Volume II - Chapitre 3
AT
WORK WITH THE EMPEROR (2)
THE
ADMINISTRATOR AND THE BUILDER
It
is common knowledge that Napoleon kept an eye on everything.
Few
people, however, are really aware of just how many administrative tasks he
undertook and the care he took to perform them.
This
is what we shall attempt to show in this section.
The secretaries who usually worked with him rarely saw Napoleon as motionless as David represents him on this portrait. During his work sessions, the Emperor paced up and down in his study, "the frequency of his comings and goings, wrote one of his secretaries, perfectly reflected the movement of his thoughts."
However
superhuman he may have appeared, even he could not remember everything.
Consequently, the Emperor required that everyone who served him – that is, who
served the country – should comply with his system of work:
“The
wheels,” one of his private secretaries wrote, “were only allowed to move
inside the grooves that he himself had laid down. Each compartment of his
memory was supplemented by a book. He transformed his office into a piano
keyboard to which all the strings of government were attached, and alone with
his Secretary, he struck whichever chords he chose.
At least once a month, more often every
two weeks, Napoleon’s ministers submitted these famous books that had been
drawn up according to the model that he had developed personally.
The “military books”
Let
us begin with the matters relating to the Grand Army, since in the previous
issue we stated that the Emperor allowed no one else to ensure the
effectiveness of this prodigious and complex war machine that guaranteed the
safety of the Empire against the monarchies of
It
should come as no surprise to discover that the Minister of War was the largest
supplier of books. These were classified by regiment, military division, army
Corps, etc.
What
was in them?
Everything
that related to the affairs of the regiments: the names of the colonel and all
the superior officers, the various battles the regiments were involved in, in
which Army, in which active division, each battalion was employed, where it was
stationed, its strength and the number of men under arms, the records of the
number of sick and wounded in hospitals, the anticipated number of recruits
from conscription that year and the departments that were supposed to supply
these recruits, etc.; for the military division: the names of the general
commanding the division, the staff officers and the heads of places, the number of companies of
sappers and miners, of artillery troops, the number of cannon, of battalions of
veterans, of arsenals..; the books supplied by the Army corps provided
information on the military headquarters, its staff, and its military
administration, on the divisions and their brigades: at a single glance, the
Emperor could note the names of the generals and colonels, the names of towns
and villages, the corps number, the strength of each division in terms of men,
horses, and cannon, with a note specifying the number of reinforcements
marching to join it.
Furthermore,
the minister of war came once a week to submit a paper – the “movement sheet” –
upon which his marching orders were recorded, and dates of departure and
arrival precisely calculated. It was laid out in a column format that made it
possible to follow any troop along its journey day by day. It was so detailed
that every night, the Emperor knew where the smallest detachment was stationed.
One
very important book should not be forgotten: the one supplied by the prefects,
which gave the details of all the dodgers and deserters and which served as a kind of political
barometer.
Napoleon
attached the greatest importance to these status reports. Accordingly, when he
wrote to his stepson Eugene, to reproach him for providing insufficient or
vague information, he ended his letter with a statement that accurately
summarizes the question of the books of war:
For my French
Army, the minister provides me with eighteen [!] volumes twice a month, showing
the status of the army from every point of view.
Thus
it was that the entire Grand Army could be found arrayed upon a corner of the
Imperial desk at the Tuileries, its generals placed, in accordance with
regulations, at its head.
The “honorable correspondants”
Since
he also needed to have projections on the armies of the monarchies of
There
are several stories in this regard recounting that more than one foreign
minister made Napoleon an offer to “supplement” this information – for a price,
naturally. The Emperor refused, as corruption was totally foreign to his
nature. This prompted the person who recorded the incident to remark:
“Perhaps
he was wrong; perhaps politicians should prey on human weakness; if so, we must
agree that in this regard the Emperor was not the best politician of his time.”
When
the time came, we shall see that Tsar Alexander – not to mention the English –
would not experience the same pangs of conscience.
