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NAPOLEON BONAPARTE (1769-1821) The story of Napoleon Bonaparte is a tale of unremitting adventure and risk-taking, as he responded to each reverse in his life and geopolitical strategy by constantly doubling the stakes. Born in Ajaccio in Corsica on 15 August 1769, he studied French at Autun -- his native tongue being Italian -- before entering military academies at Brienne and Paris. In 1785 he was commissioned into an artillery regiment, from where he watched the bloody drama of the French Revolution unfold. In command of the artillery at the siege of Toulon, Bonaparte greatly distinguished himself, yet he was arrested and imprisoned in Antibes on the fall of Robespierre soon afterwards. He escaped the guillotine and in 1795 put down a nascent counter-revolution in Paris by firing grapeshot into the crowd. The following year, at the remarkably young age of 26, he was appointed commander of the Army of Italy, inaugurating a series of remarkable victories that was to last for nearly two decades. For all his tremendous drive and undoubted intelligence and charm, the meteoric career of Napoleon Bonaparte was entirely thanks to his strategic and tactical genius as a soldier. His ability to bring the maximum number of troops to exactly the most vital position in a battle at the precise moment they were most needed was utterly extraordinary. Furthermore, he was a master at the art of inspiring troops, of managing propaganda and of creating a myth of invincibility that served him well right up until his disastrous foray into Russia in 1812. Two days before leaving for Italy in 1796, Napoleon had married Josephine, the widow of General Vicomte de Beauharnais who had been executed in the Terror. Her personality and sense of style has fascinated spectators of the French imperial court ever since. Having inherited a demoralised and defeated French army in Italy, Napoleon's many successive victories there against the Austrians and their allies ensured that he was in a dominant political position even after his 1798 invasion of Egypt fell far short of its objectives, largely because Admiral Nelson had wrecked his Mediterranean supply route at the battle of the Nile. Thus on 9 November 1799, Napoleon overthrew the corrupt Directory that governed France and appointed himself First Consul for ten years, a post that was subsequently extended for life. His cult of the personality had begun; it continues to be observed -- especially in France -- to this day. Napoleon was not solely a phenomenally successful soldier, however. As a statesman he excelled in taking the most penetrating, radical and progressive thoughts of others and harnessing them to projects which his political dictatorship could then bring to fruition. He founded the Bank of France and stabilised the franc; he restored the Church; he built bridges over the Seine; he improved secondary education, and he instituted domestic reforms some of which form the basis for French public administration to this day. Napoleon's reforms far outlived Napoleon the man, and many of them can be read on tablets placed around Napoleon's tomb at Les Invalides in Paris. Around the actual purple porphyry sarcophagus itself, however, are the names of his military victories, and it is to them that he owes his eminence and historical renown. Napoleon assumed the hereditary title of emperor of the French on 18 May 1804, crowning himself at Notre Dame that December, which stood as a reproach to all the other, ancient, Legitimist dynasties of Europe. Even after he had divorced Josephine and married the daughter of the Hapsburg emperor of Austria in 1810, he was regarded by his enemies as a parvenu upstart, a 'Corsican Ogre' and an interloper onto the pages of European history. Yet loathe him as they might, the Great Powers of Europe could not dislodge Napoleon while he kept winning victory after victory over them. In October 1805 he surprised the Austrian army under General Mack at the battle of Ulm, allowing him to march into Vienna the following month. That December he inflicted a crushing defeat on the Russians and Austrians at Austerlitz, possibly his greatest victory, which left him the undisputed master of Europe. He then formed the Confederation of the Rhine on the ashes of the Holy Roman Empire, which he summarily abolished. (Goethe recorded how the people in the inn where he was staying were more interested in an argument between the coachman and the innkeeper than in the demise of the millennium-old institution.) When Prussia attempted to stand up against Napoleon in August 1806, financed partly by British subsidies, she was soundly defeated at Jena and Auerstadt on 14 October. Russia then intervened, but was also defeated at Friedland on 14 June 1807. By the peace treaty of Tilsit, Prussia lost half her territory. Napoleon then attempted to institute the Continental System, intended to bring Britain to her knees by preventing any European country from trading with her. A continent-wide boycott of British produce, he hoped, would bring her government to the negotiating table and silence the last vocal opponent of his imperium. In support of the policy, Napoleon sent an army to Portugal to enforce compliance and another to Spain. Napoleon's