suffer fools gladly and had an unrivalled eye for the spurious and phoney.
He despised Murat and saw right through Bernadotte, with whom he had
a memorable feud, and also had a long-running vendetta with the hyper
venal Brune.
Lannes, a hard driver like his fr iend Augereau, was a great favourite of
Napoleon, who derived secret satisfaction fr om Lannes's bitter enmity
with Murat. Despite his braggadoccio, Lannes was real, which is more
than could be said for Marmont, a man of no military talent whatever,
who owed his elevation entirely to Napoleon's favour and repaid it with
treachery. Mortier, by contrast, was conspicuously loyal. Immensely tall
(6'4"), he was the only English speaker among the marshals, and
recommended himself to Napoleon by his efficient military occupation of
Hanover in 1803. Uniquely, he managed to get on well with both the
Emperor and his sworn enemy Bernadotte. Moncey, on the other hand,
had not only never served under Napoleon but had been friendly with the
disgraced Moreau and the executed Pichegru; his appointment was the
clearest example of the political gesture or balancing act and, coming so
soon after the d'Enghien affair, it was a shrewd move on the Emperor's
part. But the more impressive balancing was the fact that Napoleon had
promoted a man of integrity on both sides: Davout from his favourites
and Jourdan from the Rhine army faction.
Of all the marshals the man closest to Napoleon personally was
Bessieres, who as long ago as June 1796 had been chosen to head
Bonaparte's bodyguard, the 'Guides' - that nucleus from which the
Imperial Guard would later come. Bessieres made a mortal enemy of
Lannes by siding with Murat against him in 1801. Lannes was
Commander of the Consular Guard and thus the favourite to head up the
new body formed by the merger of Guards and Guides. But Bessieres
revealed to Napoleon that Lannes had overspent the Guards budget for
1801 by 3o,ooo francs; the Consul therefore exiled Lannes as ambassador
to Portugal and appointed Bessieres instead. Bessieres' wife Adele
Lapeyriere was a favourite with both Napoleon and Josephine, which did
the Guard commander no harm at all. But the rumours continued,
fu elled by a fu rious Lannes, that Bessieres was a nonentity with no
military talent whatever.
The marshals destined to play the biggest part in Napoleon's military
exploits were Murat, Lannes, Ney, Davout, Massena, Bernadotte,
Berthier and Soult - significantly those associated with him from early
days. Bessieres oversaw the Guards, Kellermann and Lefebvre played no
significant part in Bonaparte's life, Perignon and Serurier were always
political makeweights fr om his point of view, while Brune, Jourdan and
marcin
(Marcin)
#1