Napoleon as Emperor

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter five of the Story of Napoleon the Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by
Patrick Seville. Chapter five Napoleon, as Emperor France now made
peace with all Europe, and for the first few years

(00:22):
Napoleon ruled France quietly. These few years are really the
best part of all his life. In them he did
many good things for his country, and these lasted when
all his great conquests faded and his vast empire crumbled
into pieces. Gradually his power grew greater and greater. From

(00:43):
being consul for ten years, he was made consul for life.
Then he was asked to take the title of Emperor,
and on the eighteenth of May eighteen o four, he
was proclaimed Emperor of the French. The little corporal had
come far. He who a few years before had wandered

(01:03):
almost penniless among the streets of Paris, was now the
greatest man in all the land. He seemed to have
reached the very highest power that man could hope for,
and he was not yet thirty five years old. But
although Napoleon had been proclaimed emperor and accepted by the
people of France, he had not yet been crowned. Now

(01:26):
he felt that to be crowned and anointed by the
Pope would make his throne more sure, so he sent
a friend to Rome to ask the Pope to come
to crown him. Pope Pious the Seventh did not want
to crown Napoleon and acknowledge him as a rightful ruler
of France. But he saw that nearly all the other

(01:46):
rulers of Europe had acknowledged him, and he thought it
better to do so too, as perhaps he might in
that way win something good for the Church. So he
consented to come to Paris to crown the Emperor. The Pope,
head of the Church, had been treated with fear and
reverence by the proudest of kings in all ages and

(02:06):
in all countries. They had knelt to him as to
one greater than themselves. But Napoleon had grown so proud
that he could not bear the thought of kneeling to anyone. So,
although he very well knew the hour at which the
Pope might be expected to arrive, he arranged to meet
him as if by accident while out hunting. As the

(02:29):
Pope's coach drove along the road leading to the palace
of Fontainebleau, which had been prepared for him. He met
the Emperor, booted and spurred and riding upon a horse.
The Emperor got off his horse and the Pope, in
his beautiful robes and white silk shoes, left his coach
and walked a few steps along the muddy road to

(02:51):
greet him. The young Emperor and the old Pope embraced
each other. Then the servants, having received their orders before,
drove the coach up between them. The footmen opened both
doors at once, and as the Pope stepped in at
one side, the Emperor stepped in at the other. So

(03:11):
neither went in before the other. But Napoleon took care
that he had the seat of honor on the right side.
Thus Pope and Emperor drove to Fontainebleau. There were a
great many preparations for the coronation to be made, for
Napoleon meant it to be a very fine affair. But
at last everything was ready, and on the second of

(03:34):
December the coronation took place. The day was cold and bleak,
but the streets of Paris were lined with people eager
to see the Emperor and Empress as they drove in
their gilded carriage to the church of Notre Dame. The
church was thronged with fair ladies and splendid men, glittering
with jewels and lace, and as the Emperor entered, rang

(03:56):
upon his head a wreath of gold bay leaves like
a caesar. The archways of the dim old church rang
and rang again with shouts, long live the Emperor, Long
Live the Emperor. The notes of the organ rolled, the
voices of the choir rose and fell enchant in him.
But as the long ceremony went on, Napoleon yawned and fidgeted.

(04:19):
To him, there was nothing sacred or solemn in the service.
The grandest play added something to his pomp and glory,
that was all. At last, the Pope, with trembling hands,
lifted the crown to place it upon the young Emperor's head,
but Napoleon, seizing it out of the Pope's hand, himself,

(04:39):
placed it upon his own head, took it off, placed
it for a moment on the head of the Empress,
and then and then returned it to the cushion upon
which it had rested. Again, the organ pealed, and the
exultant words of the tadeum rang out through the church.
The Emperor was crowned a few months after the coronation,

(05:00):
and Notre Dame. Napoleon went to Italy. Here in the
Great Cathedral at Milan, he again crowned himself. This time
the title he took was King of Italy, and this
time the Pope sternly refused to have anything to do
with it. At Paris, he had received only empty promises
and insults as his reward, and he now knew that

(05:23):
he had nothing to hope from the new emperor. But
while Napoleon was placing crowns upon his own head, the
rulers of Europe were again joining against him, for they
saw that the Emperor's power and desire for still more
power were becoming so great that none of the crowns
were safe. Sweden, Russia, and Austria joined the alliance, but

(05:46):
on the other hand, Spain and Britain, having quarreled, Spain
joined with France against the others. Once more, Europe was
ablaze with war upon the Rhine and Teyrol and Italy.
There was noise of battle. The Tsar of Russia gathered
the Great Army and sent it to join the Austrians.

