Robespierre's Execution

Napoleon leads an unrestrained life until he is summoned to Toulon, where he fashions himself into a général de brigade in inadequate attire—incidentally bringing along his entire baggage train, including Maman, Joséphine de Beauharnais, and the Vicomte de Barras as entourage. Joséphine's husband had served the Revolution as a victim. The beautiful widow, a landowner's daughter from Martinique, attached herself to the man responsible for her husband's death. By now, political commissar Barras has warmly recommended her to his protégé. Napoleon fights alongside the solid Pichegru, a mathematics teacher qualified for the priesthood, and the risen, razor-sharp peasant scion Prince of Essling, a.k.a. Masséna. Pichegru will later feel stirred by Napoleon toward tyrannicide—and yet will not act.

Sur la ligne de feu, Napoleon surpasses all others in anticipatory cold-bloodedness. The Republicans proceed according to his plan. In the first step, the siege corps harasses the allied fleet with a few cannons. To stabilize the situation, Hood orders a position on the shore to be occupied—Fort Mulgrave. He equips the fortification with heavy guns and relies on a garrison of eight hundred men. From then on, the alliance attempts to suppress republican harassment at advanced posts. What follows is a back-and-forth that perforates the royalists' advantages. Napoleon cuts lines of communication in partisan fashion—hit and run. Instead of waiting for an assault only to repel it, the Republicans move out to the gates (and onto land) and engage in skirmishes. The republican army captures the redoubts and forts around Toulon—designed to fight a naval power—and pushes the allied fleet away. It forces the navy to strip the city of protection. On December 19, Hood abandons Toulon and withdraws to sea.

Napoleon continues to be employed in Paris; he serves at the Topographical Office.

After Robespierre's execution in 1794, an era of rotation and juggling begins within the governing bodies, using the building blocks of representative democracy. The bourgeoisification of the Revolution shifts violence from left to right. A jeunesse dorée hunts Jacobins. The dispossessed return to extra-parliamentary forms of struggle, but can no longer prevail. In October 1795, royalists rise in Paris; Napoleon directs the bombardment of the insurgents. The general plays the bloodhound of the nouveaux riches, those devotees of appearances who amassed fortunes during the Revolution (and opposed the Terror of Virtue). His military successes keep France in motion; the republican army is itself a revolutionary factor. As guarantor of the Republic, surrounded by monarchies, it cannot be curtailed—unlike clerical restoration schemes and early-communist projects of overthrow. Napoleon creates (satellite) states—see the Peace of Campo Formio in 1797. At twenty-eight, he represents France in negotiations with the last Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, the Habsburg Francis II. He dismantles Italy and hands Francis a portion. Two years later, he pushes his patron Barras from the balcony of power into exile.

Napoleon compares himself to Alexander. He sees himself as chairman of kings. He wants to gather heads of government in Paris like ambassadors—vassals obligated to him alone—and to consolidate their state archives into a single library. Napoleon assumes sufficient gravity on his side. Thunderbolt does not. In a devastating assessment, he lists Napoleon's weaknesses. I return to commonplaces. Thunderbolt finds Napoleon merely robust; he misses true greatness. He cites Claire de Vergennes, dame du palais and wife of the chamberlain. Napoleon, he says, lacks tact. He understands only the military and prefers cabal politics solely because he regards any form of legitimacy as a limitation on his plenary power.

That is helplessly reasoned: Claire trembles before her employer. She depends on Napoleon.

Thunderbolt does not. He watches the small imbalances of the great man. Napoleon cannot amuse himself; he is bored by the entertainment laid on for princes. Thunderbolt recognizes this courtly boredom as a special failure. Napoleon allows no one to be wittier than he. He adopts the habits of defeated houses—such as the parade court with curtseys and bows. He discards and renews inherited representational pomp.

He refuses to meet the claims of the finest artists. That is a cultural rupture. No Bourbon would have abdicated the duties of patronage to such an extent. At the same time, Napoleon wrongly imitates aristocratic courtesy. More serious to Thunderbolt is Napoleon's flimsy relationship to esprit public. He steers public opinion with lies. Journalistically, he captures moods inside filter bubbles. He consistently gives preference to effect—post-factually. Truthfulness means little. Napoleon teaches the people to read between the lines. The theater becomes an informant. That is good for the theater and bad for art, says Heiner Müller. Thunderbolt recognizes Napoleon's indifference to truth as his principal failure. Whoever considers himself a liar can only be lied to. In this conclusion, Thunderbolt anticipates Napoleon's downfall. In 1813, in Dresden, Napoleon proves to Prince Metternich that he is prepared to place his egoism above French interests. Unlike a born prince, whose rank suffers no harm from the unlucky outcome of a battle, Napoleon says he must not lose.