itinerant court. Travelling via Chalons and Metz he was at Mainz on 12
May, then proceeded to Dresden by way of Wi.irzburg, Bayreuth and
Freyberg, arriving there at midnight on 16 May in a triumphal
procession, with the King of Saxony providing the honour escort. The
poet Heine was one who witnessed the imperial passage through
Germany and wrote of his first glimpse of Bonaparte: 'He was sending
them to Russia, and the old grenadiers glanced up at him with so
awesome a devotion, so sympathetic an earnestness, with the pride of
death: Te, Caesar, morituri te salutant.'
Napoleon remained in Dresden for two weeks while his envoy Count
Narbonne conducted futile negotiations at Vilna with the Czar's
plenipotentiaries. On St Helena Napoleon described this fortnight in
Dresden as the happiest time of his life, since all the rulers of Europe,
except the Czar, George III and the Sultan, were there to pay homage to
him. He took over the Saxon King's rococo palace and filled it with
wagon trains of French tapestries, wines, porcelain, china, glass and
furniture brought from Paris. Hundreds of French cooks worked on
delicacies culled from all over the Empire for the delectation of Marie
Louise and the imperial nobility, now seemingly given the final seal of
approval with the presence in Dresden of the great scions of the ancien
regime nobility - the Turennes, the Montesquieus and the Noailles.
After leaving Dresden on 29 May the Emperor proceeded via Posan
and Thorn to his main base at Danzig, where he arrived on the evening of
7 June. Almost his first encounter was with Murat, a man he had seen
little of in recent years. The Emperor had not forgotten his disloyal
intrigues in r8o9 and often toyed with the idea of deposing him as King
of Naples. On one occasion he had actually summoned him in order to
dismiss him but Murat, tipped off by one of his spies (Fouche?),
decamped for Italy to avoid the confrontat ion. By the time a lame excuse
about crossed messages had been offered, Napoleon's mind was on
something else and the Murat problem went into abeyance. But now,
seeing again his disloyal brother-in-law, the Emperor greeted him coldly.
He began with stern face and bitter words, then changed his tone to that
of a man whose close friend has let him down badly. He finished with
words so tender and affecting that Murat was deeply moved and near to
tears. Once again it is worth stressing that Napoleon Bonaparte, his
occasional harsh excesses aside, was a deeply human and forgiving man -
too forgiving for his own good, some would say.
At Danzig Napoleon took stock of the situation on the eve of the
Russian campaign. Altogether he had some 675,000 troops under arms,
including reserves and those on supply and garrison duties. Aside from
marcin
(Marcin)
#1