, with no defined purpose. And, by definition, aimless wars cannot be won.
One cannot help wondering whether Napoleon did not realise this. In the weeks before setting off, he made more than his usual share of cryptically fatalistic comments. ‘And anyway, how can I help it if a surfeit of power draws me towards dictatorship of the world?’ he said to one of his ministers who urged him to draw back from the war. ‘I feel myself propelled towards some unknown goal,’ he told another.5 This fatalism would also explain the absence of the speed and determination which were his usual hallmarks. While the vast military machine was taking shape in northern and eastern Germany in March, the diplomatic niceties continued.
For all the talk of barbarian hordes being thrown out of Europe, the unfortunate Russian ambassador in Paris, Prince Kurakin, was finding it difficult to get away. He had never enjoyed his job, and had found it increasingly difficult to carry it out as tension mounted between Napoleon and Alexander. Things had not been made any easier when, in February, a spying scandal had broken over Paris involving Alexander’s special envoy Colonel Chernyshev. He had for some time been paying a clerk at the French War Ministry to supply him with information on troop numbers and movements. The French police had got wind of this and informed Napoleon. On 25 February, just as Chernyshev was about to set off for St Petersburg with a personal letter from him to Alexander, the Emperor accorded him a long interview, in which he treated him with cordiality and respect. The following day the police broke into the apartments the departed Chernyshev had just vacated and brought the whole matter into the open.
Kurakin had to listen to torrents of outraged self-righteousness on the subject. As he watched troops leaving Paris bound for Germany, he found himself in a ridiculous position. He felt he should ask for his passports and leave, but every time he mentioned this to Maret or to Napoleon they evinced shocked surprise, affirming that there was no reason at all for him to go, and intimating that his departure would be interpreted as a declaration of war.6
On 24 April Kurakin called on Maret with a letter from Alexander stating that Russia would not negotiate until France withdrew all her troops behind the Rhine. This was rich, considering that only two weeks earlier Alexander himself had set off to join his armies on the frontier of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. On 27 April Kurakin had an audience with Napoleon at the Tuileries to discuss this. The interview was not as stormy as might have been expected, and Napoleon handed him a letter for Alexander. It expressed regret that the Tsar should be ordering Napoleon where to station his troops while he himself stood at the head of an army on the frontiers of the Grand Duchy. ‘Your Majesty will however allow me to assure him that, were fate to conspire to make war between us inevitable, this would in no way alter the sentiments which Your Majesty has inspired in me, and which are beyond any vicissitude or possibility of change,’ he ended.7
But he could not delay any longer. He had to go and take command of his armies. Before doing so, he made arrangements for the defence and the administration of France. Although he had, as a long shot, made a peace offer to Britain, suggesting a withdrawal of all French and British troops from the Iberian peninsula, with Joseph remaining King of Spain and the Braganzas being allowed back into Portugal, he expected nothing to come of it. He therefore strengthened the coastal defences in order to discourage any British attempt at invasion, and organised a national guard of 100,000 men who could be called out to deal with any emergency.
He had considered leaving Prince Eugéne in Paris as regent, but decided against it. In the event he left the Arch-Chancellor of the Empire Jean-Jacques Cambacérès in charge. The Arch-Chancellor would preside over the Council of State, which was a non-political executive composed of efficient and loyal experts.
At their last interview, on the eve of Napoleon’s departure, Étienne Pasquier, Prefect of Police, voiced his fears that if the forces of opposition building up in various quarters were to try to seize power with the Emperor so far from Paris, there would be nobody on the spot with enough authority to put down the insurrection. ‘Napoleon seemed to be struck by these brief reflections,’ recalled the Prefect. ‘When I had finished, he remained silent, walking to and fro between the window and the fireplace, his arms crossed behind his back, like a man deep in thought. I was walking behind him, when, turning brusquely towards me, he uttered the following words: “Yes, there is certainly some truth in what you say; this is but one more problem to be added to all those that I must confront in this, the greatest, the most difficult, that I have ever undertaken; but one must accomplish what has been undertaken. Goodbye, Monsieur le Préfet.”’8
Napoleon knew how to hide any anxiety he may have felt. ‘Never has a departure for the army looked more like a pleasure trip,’ noted Baron Fain as the Emperor left Saint Cloud on Saturday, 9 May with Marie-Louise and a sizeable proportion of his court.9 It soon turned into more of an imperial progress.
At Mainz, Napoleon reviewed some troops and received the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstädt and the Prince of Anhalt Coethen, who had come to pay their respects. At Würzburg, where he stopped on the night of 13–14 May, he found the King of Württemberg and the Grand Duke of Baden waiting for him like two faithful vassals.
On 16 May he was met by the King and Queen of Saxony, who had driven out to meet him, and together they made a triumphal entry into Dresden that evening by torchlight as the cannon thundered salutes and the church bells pealed. His lever the next morning was graced by the ruling princes of Saxe-Weimar, Saxe-Coburg and Dessau. This was followed by a solemn Mass (it was Sunday), attended by the entire court and diplomatic corps. Napoleon went out of his way to greet the representative of Russia. The Queen of Westphalia and the Grand Duke of Würzburg arrived in Dresden later that day, and the Emperor Francis of Austria and his Empress the following day. A couple of days later Frederick William arrived in Dresden accompanied by his son the Crown Prince.
Napoleon had taken up residence in the royal palace, which Frederick Augustus had obligingly vacated, guarded by Saxon rather than French sentries. It was he who was the host, and he dictated etiquette, treating both the King of Saxony and the Emperor of Austria as his guests. At nine every morning he would hold his lever, which was the greatest display of power Europe had seen for centuries. It was attended by the Austrian Emperor and all the German kings and princes, ‘whose deference for Napoleon went far beyond anything one could imagine’, in the words of Boniface de Castellane, a twenty-four-year-old aide-de-camp.10 He would then lead them in to assist at the toilette of Marie-Louise. They would watch her pick her way through an astonishing assemblage of jewels and parures, trying on and discarding one after the other, and occasionally offering one to her barely older stepmother the Empress Maria Ludovica, who simmered with shame and fury. She loathed Napoleon for the upstart he was – and for having thrown her father off his throne of Modena many years before. Her distaste was magnified by the embarrassment and resentment she felt in the midst of this splendour, as the poor condition of the Austrian finances allowed her only a few jewels, which looked paltry next to those of Marie-Louise.
In the evening they would dine at Napoleon’s table, off the silver-gilt dinner service Marie-Louise had been given as a wedding present by the city of Paris, and which she had thoughtfully brought along. The company would assemble and enter the drawing room in reverse order of seniority, each announced by a crier, beginning with mere excellencies, going