(06:07):
When they joined it, was intended that both armies should
march together into France, but the Austrians began to fight
before the Russians joined them. Napoleon did not wait for
France to be invaded. He marched into Germany to meet
his enemies, and long before the Russians could arrive to
help them, the Austrians were shut up in the town

(06:29):
of Ulm. The Austrian leader Mac was not cowardly, but
he was stupid and unlucky, and although there was plenty
of food within the walls, mag weekly gave in after
six days siege, and Tyrol and Italy everywhere that the
French and Austrians met. The Austrians were defeated, until at

(06:50):
last a flying remnant of Mac's once splendid army took
refuge in the mountains of Tyrol. There was nothing now
to hinder Napoleon from marching on to Vienna, the beautiful
capital of Austria, and the Emperor Francis, knowing that Vienna
could not stand a siege more than a few days,
made up his mind to leave the town. So on

(07:12):
the thirteenth of November, less than a month after the
taking of Ulm, the French entered the Austrian capital. While
Napoleon was at Vienna, living in the Emperor's beautiful palace
of Schonbron, bad tidings came to him. He heard that
the French and Spanish fleets had been utterly destroyed in

(07:33):
the Battle of Trafalgar. I cannot be everywhere, he cried angrily.
When he heard the news that the French had again
been defeated by sea made the emperor more eager to
win fresh fame by land. The Austrian army was shattered,
but the Russians were still to beat, so from Vienna

(07:55):
Napoleon marched out to meet them. Upon the plain of Austrolits,
not far from the town of Brun, a great battle
was fought. It has been called the Battle of the
Three Emperors, for there were three emperors present, the Emperor
of Germany, the Holy Roman Empire, the Emperor of Russia,
and the Emperor of the French. The morning of the

(08:16):
second December dawned cold and bleak. A thick white fog
shrouded the land, but with the first streak of day,
both camps were astir Through the white dimness came muffled
sounds and ghostly figures. Loomed and passed. Then suddenly the
fog lifted and the sun shone out in golden splendor.

(08:38):
The French soldiers greeted it with a shout. It seemed
to them as if it rose to do honor to
their own emperor, for it was anniversary of his coronation day.
The son of Austelits has risen, cried Napoleon in exultation.
In the fog, the two armies had moved close to

(08:58):
each and now the fight began. It was a terrible battle,
and raged all the short winter's day. It was absolute butchery,
says one who fought there. We fought man to man.
For a time it seemed uncertain who should win. But
when the night fell, the Russians and Austrians were flying

(09:20):
from the field. Many lay there dead, and twenty thousand
were prisoners. Thus, once more Napoleon had triumphed, and now
Austria made peace with France, and the Russians marched away
to their own land. This peace was called the Treaty
of Presbourg, from the name of the town at which

(09:41):
it was signed. By this treaty, the map of Europe
was again changed, and still more lands came under Napoleon's rule.
Some of these lands he gave to his relations. For
Napoleon had made up his mind not only to be
great himself, but to make his whole family great. I
can no longer have shabby relatives, he said, Those who

(10:05):
will not rise with me shall no longer be of
my family. I am going to make a family of kings.
So he made his brother Joseph king of Naples. His
brother Louis, who had married Josephine's daughter Hortens, was mid
King of Holland. General Morat, who had married Napoleon's sister Caroline,

(10:28):
was made Archduke of Burgh. He made Eugene barhonnay Mary
the daughter of the King of Bavaria, and a little
later he made his brother Jerome marry the daughter of
the King of Wurtemburg. And every way Napoleon tried to
make his family great, and so surround himself with splendor.

(10:50):
End of Chapter five.