English Caricature and Satire on Napoleon I. Volume I (of 2)

John Ashton

English Caricature and Satire on Napoleon I. Volume I (of 2)

PREFACE

This book is not intended to be a History of Napoleon the First, but simply to reproduce the bulk of the Caricatures and Satires published in England on our great enemy, with as much of history as may help to elucidate them.

The majority of the caricatures are humorous; others are silly, or spiteful – as will occasionally happen nowadays; and some are too coarse for reproduction – so that a careful selection has had to be made. Gillray and Rowlandson generally signed their names to the work of their hands; but, wherever a caricature occurs unsigned by the artist, I have attributed it, on the authority of the late Edward Hawkins, Esq., some time Keeper of the Prints at the British Museum, to whatever artist he has assigned it. I have personally inspected every engraving herein described, and the description is entirely my own.

Should there, by chance, be an occasional discrepancy as to a date, it has been occasioned by the inconceivable contradictions which occur in different histories and newspapers. To cite an instance: in three different books are given three different dates of Napoleon leaving Elba, and it was only by the knowledge that it occurred on a Sunday, and by consulting an almanac for the year 1815, that I was able absolutely to determine it.

The frontispiece is taken from a very rare print, and gives a novel view of Napoleon to us, who are always accustomed to see him represented in military uniform.

That my readers may find some instruction, mingled with the amusement I have provided for them, is the earnest wish of

JOHN ASHTON.

CHAPTER I

BIRTH AND GENEALOGY – HIS OWN ACCOUNT – MAJORCAN OR GREEK EXTRACTION – ENGLISH BIOGRAPHIES

Curiously enough, it has never been practically settled whence the ancestors of Napoleon Bonaparte came. He, himself, cared little for the pride of birth, and when, during his Consulate, they manufactured for him a genealogy descending from a line of kings, he laughed at it, and said that his patent of nobility dated from the battle of Montenotte.

But, still, one would think he ought to know, for family tradition is strong; and if it can be trusted, this is his own account. ‘One day Napoleon questioned Canova about Alfieri, and Canova found an opportunity to render an important service to Florence, &c. “Sire,” said he, “authorise the President of the Academy of Florence to take care of the frescoes and pictures. I heartily wish it. That will reflect great honour on your Majesty, who, I am assured, is of a noble Florentine family.” At these words the Empress (Maria Louisa) turned towards her husband and said: – “What! are you not Corsican?” “Yes,” replied Napoleon, “but of Florentine origin.” Canova then said: – “The President of the Academy of Florence, the Senator Allessandria, is of one of the most illustrious houses in the country, which has had one of its ladies married to a Bonaparte, thus you are Italian, and we boast of it.” “I am, certainly,” added Napoleon.’1

Prince Napoleon Louis Bonaparte (brother to the Emperor) published in 1830, at Florence, a French translation of an old book2 about the sack of Rome, 1527, which gives an account of the family of the writer. But Majorca also puts in a claim to the older Bonapartes; and in 1852, Don Antonio Furio, a learned man, Member of the Royal Academies of Belles Lettres of Barcelona and Majorca, &c., made a declaration as to ‘the rank, dignity, and extinction of the noble family of Bonapart in the island of Majorca;’ and quotes from a book kept in the archives of Palma, in which are preserved the armorial escutcheons of the noble families of the Island, the arms of Bonapart – which were Dexter, on a field Azure, six stars, Or, placed two by two, Sinister, on a field gules, a lion rampant, Or; and the Chief Or, bears a scared eagle, sable. He says the family came from Genoa to Majorca, in which island its members were considered noblemen, and they filled several distinguished offices. In a register of burials relating to knights and gentlemen, written in 1559, the antiquity and nobility of the Bonaparts are clearly authenticated; and it would seem from Don Furio’s account (for all of which he gives chapter and verse) that the learned jurisconsult Don Hugo Bonapart left Majorca and went to Corsica, where, in 1411, he was made Regent of the Chancery of that place; and, as he settled there, his name was inscribed in the Golden Book of France.