decision to place his brother Joseph on the throne of Spain in 1808 was greeted with rioting in Madrid that May, the brutal supression of which by Marshal Murat was powerfully recorded by Goya. Two British expeditionary forces, the first under Sir John Moore and its successor under Wellington, landed in the Iberian peninsula to aid the local populations in their long struggle against French rule, which finally succeeded in expelling the invaders in 1814. It was not the Spanish ulcer that spelt disaster for Napoleon's hold over Europe, however, but the Russian coronary. In an attempt to enforce observation of the Continental System by Tsar Alexander I, Napoleon crossed the River Niemen into Russia in June 1812 with 600,000 troops. By the time they retreated back over it six months later there were only 150,000 left. The Russian winter, army and partisans had accounted for the rest. Terrible scenes of starvation and even cannibalism were seen; 1812 is believed to be the time that the French aquired their taste for horse-meat. The abdication and exile of Napoleon in April 1814 were the direct result of his disastrous invasion of Russia, but so indomitable was his spirit that he escaped from captivity on the isle of Elba in March 1815 and in less than three weeks had returned in triumph to Paris. Never before, said Victor Hugo, had an emperor won an empire simply by showing his hat. The Great Powers, then conferring on the future of Europe in Vienna, immediately declared Napoleon an outlaw and mobilised forces totalling nearly half a million men in order to finish off his dynastic ambitions for good. Before they could converge on France, however, Napoleon struck north in mid-June in order to capture Brussels. On Sunday 18 June 1815 he fell foul of a devastating pincer movement between the Anglo-Allied army under the Duke of Wellington and a Prussian army under Field-Marshal Prince von Blücher at the battle of Waterloo. The greatest personal adventure story since that of Alexander the Great was over. Napoleon was exiled to the Atlantic island of St Helena, where he died only six years later, on 5 May 1821. Although there are some who see him as a precursor of the twentieth-century dictators, Napoleon was in his great intellectual and artistic attributes an altogether more impressive -- and even attractive -- figure than any of them. He certainly never saw the world in the narrow racial and class terms that they did. In many ways, instead, he was a worthy successor to the Caesars. NAPOLEON CHRONOLOGY 1769 Aug 15 Born 1779 March 15 Attended cadet school at Brienne 1784 Oct 30 Entered École Militaire, Paris, as cadet-gentilhomme 1785 Feb 24 His father, Charles Bonaparte, died of stomach cancer Sept 1 Left École Militaire as second-lieutenant of artillery 1792 April 1 Elected Lieutenant-Colonel, 2nd battalion of Corsican Volunteers 1793 Sept 16 Given command of artillery besieging Royalists and British in Toulon Dec 19 Recaptured Toulon and promoted général de brigade 1794 Feb 6 Given command of artillery of Army of Italy 1795 Oct 26 Appointed to command the Armée de l'Intérieur 1796 March 2 Appointed to command the Army of Italy 9 Married Josephine de Beauharnais April Won series of victories against the Austrians, Sardinians and Piedmontese Aug 2-3 Won more victories against the Austrians at Lonato and Castiglione 1797 Jan 14 Defeated the Austrians at Rivoli 1798 July 21 As commander of L'Armée d'Orient, defeated the Mamelukes at the battle of the Pyramids 1799 Nov 9-10 Overthrew the Directory in the 18th Brumaire coup d'état Dec 12 Constitution of the Year VIII established him as First Consul for 10 years 1800 June 14 Defeated the Austrians at Marengo 1802 Aug 2 Proclaimed First Consul for Life 1804 March 21 Promulgation of the Code Civil (later the Code Napoléon) Dec 2 Crowned Emperor of the French by Pope Pius VII at Notre Dame 1805 Oct 20 Defeated the Austrians at Ulm, and entered Vienna on 14th November Dec 2 Defeated the Austrians and Russians at Austerlitz 1806 Oct 14 Defeated the Prussians and Saxons at Jena, and entered Berlin 1807 Feb 8 Won a pyrrhic victory against the Russians and Prussians at Eylau June 14 Defeated Russians and Prussians at Friedland July 9 Signed the Treaty of Tilsit between France, Russia and Prussia 1808 Nov 5 Assumed command of the Army of Spain, and in December entered Madrid 1809 July 5-6 Defeated the Austrians at Wagram 1810 Feb 11 Having divorced Josephine, he married Archduchess Marie-Louise of Austria 1811 March 20 Birth of his son, François-Charles-Joseph, King of Rome 1812 June 24 Crossed the River Niemen into Russia Sept 7 Defeated Russians at Borodino 14 Entered Moscow Oct 19 Retreat from Moscow began Nov 26-8 French disaster crossing the Beresina River 1813 Oct 16-19 Indecisive battle of the Nations at Leipzig, Napoleon retreats 1814 March 12 Allies entered Paris April 6 Abdication and banishment to Elba 1815 March 1 Landed near Frejus in the south of France 20 Entered the Tuileries palace in Paris June 15 Crossed the Belgian frontier: captures Charleroi 16 Defeated the Prussians at Ligny 18 Defeated by Wellington at Waterloo July 15 Surrendered to the Royal Navy near Rochefort Oct 17 Arrived on St Helena 1812 May 5 Died 1840 Dec 15 Buried at Les Invalides in Paris

