Napoleon: A Biography

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clearly of the first importance. Another first-rate source is Frans;ois
Bernoyer, Avec Bonaparte en Egypte et Syrie, 19 lettres inedites, ed. Tortel
(Paris 1976). Among the other 'first-division' memoirs are J.B.P. Jollois,
Journal d'un ingenieur attache a !'expedition franfaise, 1798 -18oz, ed.
Lefevre-Pontalis (Paris 1904); Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Lettres ecrites
d'Egypte (Paris 1901 ); Alexandre Berthier, Relation des campagnes du
general Bonaparte en Egypte et en Syrie (Paris 1901); Vivant Denon,
Voyage dans Ia Basse et Ia Haute-Egypte (Paris 1802). But such a list,
while containing the really important sources, barely scratches the surface
of the embarrassment of riches provided by the memoir literature for this
period; clearly it was not just Napoleon who was bedazzled by the lure of
the Orient.


CHAPTER TEN

Albert Vandal's L 'Avenement de Bonaparte (Paris 1907) is the classic
study of 18 Brumaire. Other studies can only dot the 'i's and cross the
't's. So, for example, Jacques Bainville, Le dix-huit Brumaire (Paris 1925),
A. Ollivier, Le dix-huit Brumaire (Paris 1959), Gustave Bord and Louis
Bigard, La Maison du dix-huit Brumaire (Paris 1930) and D.J. Goodspeed,
Bayonets at Saint-Cloud (NY 1965). The most recent account is J.P.
Bertaud, Le Dix-Huit Brumaire (Paris 1987). For the technical legality of
the coup F. Pietri, Napoleon et le Parlement (1955) is particularly valuable.
On the issue of continuity and change there is L. Sciout, Le Directoire
(Paris 1897); M. Reinhard, La France du Directoire (Paris 1956); A.
Soboul, Le Directoire et le Consulat (Paris 1967); D. Woronoff, La
Republique bourgeoise (Paris 1972). For the key element of propaganda see
R. Holtman, Napoleonic Propaganda (Baton Rouge 1950). For military
aspects of the decline and fall of the Directory consult Steven T. Ross,
Quest for Victory: French Military Strategy 17 92-1 799 (Cranbury, N.J.
1973).
As is to be expected, memoir literature is particularly valuable for 18
Brumaire. Apart from Bourrienne's, the evidence of Jerome Gohier,
Memoires (Paris 1824), Pierre-Louis Roederer, Journal, ed. Vitrac (Paris
1909) and A.C. Thibaudeau, Memoires sur le consulat et !'empire de 1799 a
1815 (Paris 1827) and Memoires (Paris 1913 ) are salient. Joseph Fouche,
Memoires ed. L. Madelin (Paris 1945) is as unreliable as one would expect
from that prince of liars.
Biographical detail is particularly important for the host of personal­
ities jostling for power and position at this conjuncture. Jean-Denis
Bredin, Sieyes, Ia cte de Ia Revolution franfaise (1988) is the latest on the

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