The French Revolution and Napoleon, 1789–1815 413
Illustration 21.5
Two Views of the Napoleonic
Wars.The great neoclassical painter
Jacques-Louis David became court
painter to Napoleon and created several
immense canvases glorifying his regime.
None was greater propaganda than his
“Napoleon Crossing the Alps” en route
to his victory in Italy, following the path
of earlier conquerers whose names are
immortalized in Alpine stone. The
heroic rider astride a fiery charger is far
from the truth, however. Napoleon
chose a cautious crossing of the Alps on
the back of a sure-footed burro.
The white stallion remains, but little
of the romantic heroism seen in David’s
painting survives in Ernest Meissonier’s
“The French Campaign, 1814.” Here, a
somber emperor leads an exhausted
army that had been beaten repeatedly
for two years.