Napoleon Part 4: The Emperor Strikes Back
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Paris, December 2nd, 1804.

Year 13 in the French Republican calendar. The streets of the capital are jam-packed. Up to half a million have turned out, the bedraggled masses lashed by the icy rain. They wait for a glimpse of the gilded carriage and its team of plumed white chargers. It will be a story to tell their grandchildren. Inside Notre Dame Cathedral, 5,000 dignitaries and VIPs have been crammed in.

Those in the cheap seats crane their necks, desperate to catch the activity way up at the front. Four hundred musicians and singers have been corralled into the drafty nave. As incense wafts, oratorios echo around a great vaulted ceiling. Everything inside has been decked out in the finest Romanesque regalia, all designed by Napoleon himself, its pomp and circumstance of the highest order. Afterwards there will be fireworks, the fountains will flow with wine,

Napoleon stands at the altar, dressed in a red velvet robe, embroidered with gold thread, the collar an expanse of ermine encrusted with jewels. His brothers act as page boys. Josephine, lips clamped safely shut, is adorned in the purest white satin. Napoleon's sisters have kicked up an almighty stink about having to carry her train. At age 35,

The man who began life as Napoleone de Buonaparte, a humble Italian-speaking Corsican, is about to be crowned Emperor of France. The French Revolution was a period of such murderous turmoil that the very state had threatened to collapse. But for France and its new Supremo, today represents an astonishing turnaround in fortunes. The beginning of the reign of Napoleon I. Within three years of his coronation,

Napoleon's empire will extend from Lisbon to Lithuania. France will be elevated to superpower status, making him the ruler of over 70 million people. Never in the history of the continent, not Alexander the Great, not Julius Caesar, not Charlemagne, has one man wielded such power. A special guest star, Pope Pius VII has been bussed in, there to emcee proceedings. But at the moment of truth,

Napoleon snatches the crown and raises it high for all to see. There is only one person worthy of placing it upon his head, himself. He whispers aside to his brother Joseph, now his appointed heir, if Papa could see us now.

And it is at this moment that he begins a spiral which will last 10 years until his downfall. He will surround himself with people who are no longer advisers, but courtiers, people who say "amen" to everything he says, to everything he wants. France does not interest him anymore. What interests him is Europe and the world. Georges Lefebvre, a great historian of the French Revolution, said of Napoleon:

When we normal people go up a staircase, we usually know we're going to stop at the second floor landing. Napoleon never stops. Each step makes him see the next one. He climbs a staircase that has no end, and the inevitable end is the fall. From Neuser, this is part four of the Napoleon story. And this is Real Dictators. Let's scroll back four years. As the page turns on the year 1800, the new 19th century,

The France that Napoleon Bonaparte takes over is in a mess. As a general, he recently embarked on a catastrophic military campaign in Egypt. Master of propaganda, he spun the expedition as a triumph. At the tail end of 1799, Napoleon had leveraged his fame to stage a muddled coup d'état. He has since shored up his power, muscling his way into pole position in the new government. He is now the first consul of France.

The Francie leads, is once more at war. Across Europe, a second coalition has been formed to take this maverick republic down. While Napoleon was stuck in Egypt, the Allies went on the offensive. The gains Napoleon had made in Italy in 1797 have been reversed. The French army there has been sent packing by Austria and their Russian allies. They are currently besieged in the port of Genoa.

The good news is that the Russians now consider it a case of job done. They have withdrawn. The Austrians are on their own. With an impresario's sensibility, Napoleon knows that a quick military victory will be the perfect curtain raiser to his "the greatest show on earth". And so, First Consul Napoleon, General Napoleon, heads across the Alps once more.

After the disaster in the desert, this is just like old times, redeploying the tactics that had made him such a star, mobility and surprise. In May 1800, ahead of the summer thaw, he leads 40,000 men through the perilous Alpine gorges into Italy. It's an audacious move. The army must dig its way through enormous snowdrifts. Cannons are stripped apart and carried by hand.

Sledges are improvised from hollowed-out logs. Through howling blizzards, whole regiments slide down glaciers on their backsides. Just as it was three years ago, the Austrians are caught napping. In a case of déjà vu, Napoleon finds himself back in Lombardy. On the 2nd of June, he's romping into his second city, Milan. With little warning given, that's not quite the civic reception of yore.