Although
he refused to yield to the venality of foreign ministers, Napoleon did not
spurn the services rendered by “honorable correspondents,” namely, members of
French delegations abroad. Their instructions (secret, naturally) were to
record every troop movement they witnessed, particularly noting the countries
they were leaving from and the ones they were headed for. Once received, this
information was filed in a special office at the war ministry. In spite of its
somewhat random nature, this intelligence gathering allowed Napoleon, with his
talent for estimating the size of military units, to get a fairly accurate idea
of the enemy’s forces. This was so effective that, during the Russian campaign,
when Cossacks seized a coach carrying papers relating to the Russian Army, the
leaders were convinced that the papers had been stolen from them.
Every
branch of the army and navy (boats in harbour, leaving port, being disarmed,
under construction or in repair dock) received the same attention.
Making every penny count
Napoleon’s
desire for economy is legendary. In the previous chapter, we saw the extreme
care that he devoted to expenses for his personal wardrobe. It should therefore
come as no surprise that he should exercise the same vigilance over public
affairs.
Like
his colleagues in the Army and the Navy, the Minister of Finance had to supply
the Emperor with a report of each transaction, each expenditure and each
deposit. Napoléon always succeeded in extracting what was important – or
suspicious— from this jumble of tightly written lines.
One
day, during the working session with Gaudin, his Finance Minister, the Emperor
pointed out a sum of 60,000 francs paid to a regiment in
This
was the dialogue that ensued:
“So
you say this payment was made in
“Certainly.”
“All
the documents have been properly checked?”
“Of
course.”
“It’s
monstrous! The detachment is a hundred leagues from
In
fact, the fraud had been perpetrated using printed forms bearing forged
signatures, imitated to perfection.
Let
us give the Emperor’s “economic performance” the appreciation it deserves.
Napoleon’s distaste for speculators
Why
did he put so much effort into tracking down fraud?
First
of all because Napoleon never overcame his disgust over the crooked dealings of
the Directory and its shameless speculators — from that time on, the Emperor
harboured a veritable dread of seeing the interests of the state controlled by
speculators and private capital. (Compromised in international speculation
which led to the failure of several banks along with the shady financier
Ouvrard, Treasury Minister Barbé-Marbois was stripped of his post.) He had
never forgotten the contents of the French treasury when he took over the reins
of power: 167,000 francs! – nor the astronomical size of the public deficit:
250 million francs, a third of the national budget! Because he remembered the
measures that needed to be implemented with the aid of his counselors Gaudin et
Mollien to rectify this enormously difficult situation. (One result of these
efforts was the creation of the Bank of France in February 1800.) Because he
remembered the cuts that had to be made everywhere possible without raising
taxes. Most surprising of all, in spite of the colossal expenditures incurred
in 15 years of wars imposed on
A
miracle of rigorous administrative management?
No
doubt, but this was not sufficient on its own.
The
Emperor – justly so, in our opinion – sought subsidies and indemnities in the
form of money from the countries that had declared war upon him – and lost.
Accordingly,
after the treaty of Presbourg following its defeat at Austerlitz, Austria –
which with Russia had received over five million pounds from the English to
form this third coalition – was obliged to pay a tax of 48 million francs in
1806 and a further 88 million after its defeat at Wagram in 1809.
These
sums were paid partly into the “extraordinary domain” the secret fund that the
Emperor could resort to in the event of a serious crisis; they were also used
to partly finance major works, and occasionally, to provide assistance to
scholars, artists and industrialists in difficulty.
There
was one more reason why Napoleon insisted so scrupulously on complete
transparency in public spending: although he had been made Emperor, it did not
mean that the French people had to revert to their rather humiliating former
condition of “subjects.” They had remained citizens.
As
one of his private secretaries explained: “He wanted ordinary citizens to be
able, without consulting administrative information, and solely with the aid of
the accounts published by ministers, to easily retrace all the major steps and
results of the financial operations of the Empire.”
And
if this source is to be believed, that goal was achieved.
A constant preoccupation: the
price of wheat
In the past, a
large number of insurrectionist incidents – hunger riots –had been caused by
the high price of wheat, and consequently, of bread.