Henry Singleton, R.A. (1766-1839)

The Storming of the Bastille

Details

Henry Singleton, R.A. (1766-1839)
The Storming of the Bastille
oil on canvas
17¾ x 23¾ in. (45.1 x 60.4cm.)

Provenance

L. Pool; Christie's, London, 31 July 1947, lot 302 (16 guineas to Stock).

Special notice

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Lot Essay

The Storming of the Bastille, 14 July 1789, was one of the first and most significant events in the Revolution's history. Louis XVI's (1774-1792) dismissal of his reformist finance minister, Jacques Necker, on 11 July 1789, and his subsequent restructuring of the ministry, was taken by Parisians as the signal of a royal coup. The populace, feeling sure of an imminent attack from the King's forces, began to gather in the streets and search for arms to defend themselves. On the morning of 14 July some of the insurgents raided the Hôtel des Invalides for weapons, but, finding no ammunition, moved on to the Bastille.

The Bastille was a formidable structure, with ten-feet-thick walls and eight ninety-feet-high towers surmounted by cannons. Built originally in the fourteenth century to guard one of the main entrances to Paris, it now served as a prison and as an occasional store for arms. It stood as a symbol of the Ancien Régime.

Crowds assembled outside the fortress around mid-morning, calling for the surrender of the prison and the release of its gunpowder. Two deputies were invited into the castle to negotiate with the governor, Bernard-René de Launay. The crowd became impatient, however, when they failed to return and further demands were rejected. A deafening roar from the crowd caused the increasingly anxious army to withdraw from the outer courtyard and the rebels seized their opportunity to advance. Singleton depicts the ensuing events. Gunfire broke out as the chains to the drawbridge were cut and the crowd poured into the undefended court. The attackers were joined by gardes français and other veterans with weapons. Singleton shows two canons being aimed at the battlement under the direction of Jacobin soldiers with tricolour ribbons in their hats. At five o'clock, de Launay ordered a cease-fire, threatening to blow up the entire edifice, but surrendered shortly after in the realisation that his troops could not hold out much longer. The gates to the inner courtyard were opened and the vainqueurs rushed in to liberate the Bastille. Ninety-eight attackers and just one defender had lost their lives in the fighting. De Launay was seized and murdered, and his head processed through the streets on a spike. Two days after the Storming, on the order of the National Assembly, this symbol of tyrannical power was burned to the ground.

Singleton was one of the most celebrated painters of his day. Orphaned at a young age, he received his early training from his uncle, the miniature painter William Singleton (d.1793), before enrolling at the Royal Academy School in 1782. Singleton won the Silver Medal in 1784 and went on to claim the prestigious Gold Medal in 1788, at the age of twenty-two. He continued to exhibit at the Royal Academy throughout his life, as well as at the British Institution and the Society of British Artists.

A version of this painting, on metal and in an oval format (66.5 x 72.5 cm.), is in the Musée Carnavalet, Paris.

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