But the lukewarm reception for Napoleon is offset by a night at La Scala and a one-night stand with opera diva Giuseppina Grassini. Once the fat lady has sung, Napoleon is driving hard south. The battle that takes place near the village of Marengo on June 14, 1800, is brutal. In intense heat this time, the French infantry urinate on their muskets to keep them cool.

The Austrians have learned from previous mistakes. There are no pushovers. But if France can sacrifice 6,000 men, Austria will lose twice as many. The eagle has landed. For Napoleon, the Battle of Marengo is a catharsis. The failures of the Middle East have been erased. He has also proven himself superior to the generals who floundered in his absence. And, of course, the scale of his victory is grossly exaggerated.

Back home, Napoleon's fans go wild. They even name a new dish in his honor, chicken morango. As before, Austria is forced to the negotiating table. With the Treaty of Lunaville, she will forgo her Italian gains. Napoleon has reset the clock. The war of the Second Coalition is at an end.

There is only one rival left standing, Great Britain.

But this time, most unusually, Britannia flashes a bit of ankle, succumbing to Gallic charm. To Napoleon's relief, the new British Prime Minister, Henry Addington, plays a bit less hard to get than his predecessor, Pitt the Younger. Plus, Britain is now having its own problems with Russia. Tensions have risen since Nelson destroyed a fleet belonging to Moscow's ally, Denmark, in the Battle of Copenhagen.

Against all odds, France and Britain go for it. In diplomatic terms, they elope. The outcome will be surprisingly favourable to France. Britain will hand back whatever French colonies it pinched, excluding Ceylon and Trinidad. France must pull out any last vestige of its mission in Egypt and evacuate the Kingdom of Naples. Malta will be restored to the Knights of St. John.

In a symbolic move, King George III even renounces the historic claim of every English monarch since the Hundred Years' War to be also King of France. The Revolutionary Wars are at an end. The French state is recognized as a legitimate and equal power. And with a bonus, with the Rhineland and what is present-day Belgium under her control, France has filled out to her natural geographical frontiers.

For the first time in a generation, the guns of Europe fall silent. This period will be known after the town in northeast France where the treaty is concluded. The Peace of Amiens. Amiens is a surreal interlude. There is suddenly a huge Anglo-French love-in. In London, French dignitaries are cheered as they proceed along Oxford Street, on their way to Whitehall. The British press have spent years skewering Napoleon. Suddenly, they hail him as a great leader.

The poet Lord Byron has a bust of him on his mantelpiece. While well-heeled French take trips to London, upper-class Britons frequent Paris. There are visits to the Louvre, concerts, cultural events, exchanges. A waxwork artist, Marie or Madame Tussauds, arrives in London. During the French Revolution, she'd specialised in making death masks. Now she travels Britain with what will become a permanent exhibition of her lookalike mannequins.

In Paris, the pause gives Napoleon a chance to take off his general's hat and get back to being a politician. But the transition isn't easy. He grows frustrated at the protocols of government, intolerant of debate or dissent. Just like his idol Julius Caesar, Napoleon bludgeons through a motion to make himself first consul for life, dictator perpetuo, turning parliament into a rubber stamp. Professor Andrew Roberts says,

Napoleon admired the Roman Empire, and one can see again and again his references to the Roman Empire. The eagles that he used as a symbol for the army, the phrase Cisalpine to talk about northern Italy.