“What
I am afraid of” he said one day to Chaptal, who was still his minister of the Interior,
“is an insurrection brought about by a lack of bread; I would be less afraid of
a battle against 200,000 men.”
Thus
it was that Napoleon attached particular importance to the price of wheat, as
for him it constituted a veritable “safety gauge.”
In
order to assess at a glance the usually vague and confusing figures relating to
market price lists (the “mercuriales”), – reports on the price of
produce on public markets – the Emperor set up a rather unusual map of France,
on which each department was represented by a square. Inside the square was
recorded the local price of wheat, based on the latest rates.
The
South, the North, the East the West and the center were represented in
different colors that corresponded to a key in the margin, showing the highest,
lowest, and average rates for each region. And the bottom of the map was a
two-line summary citing the average price for the whole of France and the two
departments with the highest and lowest prices respectively.
Every
two weeks, this system informed Napoleon of the variations in the price of
wheat for the whole country, thus allowing him to see where there were
shortages and surpluses, and where appropriate remedies needed to be applied.
He
was thus never caught unawares.
The
same was true for internal security. As soon as trouble was reported, he was
able to locate the closest troops at a glance into the “book of war”.
Should
he dispatch a greater number? The movement sheet informed him of all troops in
the vicinity, so that he could redirect them.
Should
he visit a stronghold? Using the same system, he knew the number of cannons,
cannonballs and the quantities of gun powder, often better than the commandant
himself.
Should
he visit a prefecture? If the prefect brought up the topic of conscription, he
knew, down to a man, how many had deserted from the last contingent.
Bonaparte First Consul
VOYAGES
TO THE HEART OF THE EMPIRE
When the international situation permitted, that is, when
the monarchs of Lyon, the commercial capital, had always merited special
treatment, and every time he went to Italy, the Emperor never missed the chance
of stopping in the former religious capital of In 1805, on his way to In 1810, accompanied by Empress Marie-Louise, he visited Napoléon visited Belgium four times: in 1803, in 1804, in
1810 and in 1811. His favorite cities were Due to the war in The last trip on which he
was able to unite pleasure with utility was to |
One
last point that is quite well known, but nonetheless appropriate to mention,
since this small mark of attention deeply affected those who benefited from it:
Whenever Napoleon performed a military inspection, he knew everything about the
battles and campaigns the veterans had taken part in, and was able to tell the
new conscripts, who were so disoriented by their new existence, the name of the
town of their birth, thereby breaking the ice and winning their hearts.
The “administrative councils”
We are familiar
with the term “state council” (whose work we shall return to later) yet we are
far less familiar with “administrative councils.”
The term
obviously did not mean what it means today – these were working sessions that
were held on Mondays, Tuesdays and Sundays –
whose purpose was to examine one single question or one single type of
question in depth.
These
included the councils of commerce, subsistence, engineering, artillery, bridges
and highways and public works, naval works and war.
The commercial Port of Cherbourg, by Théodore Deslinières (RR)
To
get a small idea of the importance that the Emperor attached to these sessions,
let us take the example of the administrative council of bridges and highways.
Several times a year Napoleon inspected all the projects under way throughout
the empire, including the works in Alexandria (Italy), Anvers and Danzig, the
canals, the roads over the Alps, the basin of Cherbourg, the beautification of
Paris, and so on.
Antwerp, 2 May 1810: the launching of the vessel "The Friedland"
in the presence of Napoleon and Empress Marie-Louise
by Matthijs van Bree (1773-1839) (RR)
Since
bureaucrats could not give him enough information on all these matters,
Napoleon got representatives from the actual sites to come to him.
All
these people temporarily abandoned the works they were in charge of and
hurried, from
It
was a good opportunity for all these people to present their projects, to
defend their reputations, and to obtain the maximum possible credit. These
sessions were usually very intense, since Napoleon wanted to know and
understand everything, and generally lasted several hours.
Yet
while he accorded the credit that he judged to be due and necessary, Napoleon
always exercised discretion in this regard.
(To be continued)
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