Forbidden History - Napoleon: From Corsica to Conqueror

Episode Date: January 28, 2025

We take a look at the remarkable journey of Napoleon Bonaparte, from his humble beginnings on the island of Corsica to becoming one of history’s most iconic and controversial figures. From his military successes and defeats that defined his life, to his rise to power, his personal relationships, and the enduring legacy he left on Europe and the world. Cast List: Dr. Tracy Borman: Royal Historian & Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces Hallie Rubenhold: Author & Historian Tony McMahon: Author & Historian Dominic Selwood: Author & Historian Prof. Michael Briers: University of Oxford  Prof. Peter Hicks: Historian, Foundation Napoleon  Eric Meyers: Narrator  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Forbidden History Podcast. This program is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It contains mature adult themes. Listener discretion is advised. Napoleon Bonaparte. Born in Corsica, he rose to fame in France with a string of glorious military victories before turning on his paymasters, overthrowing the government, and becoming emperor of the French. His campaigns brought most of Western Europe under his control.

to create the biggest empire in the country's history. But that's just Napoleon, the emperor. What was going on behind the scenes? In this episode, we'll look at his military successes and failures, personal relationships, and investigate the real man behind the splendor. And will reveal how the man of destiny coped with humiliating defeat. Napoleon projected himself as a man of destiny. destiny. The British characterised him as pure evil, but the reality is he was a workaholic,

he was a military genius, and he was a man of great passion. Napoleon was one of the most voracious readers and intellectually curious people. I think you'll ever meet in the pages of history. He was a man who genuinely had a thousand personalities or no personality. He could be brutal, he could be merciful, he could be generous, he could be petty, but the one thing that he always was, was fixated on power. Was Napoleon really the short, egotistical man that history remembers him as? Did his family help him accumulate more mistresses than Louis XIV? How did the court operate behind closed doors? And how did he help lay the foundation for the France we know today? This is the life of Napoleon.

The Man. Napoleon was born in 1769 on the island of Corsica to a family with an Italian background. His father was a handsome, sharp-dressing money spender, who once said, Go hungry if you will, but never be without a good suit. By contrast, his mother was penny-pinching, strict, and not afraid to use a birch-whip. Perhaps not surprisingly, it was his mother whom Napoleon, most identified with, and her influence, who spurred him on to greater things. Napoleon moved to the French mainland when he was nine, and by the age of 16 began a stint at the Ecole Militaire in Paris, where he trained to be an artillery officer.

He was a natural and graduated in just one year instead of the usual two. Napoleon was sent to religious school and was only there for a short time before. for a short time before he was sent to a military academy. And that's really where he found himself. That's where he belonged. His personality was much more suited to that way of life than anything ecclesiastical. In 1789, the French Revolution erupted,

and in the ensuing French Revolutionary Wars, Napoleon began to make a name for himself. Later he was appointed artillery commander of the Republican forces at the siege of Toulon. He proved himself to have an acute military mind far beyond his years, and his success saw him promoted to brigadier general at the age of just 24.

It was not only his military career that was on track, because in the summer of 1794, Napoleon began to court Desiree Clarie, the pretty 16-year-old daughter of a deceased royalist millionaire. Although their relationship was conducted mainly by exchanging letters, Napoleon fell very deeply in love, and by the following April, they were engaged. She was originally engaged to Joseph Ponnopart, Napoleon's brother. And eventually, Napoleon managed to convince Joseph that, in fact, he wanted to be engaged to Desire's sister,

which freed up Desre for Napoleon to be with. Napoleon's love for her brought out his softer side as he penned the romantic novella, Clisson and Eugenie, the name he preferred to call her about a doomed romance of a soldier and his lover. Most young men of Napoleon's generation had to go at writing a romantic novel. It's ludicrous, really.

You know, the whole thing is overblown. It's real miltonalienable. and boon-type stuff. And I think one of the things he came to regret about it was that he really liked his girlfriend at the time, Desiree Clary. And I think he was really embarrassed about it because he really portrayed them as a couple of caricatures, you know, where they were very young.

And this is just the sort of sad, melodramatic ending that you've got to have if you're writing a romantic novel at the time. And indeed, Napoleon's relationship with Desiree was equally doomed. By June 1795, he realized that she was no longer replying to his letters, and it's likely that her mother had discouraged her from marrying him. Napoleon was heartbroken. But less than a year later, it said that Napoleon proposed marriage to another woman. That woman was Josephine de Bohane, who had become Napoleon's mistress in late 1795. She was six years older and a widow with two children.

