Antoine-Jean Gros, Bonaparte Visits the Plague-Stricken in Jaffa (1804): In military terms, Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt was a disaster. However, Napoleon did his best to put a good face on the fiasco. He wrote optimistic bulletins back to France, and he encouraged the scientists who accompanied him to put a positive spin on events. Later, he also used artists to help manufacture various myths about his time in Egypt. In this particular case, Gros, who was a student of David’s, portrayed an incident that occurred when the French captured Jaffa. After plague broke out among the French soldiers, Napoleon visited the sick and did his best to care for them. Here Gros celebrates Napoleon’s courage and self-sacrifice.
Readings
Please read Hunt and Censer, pp. 158-164, 175-180, Proclamation to the Army of Italy (1796) (Canvas), and Napoleon’s Victory Banner (1797) (Canvas). Please also listen to Canvas Lecture: Who Was Napoleon Bonaparte?
What We are Doing Today
The last time we discussed readings from the textbook, we looked at the military successes of the Directory and their consequences. We had an opportunity to encounter Napoleon for the first time, first, because he deal with the Vendémiare rising and, second, because he conquered much of northern Italy from the Austrians. Today we will learn about Napoleon’s rise to power.
What We Already Know about Napoleon
Before today’s reading, what did we already know about the factors that assisted Napoleon’s rise?
Napoleon had come from a family of impoverished Corsican nobility. His aristocratic background gave him access to an excellent military education before the revolution.
Napoleon’s early military commands revealed to him that he was a natural leader. He also possessed a certain kind of energy and charisma that impressed others. These attributes were extremely important as the army became more influential in France during the era of the National Convention and particularly under the Directory.
We should remember that the army itself and its way of war had been revolutionized by important changes. Officers as well as the rank and file had different motives for fighting than the Old Regime army.
The Directory relied on the army to put down royalist rebellions and Jacobin insurrections. Napoleon played a pivotal role in dealing with the Vendémiare uprising in October 1795 by slaughtering monarchists with cannon in the streets of Paris. In other words, a man like Napoleon was indispensable when it came to domestic politics.
There were many in the Directory, soldiers and politicians alike, who had an interest in sustaining war against European enemies. Success in war provided opportunities for strategic gains, financial gains for the state, and personal enrichment. Napoleon was among the most successful of the Directory’s generals, conquering large parts of Italy. These areas became “sister republics” of France, but that did not exempt them from onerous financial obligations to the French state. Napoleon, then, was also indispensable to the war effort abroad.
Napoleon made the most of his successes through the use of the press and through other media, such as art (we will learn more about his relationship to David later).
George Arnald, The Destruction of “L’Orient” at the Battle of the Nile, 1 August 1798 (1825): At Aboukir Bay, Lord Nelson’s British fleet caught the French at anchor and destroyed most of Vice-Admiral François-Paul Brueys d’Aigalliers’ ships. This painting represents a climactic moment from the Battle of the Nile, when Brueys’ 120-gun flagship, L’Orient, blew up around 10:00 pm after a fire reached its main magazine. By that point, Brueys had already been dead for some fifteen minutes having almost been cut in two by a British cannon ball. The defeat of the French fleet marooned Napoleon’s army in Egypt.
Potential Quiz Questions
1) Why did Napoleon decide to invade Egypt? What were the various objectives of the invasion?
2) In what ways did the invasion of Egypt run off the rails? In other words, how did Napoleon alienate the Egyptians? And what were the most important military reverses Napoleon suffered while in Egypt and Palestine?
3) What important military defeats did France suffer in 1799? And who threatened France with domestic political instability?
4) What were the important consequences of the 18 Brumaire Coup?
5) The first paragraph of Chapter 5 summarizes Napoleon’s relationship to the revolution. According to the textbook, what was that relationship?
6) What were the main provisions of the Constitution of 1799? What was its main purpose?
7) What were the important administrative changes that Napoleon made?
8) What were the main terms of the treaties that France signed with Austria (1801) and Britain (1802)?
9) According to today’s Canvas lecture, what was Napoleon all about? Who was he underneath the show?
History 114: The French Revolution and Napoleon 