This seems pretty circumstantial, until another theory appears – namely, his Greek extraction. Sir J. Emerson Tennent says:3 ‘There is a story relative to the family name of the Bonapartes, that somewhat excites curiosity as to the amount of truth which it may contain. In 1798, when Napoleon was secretly preparing for his descent upon Egypt, among other expedients for distracting and weakening the Porte, French emissaries were clandestinely employed in exciting the Greeks in Epirus, and the Morea, to revolt. In Maina especially (the ancient Sparta), these agents were received with marked enthusiasm, on the ground that Bonaparte was born in Corsica, where numbers of Greeks from that part of the Morea had found an asylum after the conquest of Candia, in 1669, but they were eventually expelled by the Genoese.

‘One of the persons so employed by Napoleon to rouse the Greeks in 1798 was named Stephanopoli; and one of the arguments which he used was, that Napoleon himself was a Greek in blood, and a Mainote by birth, being descended from one of the exiles who took refuge at Ajaccio in 1673. The name of this family, he said, was Calomeri, Καλόμερις,4 which the Corsicans accommodated to their own dialect by translating it into Buonaparte.’

Another writer, signing himself Rhodocanakis, in the same periodical,5 says: ‘I am happy to be able to assert with confidence, and on the authority of General Kallergis, the intimate friend of the present Emperor, of Prince Pitzipios, and others, that the story devised by Nicholas Stepanapoulos, and mentioned by his niece, the Duchesse d’Abrantes, in her Memoirs, that Napoleon was a Greek in blood, and a Mainote by birth, being descended from the family of Calomeri, who took refuge at Ajaccio, Corsica, was never authoritatively denied. On the contrary, both the first and third Napoleon appeared pleased at the story, whenever it was alluded to in their presence; probably because they thought it good policy not to deny what they might in future wish to turn to their advantage. As regards the name of Καλομέρης or Καλόμερος, there are still many families of that name in Greece.’

Now let us hear what Madame Junot, the aforesaid Duchesse d’Abrantes, the intimate friend of Napoleon, whose families were the closest of neighbours at Ajaccio, says on this subject.6 ‘When Constantine Comnenus landed at Corsica in 1676, at the head of a Greek colony, he had with him several sons, one of whom was named Calomeros. This son he sent to Florence, on a mission to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. Constantine dying before the return of his son, the Grand Duke prevailed on the young Greek to renounce Corsica, and fix his abode in Tuscany. After some interval of time, an individual came from Italy – indeed from Tuscany – and fixed his abode in Corsica, where his descendants formed the family of Buonaparte; for the name Calomeros, literally Italianised, signified buona parte or bella parte.7

‘The only question is, whether the Calomeros who left Corsica, and the Calomeros who came there, have a direct filiation. Two facts, however, are certain – namely, the departure of the one, and the arrival of the other. It is a singular thing that the Comneni,8 in speaking of the Bonaparte family, always designate them by the names Calomeros, Calomeri, or Calomeriani, according as they allude to one individual, or several collectively. Both families were united by the most intimate friendship.

‘When the Greeks were obliged to abandon Paomia to escape the persecutions of the insurgent Corsicans, they established themselves temporarily in towns which remained faithful to the Republic of Genoa. When, at a subsequent period, Cargesa was granted to the Greeks for the purpose of forming a new establishment, a few Greek families continued to reside at Ajaccio.’

I have been thus diffuse on his ancestry, because English satirists could not tell the truth on the subject – they were too swayed by the passion of the moment, and had to pander to the cravings of the mob. Take an example, from a broad sheet published in 1803, when our island was in deadly fear of invasion, a ‘History of Buonaparte.’ ‘Napoleon Buonaparte is the son of a poor lawyer of Ajaccio, in Corsica, in which city he was born on the 15th of August, 1769. His grandfather, Joseph, originally a butcher of the same place, was ennobled by Count Nieuhoff, some time King of Corsica. He was the son of Carlos Buona, who once kept a liquor shop, or tavern, but who, being convicted of robbery and murder, was condemned to the Gallies, where he died in 1724. His wife, La Birba, the mother of Joseph, died in the House of Correction at Geneva (? Genoa). On the 3rd May, 1736, when Porto Vecchio was attacked, Joseph Buona brought to the assistance of King Theodore a band of vagabonds which, during the civil war, had chosen him for its leader. In return, Theodore, on the following day, created him a noble, and added to his name Buona the termination Parté. Joseph Buonaparte’s wife Histria, was the daughter of a journeyman tanner of Bastia, also in Corsica.’