Dr Patrice Gueniffey,

He has no English-style parliament to limit his power. From that point of view, we could compare him to Charles I, the King of England who was beheaded, in the sense that he wields power without limits, other than the limits he imposes on himself. And the limit he imposes on himself is simply to consult the Council of State, which is his own parliament, whose members he has chosen.

plus some advisors who surround him. Napoleon promises to make Paris the greatest city on earth. He undertakes a massive rebuilding program, carving out parkland, laying down boulevards, building bridges across the Seine. The change is not just cosmetic, there will be a complete restructuring of the French state, with power becoming highly centralized.

from a proper European wide piece in 1802 allowed him a space in which to prove the positive aspects of Napoleon, the law-giving aspects,

He instituted also a concordat with the Pope, which allowed people to worship publicly for the first time in France since the Revolution. He was somebody who instituted important aspects of French life, such as the Légion d'honneur. He brought in the Banque de France, which destroyed inflation, which had been running very high under the Directory. He instituted civil order in the provinces.

and did so much that actually made it clear that he was a benevolent dictator. Meanwhile, the press and the theatre are heavily censored. The archives are expunged of any reference to his prior Corsican nationalism. French is a language of many regional variations. Napoleon wants a standardized form. He chucks out the revolutionary title "citoyen" or "citizen" for a return to the good old-fashioned "madame" et "monsieur."

He dispenses with the crazy ten-day week, restoring the seven-day version with Sunday the day of rest. And he brings back Christmas. Napoleon understands that the French Revolution is over and that it is irreversible. He resists calls to give the few surviving nobles back their titles. He opts not to return the church to the place it had under the Ancien Régime. France is now a secular state. He's not done yet.

The little corporal is thinking big. "We need a European law code, a European supreme court, a single currency, the same weights and measures, the same laws," he decrees. "I must make all the peoples of Europe into a single people, and Paris the capital of the world." He institutes the Code Civil, better known as the Napoleonic Code, a manifesto of civil rights and liberties inspired by the Romans.

The Code has been the basis for French and much of European law ever since. Bernard Cornwell: "He's not grinding people into the dust. He's trying to find a system, a governing system and a political and administrative system that actually works. I mean, in that sense, he's an enlightened despot. He sees what needs to be done and he does it. The problem starts when he starts doing it to other countries." Napoleon personally is still a work in progress, not quite the new man.

"Women need to be contained," he declares. "French men will now have the right to murder their wives if they're caught in the act of infidelity." The honeymoon of Amiens was never going to last. It was a shotgun wedding. Even Mad King George, in a rare lucid moment, referred to it as experimental. As time wears on, the fragile peace is looking increasingly like a half-time break before the two teams trudge back out onto the pitch.

From Britain's point of view, there is concern about the Western German states becoming French clients. France, controversially, is also in the process of absorbing the northern Italian province of Piedmont. In a direct violation of Amiens, the French seem reluctant to pull their troops out of Holland. Word is also out that Napoleon's military advisers are figuring out how to retake Egypt. Britain drags its heels. It holds onto Malta.

After a tit-for-tat escalation, the gloves come off. On May 18, 1803, Britain declares war. "It's just a character trait," shrugs Napoleon, "another example of perfidious Albion." And so, the ladies and gentlemen of the travelling classes pack their souvenirs, solve social diseases, and retreat back across the twenty-mile stretch of water. For Napoleon, there is an inescapable fact:

This offshore nation is a permanent irritant. He will only ever achieve complete European hegemony if he knocks out Great Britain once and for all. And that means an invasion. Britain's standing army is small. If he can face the British in the field, Napoleon has every confidence that France will prevail. It all comes down to the one thing that has kept the island safe since 1066: the English Channel.

A mere ditch to be crossed, Napoleon dismisses. The moment anyone has the courage to try, his admirals strongly disagree. For there is the also not insignificant matter of the Royal Navy. France has already tried a backdoor invasion before. Inspired by the American and French revolutions, a rebellion had broken out in Ireland in 1798. Led by Wolfe Tone, a group called the United Irishmen led an uprising against British rule.

it resulted in a bloody suppression. Ireland was absorbed into a new entity, the United Kingdom. A series of French landings were attempted in support of the rebels, most notably when a small force landed in County Mayo. In a forgotten episode, there was even a botched landing at Fishguard in West Wales. But Napoleon knows that to really deal with Britain, he must do as his hero Caesar did and get his men across the Straits of Dover.

and in considerable numbers. We only wait for a favourable wind in order to plant the Imperial Eagle on the Tower of London, he boasts. Oozing optimism, he even has a campaign medal struck. In the Channel Ports, Napoleon's Army of England is established. With its command centre at Boulogne, a massive amphibious assault force is assembled. Napoleon waits for his moment. Meanwhile, he consolidates his rule at home.

going beyond anything he's attempted before. On Christmas Eve 1800, Napoleon was the victim of an assassination attempt, one of around 30 that will be mounted against him. Royalists tried to blow up his carriage on his way to the opera. Napoleon escaped unharmed, but it was a close call. There were civilians killed and injured.

