detail. The other problem was that hardy perennial of all bureaucracies:
proliferation. Beginning with 400 officers and s,ooo men in r8os the
Imperial Headquarters swelled to 3,500 officers and ro,ooo men by r8rz.
Apart from the personnel of the General Commissary of Army Stores,
HQ housed the Emperor's personal staff and servants and the general
staff of the Grande Armee.
The three key men were Alexandre Berthier, Minister of War and
Chief of Staff of the Grand Army; Christophe Duroc, the Grand Marshal
of the Palace, also in charge of the imperial household, family and
servants and incidentally procurer of beautiful women fo r the Emperor;
and the Master of Horse, General Armand de Caulaincourt, later Duke of
Vicenza, in charge of stables, pages, messenger services and imperial
escorts. Reporting to Duroc were Constant and the other three valets; the
Mameluke bodyguard Roustam; the prefect of the Palace (also Duroc's
deputy), plus secretaries, physicians, equerries, pages, butlers and
servants. Because Napoleon esteemed Duroc and liked him more than
any other man, he also put him in charge of liaison between the
Emperor's personal staff and his planning staff. However, Duroc did not
oversee Napoleon's private secretaries - the channel between the
Emperor and his ministers- of whom the chieffrom 1796-r8oz had been
Bourrienne. Dismissed for peculation and larceny, he was replaced by
Meneval. A much more long-running personality was Bader d' Albe, who
served Napoleon from 1796 to r8r3 as head of his Topographical Office.
He was in charge of all Napoleon's military maps, where he placed
different coloured pins to denote battle positions. Bader d'Albe was an
invariable part of the retinue that accompanied the Emperor when he
rode out to his vantage point to direct a battle or inspect individual units.
If the general staff presented a mixed picture to contrast with the great
success of the corps system, the Imperial Guard itself remained the great
unknown, since Napoleon consistently refused to send it into battle, even
when its appearance would probably have won the day for him. In r8os
there was as yet only the 'Old Guard' - foot grenadiers, chasseurs,
mounted grenadiers, dragoons, lancers, Mamelukes, gendarmes d'e!ite and
chasseurs a cheval, but mainly grenadiers and elite cavalry, some rz,ooo in
all. The Guard was itself a growth industry. Formed fr om the core of
bodyguards known as the Guides, added to successively by the Guards of
the Directory, the Legislative Assembly and the Consular Guard, the
reconstituted Imperial Guard of December r8o4 contained s,ooo
grenadiers and z,ooo cavalry (with artillerymen for its twenty-four guns,
a total of 8,ooo). By mid-r8os alone there had been a fifty per cent
increase in numbers and by r8rz there were 56,r69 Guardsmen. The Old
marcin
(Marcin)
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