And yet one more, from another equally veracious ‘life.’ ‘Buonaparte’s great-grandfather kept a wine-house for factors (like our gin shops), and, being convicted of murder and robbery, he died a galley slave at Genoa, in 1724: his wife was likewise an accomplice, and she died in the House of Correction at Genoa in 1734. His grandfather was a butcher of Ajaccio, and his grandmother daughter of a journeyman tanner at Bastia. His father was a low petty-fogging lawyer, who served and betrayed his country by turns, during the Civil Wars. After France conquered Corsica, he was a spy to the French Government, and his mother their trull. What is bred in the bone will not come out of the flesh.’

CHAPTER II

DESCENT FROM THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK – ANAGRAMS, ETC., ON HIS NAME – THE BEAST OF THE APOCALYPSE – HIS MOTHER’S ACCOUNT OF HIS BIRTH

The foregoing was the sort of stuff given to our grandfathers for history; nothing could be bad enough for Boney, the Corsican Ogre– nay, they even tortured his name to suit political purposes. It was hinted that the keeper of ‘the Man with the Iron Mask,’ who was said to be no other than the twin (and elder) brother of Louis XIV., was named Bon part; that the said keeper had a daughter, with whom the Man in the Mask fell in love, and to whom he was privately married; that their children received their mother’s name, and were secretly conveyed to Corsica, where the name was converted into Bonaparte, or Buonaparte; and that one of these children was the ancestor of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was thus entitled to be recognised, not only as of French origin, but as the direct descendant of the rightful heir to the throne of France.

They put his name into Greek, and tortured it thus: —

Napoleon, Apoleon, Poleon, Oleon, Leon, Eon, On,

Ναπολεων, Απολεων, Πολεων, Ολεων, Λεων, Εων, Ων,

which sentence will translate, ‘Napoleon, being the lion of the nations, went about destroying cities.’

In the ‘Journal des Débats,’ 8 Avril, 1814, although not an English satire on his name, it is gravely stated that he was baptised by the name of Nicholas, and that he assumed the name of Napoleon as an uncommon one; but this name, Nicholas, which was applied to him so freely in France, was but a cant term for a stupid blockhead. Whilst on this subject, however, I cannot refrain from quoting a passage from a French book: ‘I do not know what fellow has held that Napolione was a demon, who in bygone times, amused himself by tormenting a poor imbecile. The fellow can not have read the life of the Saints: he would then have learned that St. Napolione, whose name is given at length in the legend, is as good a patron as any other; that he performed seven miracles during his life, and twenty-two and a half after his death – for he had not time to finish the twenty-third; it was an unfortunate tiler who, in falling from a roof, broke both his legs. St. Napoleon had already set one, when an unlucky doctor prescribed some medicine to the sick man which carried him off to the other world.’9

There is an extremely forcible acrostic in Latin on his name, which deserves reproduction: —

N ationibus10

A uctoritatem

P rincipibus

O bedientiam

L ibertatem

E cclesiæ

O mni modo

N egans

B ona

U surpavit

O mnium

N eutrorum

A urum

P opulorum

A nimas

R evera

T yrannus

E xecrandus.

But not only was his name thus made a vehicle for political purposes, but the expounders of prophecy got hold of it, and found out, to their great delight, that at last they had got that theological bugbear, the Apocalyptic beast. Nothing could be clearer. It could be proved to demonstration, most simply and clearly. Every one had been in error about the Church of Rome; at last there could be no doubt about it, it was Napoleon. Take the following handbill as a sample of one out of many: —

A Prophecy(From the 13th Chapter of Revelations)ALLUDING TOBUONAPARTEVerse 1st‘And a Beast rose out of the Sea, having ten crowns on his head,’ &c.

This Beast is supposed to mean Buonaparte, he being born in Corsica, which is an island, and having conquered ten kingdoms.

Verse 5th‘And a mouth was given him speaking blasphemies; and power given him upon the earth, forty and two months.’

Buonaparte was crowned in December, 1804; it is therefore supposed the extent of his assumed power upon earth will now be limited, this present month (June) 1808, being exactly the forty-second month of his reign.

Verse 16th‘And he caused all to receive a mark in their hands, and no one could buy or sell, save those that had the mark of the Beast.’

To persons conversant in commercial affairs, these verses need no comment. There are, at present, some of these marks to be seen in this country; they had the Crown of Italy, &c., at top, and are signed ‘Buonaparte,’ ‘Talleyrand’; and all of them are numbered.