His growing network of spies and informers can do their best, but beyond the frontiers of France, there are moves being orchestrated to eliminate him. To thwart them, Napoleon will remove the shackles. He manipulates the Senate into appointing him supreme leader. In May 1804, he announces his next step. He will become a royal. Not a king, far too prosaic, but an emperor. An emperor?

Napoleon's most controversial move is debated endlessly. Some people think that this is a moment in which he tips into megalomania. But in fact, it was a very sensible political move because he had survived over a dozen assassination attempts. And the only way to stop these from happening was to ensure that if he died, then Napoleon's family would continue to rule France.

Sure enough, once he became emperor, the assassination attempts at least trailed off. Napoleon is now aspiring to be all that he once despised. He is turning the Republic on its head. The utter hypocrisy is not lost on his fan club. Some, including Ludwig van Beethoven, rip up their memberships. But the move is approved by a public vote of 3.5 million to just 2,500 in what is a shockingly low turnout.

It's entirely contradictory, of course, to the Republican revolutionary ideals. But what he thought he was able to do was to keep the best of the ideals and dump the side of the French Revolution that was the class element of it.

And a very good way of going about that was to set up an aristocracy of talent whereby people who were good administrators or good soldiers managed to become aristocrats and the old aristocracy that was just there simply because of who your father or grandfather was, was essentially abolished. On a practical level, it can be argued Napoleon is simply giving himself the status and prestige that will allow him to be taken seriously by the other great powers.

I found the crown of France in the gutter, he proclaims, and I picked it up. Many of the current royal houses, even the Bourbons, are political inventions, Napoleon points out. The Hanovers were invited to take power in England a mere 80 years ago. What's the difference? Professor David Bell. I think there are clearly elements of the revolution that he did care deeply about.

Even when he creates the monarchy, I mean, it's funny, when you read the actual act that creates the empire, it says, quote, the government of the republic is entrusted to an emperor, close quote. So in theory, the French Republic never ended. In theory, it simply changed a little bit in form. And he's emperor of the French. He's not emperor of France. He doesn't claim to own the country. He never claims to be there by divine will. He claims to be there by the will of the people.

That said, he increasingly has dynastic ambitions. He wants to be seen as a kind of brother emperor to Alexander of Russia, to the emperor of Austria. Napoleon certainly has the ego to go with his ambition. He declares August the 15th, his birthday, a national holiday. Legally, for this to be sanctioned, such a day must be a saint's day. Unsurprisingly, there is no Saint Napoleon. But this is no obstacle. Napoleon petitions the Pope.

His Holiness delves back into the 3rd century and conveniently unearths, some say invents, just such a fellow. It's a miracle. And so, in December 1804, in that lavish ceremony in Notre Dame Cathedral, to huge popular acclaim, Napoleon Bonaparte becomes officially Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, and of the Italians too. The Northern Republic of Italy will become the Kingdom of Italy.

For added weight, the heavy iron crown of Lombardy, once sported by Charlemagne, is said to contain the nails from Jesus' crucifixion. In spring 1805, he leaves to be crowned King of Italy with the crown of the Lombard kings in the Cathedral of Milan. And there he became a successor of the Lombard kings who in turn considered themselves successors of the Caesars.

He reached a level of power that probably no mind, even a rational one, could resist. And so it comes to pass, 11 years after the execution of Louis XVI, the words sire and majesty echo once again around the Tuileries Palace, and pretty soon, the magnificent royal palace at Fontainebleau, which Napoleon will take as his new residence. He has it refurbed in suitable regal fashion,

No expense spared. In keeping with his imperial status, Napoleon undergoes something of a makeover. He has a new short Caesar haircut. What else? He takes to manicuring his precious pudgy hands. With an expanding waistline, he's watching what he eats. In Egypt, he'd acquired a taste for dates and pilaf rice. It becomes his chosen healthy dish. He drinks but a single glass of red wine a day. A watered-down Chambartin.

