confiscated mines shows how the Bonapartist system worked. Napoleon
himself received a million francs and his henchmen in the affair
proportionate sums: Berthier got roo,ooo francs, Murat so,ooo, Berna
dotte so,ooo. Napoleon's hagiographers point to his stern treatment of
Saliceti and Garrau for their defalcations, but this misses the point: his
intention was to discredit the political commissioners, so that he was no
longer subject to effective control.
The looting of Italy's art treasures was a particularly nefarious aspect
of Napoleon's triumph. All conquered peoples or those who signed
treaties with Bonaparte had to pay an indemnity in the form of precious
paintings, sculptures and other works of art. The Duke of Parma was
forced to disgorge Coreggio's Dawn; the Pope was mulcted of a hundred
paintings, statues and vases; Venice yielded up some of its most priceless
Old Masters: and everywhere the pattern was the same. Works by
Giorgione, Mantegna, Raphael, Leonardo, Fra Filippo Lippi, Andrea del
Sarto and many others were removed to France, either as official prizes of
war or as objects of private rapine by Augereau, Massena and others.
Napoleon's defenders claim that he was under orders from the
Directory to repatriate these works of arts, that it was standard
Revolutionary practice to confiscate the artefacts of a 'corrupt aristo
cracy'. Carnot's instructions to this effect on 7 May 1796 are often cited,
ordering Napoleon to send back works of art 'in order to strengthen and
embellish the reign ofliberty'. But Napoleon and his generals did not just
send back money and art treasures: they kept the majority of the loot for
themselves. One estimate is that only a fifth of the surplus in money and
art extracted from Italy found its way to the Directory. Of the fifty
million francs uplifted, the most conservative estimate is that Napoleon
kept back three millions for himself. Tens of millions remain unac
counted for, and the obvious inference is that Napoleon, his family, his
favourites and his generals lined their pockets to an astonishing degree.
Napoleon always considered that the best way to bind the talented but
ambitious generals to his cause was to associate himself with the idea of
unlimited wealth; any commander following the Bonaparte star would
end up with the wealth of Croesus.
Napoleon claimed, absurdly, that he himself brought nothing back
from Italy but his soldier's pay, and has even found biographers and
historians prepared to swallow this transparent lie. Circumstantial
evidence alone is overwhelmingly against him. Napoleon connived with
his brother Joseph to have a vast quantity of treasure extracted from
Rome with which Joseph built a palatial house in Paris not too far from
the rue de Ia Victoire; Joseph pretended he had bought the property with
marcin
(Marcin)
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