But Napoleon became utterly infatuated with her and fell very deeply in love. The first couple of times that she met Napoleon, she just thought quite understandably he was a little geek, you know, this skinny little guy with this strange accent who was in this thing called the artillery and stuff like that. It's the equivalent to being a computer programmer nowadays, really. It's not a conversation, you know, if you're, if you're, you're really good at trigonometry, it's not, you know, conversation. But he was obviously

really bowled over by her. And Josephine always tried a very beautiful woman, very sociable, very intelligent and graceful to attach yourself to whoever seemed to be on the rise. Napoleon popped the question, Josephine said yes, and they were married at a civil ceremony on the 9th of March, 1796. The bride was wearing a tricolone. sash over her white wedding dress, and the groom was two hours late. The reason Napoleon was late for his own wedding was because he was being given the best wedding present he could imagine, command of the French army in Italy. So only a few days after signing the marriage certificate, he left to go and fight.

To find out more about their relationship, historian Tracy Borman is at the Napoleon Foundation, to meet Professor Peter Higgs. Most figures in the public eye, it's quite difficult to find out about their private lives. Is that the case with Napoleon? No, it isn't, because we have his love letters. These are famous 300 letters. They're preserved at the Archive Nacional here in Paris

with a ribbon around them, and there's almost a religious relic. And the early letters are full of this passion. He's complaining that she doesn't write. He tells her how he imagines him rushing back to her, bursting into her bedroom, this kind of thing, very intimate kind of details. So he's passionately in love with her. Then he goes off to Italy for this Italian campaign.

So he's very fully involved, although he keeps talking about her. His ADC's singing. He only ever talks about Josephine. He's always talking about Josephine. So he remembers her. But as well, he has affairs. There are these Italian singers that he's meeting in Milan, so he kind of slightly shacks up with him.

And there are rumors that Josephine possibly has affairs. at the same time, which Napoleon, of course, being a fiery corsic, because very upset about. They have fairs on both sides. Once Napoleon discovered that Josephine was having an affair with a huzzar called Ipoli Chal, he retaliated by having affairs himself. And quite an interesting combination of women. One was Pauline Fuhr, who was a hatmaker from Paris,

who stowed away on a ship, dressed as a soldier, as a male soldier, when they went to Cairo, and when they got to Cairo and she revealed her true identity, I think Napoleon found that quite appealing, so they had a very stormy relationship. From the letters, it's clearly a very passionate affair, but is there also a meeting of minds? Yes, I think there is.

So we get these letters from Napoleon, they show him as being very passionate. They're splendid letters. I mean, he's very proud of his ability to write. So his passion comes out in his letters. But Josephine is well connected, so that might have interested Napoleon in particular. Josephine had been connected with the head of state in France, a man called Barras, who was head of the directorate at that time, which was a sort of government body.

So Josephine has interest for Napoleon in terms of political support. So we've seen that, yes, they were kind of useful to each other, but you do also get the impression there was a meeting of minds that they kind of found their soulmate. While Napoleon was away leading the fight in the Egyptian campaign, Josephine bought the best. an estate and spent a fortune renovating it. The result was a home that would be very important to both of them, the Chateau de Malmaison. A lot of money was spent, which he felt rather uncomfortable about initially. The interior, however, was something fit for an emperor, but also fit for a general and somebody who would spend a lot of time on campaign, because one of the themes that ran throughout

Marmazon was one of campaign tents. And there were certain rooms that you entered, and the interior was crafted in a way so that it looked like you were under a tent. And his console room was specifically noted for that. Despite the Egyptian campaign not going according to plan, the sun-tanned Napoleon returned to France to a hero's welcome. But while his popularity was at an all-time high, the same could not be said for France's government. The revolution had essentially gone too far. What was supposed to create a constitutional monarchy in the mold of Britons had gained momentum and become a bloodthirsty nightmare.

It was incredibly unstable. And a politician, Emmanuel Céz, planned to overthrow it. Céez saw how popular Napoleon was with the public and convinced him to join his plan takeover and together they plotted. But Napoleon was planning a coup within a coup with the aim of attaining power not for Cés but for himself.