His image, right down to that bicorn hat, has been carefully crafted, designed for easy printing or rendering in silhouette. Everything must be on message. Dr. Catherine Kalli-Gallitz. A painting by Francois Girard of Napoleon on his imperial throne that was painted in 1805, that became...

That became the de facto image where you see him, you know, in his coronation robes. He has his, you know, crown of laurel. And he actually at the coronation had Charlemagne's scepter and other parts of Charlemagne's regalia. He borrows the eagle as a sign of Jupiter. He's drawing from all sorts of sources, but all to elevate and really legitimize his authority. ♪

Not forgetting his trademark stance, the studious placement of a pampered hand in his waistcoat. It's a posture cribbed from ancient Roman senators, who would keep theirs tucked into folds of toga. He was a general. He seized power in a coup d'etat. He had absolutely no legitimate claim to rule. None. So that's the role that art played in aligning him, whether it's with past kings or emperors or rulers, with actual authority, real, quote-unquote, real authority.

But back to business. All along the Channel Coast, things are progressing. The Emperor's new clothes are shrugged off with the kit of the little corporal again as he meets and greets his troops. There are now 2,500 gunboats, barges, and adapted landing craft assembled, plus 200,000 soldiers massed. Training goes into overdrive.

Napoleon has thought through every aspect of the conquest, even dividing Britain into occupation zones. Dr. Michael Rapport: London would have been "la département de la Tamise," the Department of the Thames, which is, I think, rather good. The idea was that there would be these republics, an Irish republic, maybe a Scottish republic. There are English republicans knocking around, the United Britons and so on, all these underground organizations are thinking in terms of welcoming a French invasion.

But there's still the damned Royal Navy. The French fleet, rebuilt after the Battle of the Nile, is currently bottled up in the Mediterranean. Napoleon hatches a plan. He orders Admiral Villeneuve, the head of the fleet, to create a diversion. If Villeneuve can sneak through the Straits of Gibraltar and head to the West Indies, he can draw Britain's naval supremo, Nelson, away across the Atlantic. This will leave Napoleon free to cross the Pas-de-Calais unhindered.

If I am master of the channel for six hours, Napoleon declares, I will be master of the world. Dr. Michael Rohn. It's not just six hours, you know, you'd need it for days. It ain't going to happen.

Once you've landed, then the easy part is ahead of you. There's no doubt, really, I think, that a Napoleonic army of that magnitude would have swept into London within days. But, yeah, maybe people should have paid more attention to, I think it was Lord St Vincent, the head of the British Navy, who says, you know, the French won't come. Or at least I'll guarantee that they won't come by sea. In the British press, Napoleon is ridiculed mercilessly, challenged to bring it on. The last time anyone attempted anything like this

The Spanish Armada, 200 years earlier, the would-be invaders were sent packing. Britain is well prepared. A series of defensive forts is already in place along the English coast. Napoleon was so sure of success that he directed in Cherbourg a monument to the invasion of Britain, commemorating it before it ever happened.

It was every bit as real as Hitler's threat to invade Britain. But as historians have pointed out, Napoleon never understood the sea. He never understood the strategy of navies. And we had a genius on our side called Nelson. Launching the invasion is all a matter of timing now. But then, worrying news. In August 1805, he hears that the Russians and the Austrians are mobilizing again, ready to march on France.

Suddenly, stopping them becomes the priority. As Napoleon's gaze is pulled east, the war of the Third Coalition begins. Napoleon's army of England need twiddle their thumbs no more. The theatre of conflict may be different, but they will be put to good use, and quickly. Sweden has been brought on board the Third Coalition too, and the Prussians are itching to join in.

With added reserves, Napoleon's ranks swelled to 350,000 men, his biggest force yet. Turning their back on the Channel, they are soon marching east. Even now, the Grande Armée, as it is known, is outnumbered. The Russian and Austrian armies are said to reach half a million in strength. But Napoleon is at his best when the odds are against him. News that he is on the move sends the French public into raptures.