Verse 18th‘Let him that hath understanding, count the number of the Beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is Six hundred, Sixty and Six.’

This verse is curious, and should be read attentively. The method of using letters for figures at the time the Revelations were written is proved by many monuments of Roman antiquity now extant.

The above verses are not the only parts of the chapter which have reference to Buonaparte, but the most prominent ones; the connection throughout has been clearly ascertained.

In a curious little book called The Corsican’s Downfall, by a Royal Arch Mason, published at Mansfield in 1814, at p. 6, it says, with reference to the numeration, ‘The oldest treatise on the theory of arithmetic is comprised in the seventh, eighth, and ninth books of Euclid’s Elements, about two hundred and eighty years before the Christian era. The first author of any consequence who used the modern way of computing by figures, instead of letters of the alphabet, was Jordanus of Namur, who flourished about 1200; and his arithmetic was afterwards published and demonstrated by Johannis Faber Stapulensis, in the fifteenth century. The name, then, and number of the Beast must be discovered (if at all) by the ancient method of computation in use at the time when the prophecies were written.’

But Bonaparte ungratefully refused to fulfil prophecy by being destroyed at the end of forty-two months, i. e. in June 1808, which must have put the expositors on their mettle. They were, however, fully equal to the occasion, and ingeniously solved the quotation this way.11 ‘Power was given unto him to continue forty-and-two months: now it is well known that he was self created, or crowned Emperor of France, on the 2nd day of December 1804, and that he reigned in full power and authority over the prostrate States upon the Continent until the 2nd day of May 1808, the very day on which the gallant Patriots of Spain made so noble and glorious a struggle to throw off the abominable yoke that he had imposed upon them, which is exactly a period of three years and a half, or forty two months.’

An ingenious lunatic, named L. Mayer, found out another way of fathering the Mark of the Beast upon Napoleon. He took the number of sovereigns who had reigned in Europe until Napoleon’s arrival – some he has left out to suit his convenience, but that is a trivial matter – the case had to be made out against the unfortunate Emperor.

Sovereigns included in the Number of the Beast. 12

The Society of Antiquaries have, among their handbills, one published in 1808, as follows: —

Mr. Urban, – The following singular coincidences may furnish matter for reflection to the curious. It has been generally admitted that the Roman Empire, after passing under seven different forms of government (or seven heads), was divided into ten kingdoms in Europe (the ten horns of Daniel and John); and that, notwithstanding the various changes Europe has undergone, the number of kingdoms was generally about ten.

It is not a little surprising that the Heads of the Family of Napoleon, who has effected such a change in the same Empire, are exactly seven, viz.: —

1. Napoleon.

2. Joseph, King of Italy.

3. Louis, King of Holland.

4. Jerome.

5. Murat, Duke of Berg and Cleves.

6. Cardinal Fesch.

7. Beauharnais, the adopted son of Napoleon.

And also that the Members of the New Federation are just ten, viz.: —

1. Bavaria.

2. Wirtemberg.

3. Baden.

4. Darmstadt.

5. Nassau.

6. Ysembourg.

7. Hohenzollern.

8. Aremberg.

9. Salm.

10. Leyen.

It is also remarkable that in the man’s name, Napoleon Buonaparte, there are precisely three times six letters: —

And in his name is contained the name given by John to the King of the Locusts, who is called ‘Apoleon,’ or ‘the Destroyer.’

Even the date of his birth was disputed, for some said he was born on February 5, 1768 – in his marriage registry it is the same, and he used to tell De Bourrienne, his school-fellow, that he was born on August 15, 1769, and it is so noted in the registry of his entrance into the military school at Brienne in 1779, and the Ecole Militaire in 1784, besides being the date used in all documents necessary to his promotion. But probably his mother knew somewhat about it, and Madame Junot says,13 speaking of Madame Lætitia Bonaparte, ‘I recollect she this day told us that, being at Mass on the day of the fête of Notre Dame of August, she was overtaken by the pains of childbirth, and she had hardly reached home when she was delivered of Napoleon, on a wretched rug… I know not why,’ said she, ‘it has been reported that Paoli was Napoleon’s godfather. It is not true; Laurent Jiubéga14 was his godfather. He held him over the baptismal font, along with another of our relations, Celtruda Buonaparte.’15