Napoleon sees power in an event that was frankly pure theater. He turns up with a load of grenadiers of what was called the Council of 500. He storms inside basically they beat him and his grenadiers up. So he retreats, he skulks outside, he's got blood on his face. His brother Lucien comes out and says to the soldiers, look at what these politicians have done.

Look at what they've done to your war hero. And then he grabs a sword and puts it to his brother's chest and says, and you know if Napoleon is a tyrant, I'll run him through now. And this seems to have fired up the grenadiers. They go back inside and they end the government. Napoleon was immensely successful as First Consul. He'd inherited a chaotic republic and turned it into a state with a strong bureaucracy and a well-trained army. And after more than 10 years, the budget was balanced and the whole of Europe was at peace.

He was at the height of his popularity. And another public vote saw him made First Consul for Life. One of the things that Cés and his co-conspirators didn't quite realize was that Napoleon had had tremendous political experience and power when he was the ruler of Italy, of Northern Italy, while he was in command there, but he'd done it behind the scenes. And they didn't realize that they had hired someone with more executive political nowce than they did. But being First Consul wasn't enough.

In 1804, Napoleon used a royalist conspiracy as an opportunity to gain even more power. On the 18th of May, he was proclaimed Emperor of the French, as Napoleon I, with the right to choose his successor from within his family. France had become a monarchy again. I think when you look at many accounts of the coronation, the switch from consulate to empire, left people more curious than either angry or enthusiastic. Very few constitutional adjustments had to be made for him to become emperor, mostly about family and succession, because he already had most of those monarchical powers as consul for life.

Napoleon was a complete contradiction. You know, he was a child of the revolution, but he also brought back the grandeur of the court of the Sun King Louis Catoors. He had 60 palaces. He had these elaborate costumes for his imperial guard. He was even crowned by the Pope. And he dressed himself like a kind of cross between a Roman emperor and Liberace, you know, completely sumptuous.

Now that he was emperor, Napoleon decided he needed a suitably splendid court to strengthen his monarchy. But contrary to other European courts, his was not the product of centuries. of tradition, but rather the creation of a man himself. And it was on a truly epic scale. When you get behind the scenes, both in his private life, but particularly at the core of his working life,

which was in the Council of State, that great institute of government that he creates, it's incredibly informal. Everyone's first name, everyone sits around the table, he goes around, takes everyone, in turn, he's the boss, but a lot of memoirs have said that everyone just called him chef, everyone just called him boss, even his brothers. And it was not laid back, but sleeves rolled up, everybody concentrating no time to stand on ceremony. I suspect it was not unlike the West Wing.

The over-the-top splendor of Napoleon's court was not the only way in which he, indulged his monarchical tendencies. Another was in his preferred form of exercise, the royal sport of hunting. Napoleon apparently enjoyed hunting. Maybe he was trying to emulate Louis XIV in that sense. But even though he was a military man, he wasn't the greatest of shots. And it even led one prince to sneer at him once. Well, Napoleon, when you've hunted kings, maybe you shouldn't hunt deer. On one hunt, Marshaled, The Marshal Alexandre Bertier had brought Napoleon rabbits in order to ensure that the Emperor was in a good chance of a high kill rate.

Problem was they were domesticated and therefore used to people. When Napoleon got out of his carriage to begin shooting at them, they assumed he was a keeper, bringing them food. Hundreds of rabbits began charging at the Emperor of the French, while his grooms flailed at them with whips. got back in his carriage, flinging rabbits out of his window as he went. Needless to say, he was not amused. And of course, on the battlefield, he was far more effective. And a string of victories gave France a European empire of a scale not seen since ancient Rome. The man to whom rule came naturally, and in his position no one could rein him in. But what was the secret of his

success. The iconic painting, Napoleon crossing the Alps, is probably how we all imagined him. He's on his horse, leading his troops across the mountains. But in fact, the reality was rather different. He was three days behind his troops. It was a fine sunny day, and instead of sitting on a fiery steed, such as the one shown in the painting, he actually rode over on a mule. So Napoleon wasn't shaped by destiny, but by sheer hard work. He worked incredibly hard, and if you're looking at his daily life, it revolved around work. He had a very punishing work routine. He put a lot of time in.