The Austro-Russian forces are simply too big, too unwieldy for effective marshalling. They've failed to link up. Never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake, as Napoleon's maxim goes. He will storm ahead and isolate the Austrians before the Russians get there. In October, within six weeks of leaving the Channel, he has crossed Bavaria and reached the Danube. He pauses on the way in Lyon for a quick fling with the widow of a wealthy financier

Napoleon is quite the traveller now. With his aches and pains, he has a holistic physician with him. His carriage is equipped with a desk and a pull-down bed, so that he can sleep and work around the clock. In an accompanying carriage is his chief of staff, Berthier, with his cabinets full of maps and illustrations of likely battlefields. The Austrians are soon backpedalling. At Ulm, they surrender 27,000 men, almost half their army.

Napoleon proclaims with words that will prove prophetic: "All empires come to an end." On November 14th, he enters Vienna, as he had threatened to do back in 1797. Emperor Francis II has already fled. Taking his army away from the channel was the right call, while on the march, stunning news reaches him: the combined French and Spanish fleet has been ambushed off Cadiz. Half the navy has been obliterated.

The Battle of Trafalgar, fought on October 21st, will go down as another sensational victory for Lord Nelson and the Royal Navy. The celebrated Admiral dies in the heat of battle, felled by a sniper on the deck of his flagship HMS Victory. His demise will only cement the legend. A cross-channel invasion will remain just a pipe dream. The Battle of Britain has been won.

He was up against the Royal Navy at perhaps its most efficient and professional in its whole history. And especially, of course, after the defeat of the French and Spanish combined fleets at Trafalgar in October 1805, he knew that he could never invade Britain. It was such a devastating victory for the Royal Navy that it essentially gave Britain naval dominance for 100 years.

Napoleon's focus is now squarely on land campaigns. By November 22nd, the remnants of the Austrian army and the Russians have finally linked up. According to legend, there had been a misalignment between their Gregorian and Julian calendars. They are deep within the boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire, in the province of Moravia, in today's Czech Republic. Closing in on them, Napoleon scouts the land, looking for a place to take them on.

He settles on the hilly ground near the town of Slavkov, better known by its German name, Austerlitz. He tells his generals: "Gentlemen, examine this ground carefully. It's going to be a battlefield." Heading up the Russians is their Tsar, Alexander I. He fancies himself a military man, but lacks any battlefield experience.

The Russians have occupied the high ground, always an advantage. But Napoleon is receiving favorable intelligence. Apparently, the Tsar keeps overriding his experienced commanders. That night, Napoleon eats his traditional pre-match meal, fried potatoes and onions. After it, he moves amongst the campfires of his soldiers, the god amongst men. Cries of, long live the emperor, ring out.

Tomorrow, December 2nd, will be the anniversary of his coronation. Before dawn, Napoleon's trusted artillery is wheeled into position. This time he will also deploy a secret weapon: Mother Nature. In winter, these valleys in the mornings are filled with mist, and sure enough, at daybreak, the low ground is shrouded in a thick white fog. Napoleon's first ploy will be to tempt the Russians off the high ground.

A gullible man like the Tsar will not be able to resist the bait. Napoleon sets up his troops with a deliberately weak right flank, an inviting target. Sure enough, the Tsar orders his bugler to sound an attack, keeping just enough troops in place to hold the heights. What the Tsar hasn't bargained for is the 17,000 infantry Napoleon has hidden in the mist. As the sun begins to burn it away, they rise up like a spectral army.

Austerlitz is a bloody battle. There will be 9,000 French casualties to 16,000 Russians and Austrians. But by tea time, it's all over. While the Tsar retreats, Emperor Francis II comes forward personally to request a peace. The War of the Third Coalition is at an end. As is something else, the ancient entity covering swathes of Central Europe, known as the Holy Roman Empire,

once the domain of Charlemagne, and these days under Austrian jurisdiction, it will shortly be dissolved. It had been founded all the way back in 962. France's western German territories are amalgamated into a Confederation of the Rhine. This will form the basis of a future German state. For now, Napoleon is its protector. Napoleon spends Christmas in Vienna.

