Also very clear is Napoleon's determination to run a personal Empire,
for he rigidly controlled the system of entails and benefices himself. He
kept two large account books on the corner of his desk, in which names
and amounts were listed. In his memoirs Baron Agathon Fain, successor
to Bourrienne and Meneval as the Emperor's secretary, relates how he
got his share in the system of imperial rip-off. Napoleon ran his eye over
the pages of the ledger, quickly reminding himself who had what. Then
he stopped and looked hard at an entry. 'Aha, I've found you one. Here
you are! ro,ooo francs income in Pomerania! Let it not be said I've
forgotten my secretaries.'
By r8r4 Napoleon had made grants to 4,994 persons at a cost of nearly
thirty million francs a year; in money terms half of this went to 824
generals. There was an inner circle of favoured recipients even among the
lucky pensioners, for people like Pauline, Davout, Ney, Berthier and 486
other favourites (ro% of the total) received 24 million francs or 8o% of
the total amount. Berthier, for example, was made Prince of Neuchatel,
never once visited the place, yet received half the gross revenue of the
principality (6ro,ooo livres) in the seven years r8o6--r3. After the decisive
battle with the Austrians in I 809 he was made Prince of Wagram and
added a further 250,0 00 francs to his endowment, making his total annual
income 1.3 million francs.
Even these lavish sums did not satisfy the marshals' cupidity. The
worst offenders were Augereau, Soult, Massena and Victor. Augereau
once strode into an Italian pawnshop and stuffe d his pockets with jewels.
When this was reported to Napoleon, he dismissed the objections
cynically: 'Don't talk to me about generals who love money. It was only
that which enabled me to win the battle of Eylau. Ney wanted to reach
Elbing to procure more fu nds.'
The result of Napoleon's refusal to discipline his marshals was
predictable. Art treasures were looted across an area stretching from
Egypt to Spain and, although some of the paintings fo und their way into
the I ,ouvre, most were purloined for private collections. Soult acquired
pamtmgs worth one-and-a-half million francs, which he pocketed;
Napoleon kept back a wealth of choice items for Josephine; many
hundreds more precious artefacts were sold at State auctions. The
plunderers habitually lied to the Emperor. In December r8o6 General
Lagrange, the French military governor of Hesse-Darmstadt, found the
treasure of the Landgrave of Hesse, who had made the mistake ofbacking
the Prussians. The total value of the haul, accumulated painstakingly over
the years by the notably miserly I ,andgrave, was nineteen million fr ancs.
In return for a bribe of a million francs, I ,agrange fabricated a report that
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