He was like a sponge in the detail and the information that he could absorb and process, and the sheer energy of the guy. enthused everybody around him. He had an enormous belief in himself. He had to. But he knew that really it came from hard work and hard won success. And in that sense, too,

he emulated a generation who felt they'd raised themselves and he'd raised himself. During his years of victory, he barely slept on campaign. And as emperor in Paris, he would sleep at 10 p.m. rise at 2 a.m. to work until 5 a.m., grab another couple of hours sleep, and then work all day

with only 15-minute breaks for simple meals, which he would wolf down, often standing up. He had no friends. Those people he did keep around him were for their usefulness. Work was his only true love, apart from that is, Josephine. But success on the battlefield was one thing. To be a true emperor, he needed to found a dynasty. But unfortunately, the couple could not produce an heir. For Napoleon, there was only one solution. And in December 1809, he reluctantly divorced Josephine.

Wasting no time in creating the air he so desperately needed, in 1810, Napoleon married the Archduxess Marie-Louise of Austin. Napoleon was very affectionate towards her, and while he continued to have mistresses, he kept them very secret. He didn't have long to wait for an heir, because on the 20th of March 1811, Marie-Louise gave birth to a son, who was confusingly named Napoleon. He was given the title King of Rome, and would be Napoleon's only child, only legitimate child, that is. He always called Josephine Bellamy, my lovely friend. And he says to her, you'll always be my friend.

He wants Josephine to continue to be involved in the court. And Mary Louise has to say, now, look, no, we can't do that. I'm sorry, I have to put my foot down here. But when she gets to realize, really through the intermediary of Napoleon's sister and Josephine's daughter, who becomes very friendly with Mary Louise, that look, this is the way it is. He's not cheating on you, but they're friends. She accepts it.

She obviously times he thinks he's gone a bit too far. But when Josephine is delighted at the birth of their son, that breaks the ice. By 1812, Napoleon was lauded by the public, and at the peak of his powers, with a colossal 680,000-strong Grande Armée, But still, he wanted more. In this age of European empires, he wanted to defy geography, smashed through national boundaries, and quite simply build the biggest empire the world had ever seen.

And so, on June 24, 1812, he set his sights eastwards to a new target. Russia. Napoleon's Grand Army was the largest army ever assembled in history. so he certainly had manpower. And there were some early victories. The Russians even abandoned Moscow. Napoleon wrote back to his empress comparing the Russian autumn to autumn's at Fontainebleau.

But of course, winter was coming. Once the weather set in, Russia pressed its advantage. The largest army in history was only as good as its commanders, and Napoleon's best were stationed elsewhere, in disgrace, He did not have his A-team with him when he went in there.

He went in at the wrong time a year. There's a tiny little fact on paper, but which is huge. He had a massive cavalry. He let the horses graze on raw grass. The horses got stomach problems and died long before the Russian winter. That is very unfurtile country. Napoleon's tactic was always to move fast and live off the life. fast and live off the land. He couldn't do that in Russia. And he was harried by Russian guerrillas

all the way, who raided his supply depots. He'd encountered this in Spain. He'd encountered this when he'd fought the Russians in 1807, and he just doesn't seem to have taken it on board. By the 14th of December 1812, a million people had been killed in the fighting. The result was a catastrophic defeat for France and Napoleon himself. Napoleon was completely out of his depth in the Russian campaign. Absolutely every tactical imperative, every bit of organization, the whole nature of the fighting, was beyond him. Following the defeat, vast swaths of Europe took Russia's side and attacked France.

The outcome of the next year. and a half of war was Napoleon's ultimate defeat. In April 1814, he had no choice but to abdicate. Napoleon was taken across the water to the island of Elba, off the coast of Italy, and was treated very well. Rather than simply being in exile, he was given sovereignty of the island and even promised a pension. But as his empire collapsed back home, it had a dramatic effect on his state of mind. At 3 o'clock in the morning, on the 13th of April, Napoleon took out a capsule of poison that he'd carried with him throughout his Russia campaign, and he swallowed it. Napoleon said that he was opposed to suicide.

He apparently once declared that it was like quitting the battlefield before the war was won or lost. And yet, nevertheless, he seems to have had suicidal episodes in his life. He apparently attempted suicide with a mixture of opium and water, but luckily his physician got to him in time, and the opium doesn't seem to have had the required effect. He was revived, he vomited, and he recovered. Napoleon recovered his mental state and instructed those present never to talk about the suicide attempt again.