So overjoyed is he that he awards every Austerlitz widow a substantial pension. Each orphaned child is permitted to add Napoleon to their baptismal name. The celebrations back in Paris are euphoric. Of his greatest military hits, Austerlitz is the chart-topper. 130 Russian cannon will be melted down and cast into a victory column.

Too often, people in the English-speaking world view Napoleon too much through our own experiences of him. And in fact, we underplay the extraordinary victory of the Battle of Austerlitz, an incredible victory over both the Austrians and the Russians, which essentially reorganized the whole of Europe. And that is to somebody who is certainly a Frenchman, is a

is a far more important and key date than, say, the Battle of Trafalgar. One only has to look at the railway stations, for example. In England, we have a Waterloo station, but in France, of course, it's the Gare d'Austelitz.

It's one of the greatest Napoleonic victories in a sense that it isn't bought with the same kind of horrendous casualties which you have on the French side and some of the later Napoleonic battles. It's great Napoleonic propaganda, you know, this idea that the light suddenly kind of shines forth at the moment of Napoleon's triumph, which, you know, incidentally happens on the anniversary of his coronation in Notre Dame the previous year, you know, 2nd December. So everything goes right, you know, even the timing is wonderful.

Napoleon can also celebrate for another reason. Word has reached him that one of his mistresses, the 17-year-old Eleonore Danuelle de La Plaine, has borne him a son. But there is no time for Napoleon to rest on his laurels. The creation of this new Confederation of the Rhine threatens Prussian territorial integrity. Kaiser Frederick William III is keen to get in on the action. Coalition No. 4 is in the works, and Russia is still not out of the picture either.

even if they were beaten back at Austerlitz. In early October 1806, Prussian and Russian troops start mobilizing. Napoleon acts, and with tremendous speed as always. On October 14th, at a pair of battles, Oerstedt and Jena, Prussia is knocked out of the war. Napoleon's campaign takes just five days. He came, he saw, he conquered. Incidentally, the main battle of the two is Oerstedt,

won by one of Napoleon's generals. Napoleon, meanwhile, beats the straggling Prussian reserve column at Jena. In a fit of jealousy, he forbids all mention of Eustadt. It's accorded no battle honors. Only in years to come will it be begrudgingly recognized as a great victory. On October 27th 1806, less than a year after taking Vienna, Napoleon marches into Berlin. He leads his victory parade under the Brandenburg Gate,

Back home, the triumph seemed to excuse Napoleon's excesses. He will go on to acquire 44 palaces. He has regal treasures coming out of his ears. He also, amid great controversy, starts placing his siblings on the thrones of Europe, marrying his brothers and sisters into the royal families of Naples, Holland, Westphalia, Tuscany, Guastalla, Berg and Cleves. His dear old mother Letizia becomes simply "Madameere", mother of the nation.

When Napoleon hears that brother Jerome has bucked the trend by marrying a Baltimore heiress, Elizabeth Patterson, he goes bananas. The young couple have left the United States and are sailing back to France, with Elizabeth pregnant when news reaches them. Napoleon has invoked imperial protocol to annul their marriage. Jerome is obliged to abandon Elizabeth and return home alone.

She pitches up instead in London, giving birth to their son in Camberwell. The British press have a field day. Of the Bonapartes, only the fiery Lucian remains untitled. Despite helping his brother seize power, he opposes Napoleon's monarchical pretensions. Lucian has snubbed the emperor by refusing the hand of a Spanish princess. That, at least, is the public explanation.

"Lucia was very, very bright, very shrewd politician. And Lucia gets sidelined by Napoleon precisely for that reason. His own brother is too much of a possible threat." When it becomes obvious that Josephine, now in her forties, is unlikely to bear Napoleon a legitimate heir, the divorce proceedings will be expedited. These days, Josephine prefers to stay at Malmaison, where she tends to her garden and implants exotic flowers from around the world.

And she's racking up the bills: one million francs a year on clothes, a new Marie Antoinette, plus ça change. Napoleon's string of mistresses is viewed by some as an attempt to prove that he is capable of siring a next in line, that he's not shooting blanks. When asked about his extracurricular activity, he simply replies: "Power is my mistress."