CHAPTER III

COUNT MARBŒUF, HIS PUTATIVE FATHER – POVERTY OF THE BONAPARTE FAMILY – EARLY PERSONAL DESCRIPTION OF NAPOLEON – HIS OWN ACCOUNT OF HIMSELF – SATIRISTS’ NARRATION OF HIS SCHOOL-DAYS

In after life, when Napoleon was successful, and had made a position, reports were spread that his real father was Count Marbœuf, who had been in Corsica, and in after life, or at all events at his entrance into it, acted as his benefactor and patron. Lætitia Ramolini, afterwards Madame Lætitia Bonaparte, was very graceful and pretty, indeed Madame Junot says of her,16 ‘Lætitia was indeed a lovely woman. Those who knew her in advanced life thought her countenance somewhat harsh; but that expression instead of being caused by any austerity of disposition, seemed, on the contrary, to have been produced by timidity.’ Indeed, no one can look at any portrait of Madame Mère, and not be struck with her lofty beauty.

This scandal about Count Marbœuf, it must be remembered, is of French origin, and was well known, and recognised, probably, at its value. To give one illustration,17 ‘La malignité a fait honneur de sa naissance au Comte de Marbœuf, governeur de l’isle, qui rendait des soins assidus à Madame Buonaparte, jeune femme, belle et interressante alors.’

All our English squibs repeat the tale, and the subjoined is certainly the cleverest of them.18

About his parentage indeed,Biographers have disagreed;Some say his father was a farmer,His mother, too, a Cyprian charmer:That his dad Carlo was quite poor,Letitia a French General’s – ;If, faithless to her marriage vows,She made a cuckold of her spouse,Then Nap (some characters are rotten)Has been a merrily begotten.But other writers, with civility,Insist he’s sprung from old Nobility,And therefore to his father’s nameAttach the highest rank and fame:Nay, furthermore, they add as true,Nap was Paoli’s godson too.But what to this said great Paoli?‘I stood for one, but ’pon my soul, IAt present do not rightly knowWhether it was for Nap or Joe.’It was for Joe, if he’d have said it,But Joe has done him little credit.Now let the honest muse despiseAll adulation, barefaced lies,And own the truth – Then Boney’s fatherWas member of the law, or rather,A pettifogger, which his friends,To serve their own politic ends,Would keep a secret, knowing wellThat pettifoggers go to Hell.When France occasioned some alarms,And Corsica was up in arms,This Carlo Bonaparte thought fit,His parchments for the sword to quit.He fought, they say, with some applause,Tho’ unsuccessful in the cause:Meanwhile, with battle’s din and fright,His wife was in a dismal plight;From town to town Letitia fled,To shun the French, as it is said;Tho’ others whisper that the fairWas under a French Gen’ral’s care,And that to keep secure her charmsShe fondly trusted to his arms.Be this however as it might,After incessant fear and flight,Letitia (’fore her time, mayhap)Was brought to bed of Master Nap:The Cause, we think, of his ambition,And of his restless disposition.

The Bonaparte family was not rich, their sole means of living being from the father’s professional exertions, and the family was very large, and many mouths to feed; in fact, they were in somewhat straitened circumstances, but not in such squalid poverty as Gillray depicts them, in the accompanying illustration, where our hero may be seen, with his brothers and sisters, gnawing the bony part of a shin of beef.

Madame Junot19 says, ‘Saveria told me that Napoleon was never a pretty boy, as Joseph had been; his head always appeared too large for his body, a defect common to the Bonaparte family. When Napoleon grew up, the peculiar charm of his countenance lay in his eye, especially in the mild expression it assumed in his moments of kindness. His anger, to be sure, was frightful, and though I am no coward, I never could look at him in his fits of rage without shuddering. Though his smile was captivating, yet the expression of his mouth when disdainful, or angry, could scarcely be seen without terror. But that forehead which seemed formed to bear the crowns of a whole world; those hands, of which the most coquettish woman might have been vain, and whose white skin covered muscles of iron; in short, of all that personal beauty which distinguished Napoleon as a young man, no traces were discernible in the boy.’

Napoleon said of himself: ‘I was an obstinate and inquisitive child. I was extremely headstrong; nothing overawed me, nothing disconcerted me. I made myself formidable to the whole family. My brother Joseph was the one with whom I was oftenest embroiled; he was bitten, beaten, abused: I went to complain before he had time to recover his confusion.’