His exile, after all, was a very lenient one. While he had to remain on the island, he was free to rule it. Napoleon was never one to sit still. He had an extraordinary well of energy. So even while on Elba, in his humiliation, he set about improving the island. He reformed the army. He rebuilt the Navy. He built roads.

He built mines. He remade their legal codes. He overhauled their education system. On Elba, he was not capable of sitting still. There was pretty much free access to Napoleon on Elba and he decided to turn this to his advantage. So yes, come meet Napoleon, come and see me. Yes, everybody can have 20 minutes, 10 minutes,

what do you want to talk to me about? Let me tell you my side of the story. Let me tell you what I really think happened in Russia in 1812. Let me tell you what they did to me in France a few months ago when they overthrew me. Here's my version. You're only hearing what the Allies are telling you. This is the truth.

and people would flock to meet him. He was a celebrity. And the Allies actually began to get a bit worried by this. You know, people are coming away who went to Gop and saying this guy is genius. But there were those among the victorious allies who thought his exile was too lenient. And so, fearful they would go back on the deal, Napoleon decided to escape.

And he came up with a rather cunning ploy. Part of the reason he managed to escape. from Elba. He convinced his British minder, who had a girlfriend in Florence, that another British official in Florence was hitting on her. He said, you better go over there and sort this out. And so he took off. Napoleon made sure he took off at the exact time,

the tides and everything were, and the winds were right to help him escape himself. So he slipped Elba while his minder was in Florence trying to get sweet with his girlfriend again. and he engineered that because his minder was completely captivated by him. Napoleon made it to Paris, but it wasn't a return to glory.

He had become deeply unpopular. Worse than that, Napoleon's enemies began to mobilize their armies. Napoleon's very careful when he first returns to France. He's going through southern France where he's not liked. Once he knows he's got most of the army behind him, and he takes power in Paris. His game plan is absolutely clear,

and it's vintage Napoleon. I will find an allied army, bring him to one big engagement, and thump them. And the Battle of Waterloo was his idea. Waterloo turned out to be one of the worst commanded battles of the Napoleonic Wars. The French were slow, lacked urgency, and Napoleon made poor decisions.

The result was that the Battle of Waterloo ended in a disastrous defeat for Napoleon and France. Napoleon abdicated for the second and final time, and he surrendered to Britain. But not repeating their previous mistake, he was exiled to an island over a thousand miles off the coast of West Africa, St. Helena. It was in this remote location that he dictated his memoirs.

By the time Napoleon got to St. Helena, he was very ill. but he dictates his memoirs. He doesn't write memoirs. He dictates them to four different people, incredibly crafty, so that he can sort of say, well, if there are contradictions in there, you know, it's not necessarily my fault, it's four different guys who just couldn't get the story right.

It would all be suspicious if it was synchronized and all the same anyway, wasn't it? And he deliberately crafts this and steers the conversation. I think most of the time he talked and was ill. Napoleon died on St. Helena on the 5th of May 1821, at the age of 51, almost certainly of stomach cancer. His final words were France, the army, head of the army, Josephine. But his story didn't stop there. Debate has raged ever since about whether he was killed by the British.

If there was any direct, deliberate British involvement in Napoleon's death, it was when they premeditatedly moved him from one of the nicer parts of the island, up to Longwood, which is about as insolubrious a place as you can find for someone who's ill. We will never know the true cause of his death. But what cannot be debated is that Napoleon had left his mark Not just on France, but on the wider world. There's something cinematic about the arc of Napoleon's life. It's a story that any fiction writer would love to have come up with.

He starts with nothing. He acquires everything. And by the time he dies, he has even less than he had at the beginning. He truly had it all and lost it all. His military conquest gave Western Europe its public sphere. It's law codes, its system of administration, almost everywhere. As a soldier, he left an indelible mark. He's a legend.

As a person, as a self-made person. Again, a legend, a self-made man who rose to the top and fell again. You couldn't make it up. Yes, the defeat at Waterloo left France smaller than when he had started. But Napoleon also left France a very different country, the place we know today. And that's perhaps why he now rests in a magnificent tomb at Le Invalid in Paris,

glorifying his memory for all eternity.