To secure the royal line, Napoleon even engineers his brother Louis into a marriage with Josephine's daughter from her first marriage, Hortense. They have a child in 1808, named Charles-Louis-Napoleon. His uncle will dote on the infant. In 1852, the baby will go on to become France's second emperor, ruling as Napoleon III. There are scurrilous rumors that secretly, the child may be Napoleon's own.

It's all getting a bit weird. One of Napoleon's deepest relationships is formed with a Polish countess, Marie Walewska. He meets her in Warsaw at a ball in early 1807. She is 20, her husband 71. "'I saw no one but you. I admired no one but you. I want no one but you,' he writes to her after their first encounter. "'Answer me at once,' and assuaged the impatient passion of Napoleon."

Napoleon has a deep admiration for the Poles. Some of his cracked military units are formed from Polish recruits. His presence in Poland is because he's been called to go on the offensive again. Prussia may have been vanquished, but even now, Russia is not yet out of the war. It's been massing a huge army to strike back at him. There will be two more mighty battles in February and June 1807. Both of them are absolute carnage.

But in this new phase of the war, France ultimately prevails You get this very bitter winter campaign where things, I think, start to sort of go a little bit wrong for the French

They lose at the Battle of Ilao. It's fought under horrendous conditions. It's cold. It's a bit like a precursor, I guess, of what's going to happen in 1812. But then they do get their act together and one last push against the Russians results in the victory of Friedland. And so the Russian Tsar Alexander, who I think has got a sneaking admiration for Napoleon, decides to make peace.

Napoleon knows that pushing on into the endless expanse of Russia would be a huge logistical undertaking. What fool would march on Moscow? So instead, he entertains the Tsar's wish for a settlement. This is part of a grander scheme to not only neutralize Russia, but to defeat Britain. If the old enemy cannot be defeated militarily, then it would be beaten by food, a trade war.

Britain is, in naval terms, is supreme, but also is economically very important. It's got into an increasingly industrial kind of phase. And so in any kind of attritional conflict with Britain, you're likely to lose. And the question is, how do you break out of that?

What he tried to do to force Britain to the negotiating table was to institute what was called the Continental System, which was a massive trade blockade against Britain to force Britain to ultimately make peace with him. And so that meant that the entire Napoleonic Empire was forbidden to do any trade at all with Britain in the hope that the British, if we weren't able to do profitable trade, we would make peace.

On the 25th of June 1807, Napoleon and the Tsar meet at the Neiman River between modern-day Kaliningrad and Lithuania. This marks the border between Prussia and Russia, the limits of Napoleon and the Tsar's respective spheres of influence. To signal the meeting of equals, the two men stage a grand powwow on an over-decorated raft tethered at exactly the halfway point. The Prussian king is left kicking his heels on the riverbank.

It is the showpiece moment of the summit. Over several days, Napoleon and the Tsar hang out, dine and drink. It's said they genuinely get on. Napoleon jokes that were the Tsar a woman, he would make him his mistress, another one. Meanwhile, their two entourages indulge in several days of drunken debauchery, even it is said an orgy. For Napoleon and Alexander, the bromance concludes with the signing of another monumental treaty.

In customary fashion, it is named after the nearest town, a place called Tilsit. Tilsit in 1807 essentially divides continental Europe into two zones. So it's a bit like a kind of Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact really. We divide Europe between a Western and Central European zone, that's French, controlled by Napoleon, and an East European zone,

It's the high point. Napoleon should have stopped at that point. Arguably, he might have stopped a little bit earlier. You know, Amin was a fairly good deal in 1802. Things go wrong after 1807. But that's not the way it looks at this very moment in time. Beyond the demarcation of influence, Napoleon has just a single request: that Russia joins the great blockade of Britain, the continental system. The talks are concluded with a simple exchange.

Says the Tsar, "Sir, I hate the English as much as you do." Then quips Napoleon, "We have made a peace." Next time, in the next part of the Napoleon story, amidst the fallout from the blockade of Britain, France launches an invasion of Spain. This peninsular war will open the back door for a British counteroffensive, led by the Duke of Wellington. After falling out with Russia once again, Napoleon assembles his biggest ever army.

It will do the unthinkable and march on Moscow. That's next time.