July 2006

Who was saved in the storming of the Bastille?

history / /

From Wikipedia’s “French Revolution” (5 July 2006):

On July 14, 1789, after hours of combat, the insurgents seized the Bastille prison, killing the governor, Marquis Bernard de Launay, and several of his guards. Although the Parisians released only seven prisoners; four forgers, two lunatics, and a sexual offender, the Bastille served as a potent symbol of everything hated under the ancien régime.

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Napoleon’s losses in the invasion of Russia

history / /

From Wikipedia’s “Napoleon I of France” (5 July 2006):

The French suffered greatly in the course of a ruinous retreat; the Army had begun as over 650,000 frontline troops, but in the end fewer than 40,000 crossed the Berezina River (November 1812) to escape. In total French losses in the campaign were 570,000 against about 400,000 Russian casualties and several hundred thousand civilian deaths.

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Fouche’s blackmail of Napoleon

history, politics / /

From Napoleonic Literature’s “The Court and Camp of Buonaparte: The Ministers: Fouche“:

[Fouche,] who was so profoundly versed in the state of parties, — who was obeyed by one, courted by another, and feared by all; who, by means of his countless agents, could at any time congregate the scattered elements of resistance to the authority of government, was too formidable to be allowed to continue for ever in so dangerous a post. To this we may add that Buonaparte well knew the channel through which the knowledge of his amours passed to Josephine. Of the extent to which the head of the state was subjected to this galling system of espionage, Fouché furnishes us with an amusing proof:–

One day Buonaparte observed that, considering my acknowledged ability, he was astonished I did not perform my functions better, — that there were several things of which I was ignorant. ‘Yes,’ replied I, ‘there certainly are things of which I was ignorant, but which I now know well enough. For instance, a little man muffled up in a grey cloak, and accompanied by a single servant, often steals out on a dark evening from a secret door of the Tuileries, enters a closed carriage, and drives off to Signora G—-. This little man is yourself; and yet this fanciful songstress jilts you continually out of love for Rode the fiddler.’ The Consul answered not a word: he turned his back, rung, and I immediately withdrew.” — Memoires, tom. i. p. 233.

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Fouche proud of terror, expanded

history, language & literature, politics / /

From Napoleonic Literature’s “The Court and Camp of Buonaparte: The Ministers: Fouche“:

But whatever might be the merit of his services at Nantes, it was far eclipsed by those he had soon afterwards the happiness to perform at Lyons. On his arrival there with Collot d’Herbois, he announced to the terrified citizens the reward they were to expect for having dared to resist the majesty of the people, and especially for having put to death some revolutionary agents. “The representatives of the people will be impassive in the execution of their mission. They have been intrusted with the thunderbolt of public vengeance, which they will not cease to hurl until the public enemies are crushed. They will have the courage to march over countless tombs of the conspirators, to traverse boundless ruins, that they may arrive at the happiness of nations,–at the regeneration of the world!” He wrote in like terms to his employers at Paris: “Nothing can disarm our severity: indulgence, we must say, is a dangerous weakness. We never cease to strike the enemies of the people; we annihilate them in a manner at once signal, terrible, and prompt. Their bloody corses, thrown into the Rhone, must appear both on the banks and at the mouth of that river, a spectacle of fear, and of the omnipotence of the people! Terror, salutary terror, is here in truth the order of the day; it represses all the efforts of the wicked; it divests crime of all covering and tinsel!“

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Fouche’s daily list for Napoleon

history, language & literature, law, politics / /

From Central Missouri State University’s “Joseph Fouche“:

Fouché established an organization of policing and intelligence gathering that was decades ahead of its time. Napoleon, frequently on military campaigns, depended on Fouché’s information to maintain control over France and his military effectiveness. Six days a week, every week, Fouché sent secret reports to Napoleon. The information represented an incredible array of topics:

1. Palace gossip.

2. Audience reaction to a new play.

3. Stock market prices.

4. Desertions from the army.

5. Arrests of foreign agents.

6. Results of interrogations.

7. News of crime.

8. Offenses by soldiers.

9. Fires.

10. Rebellion against the Gendarmarie.

11. Intercepted correspondence.

12. Visiting personages.

13. Public reception of news of victories.

14. Shipping news.

15. Indiscretions of Fouché’s enemies.

16. Contractor’s tenders.

17. Agitation against the draft.

18. Suicides.

19. Prison epidemics.

20. Progress of construction.

21. Unemployment figures.

22. Extracts from inter-ministerial correspondence.

23. Persons detained or under special surveillance (Stead, 1983, pp. 41-48).

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Fouche proud of terror

history, language & literature / /

From Central Missouri State University’s “Joseph Fouche“:

As chief police officer of the revolutionary government, Fouché was given the power to impose the government’s policies quickly and mercilessly. He demonstrated his willingness to accomplish this feat when, after the population of Lyons revolted against the government, he personally presided over the mass executions in that unhappy city (Forssell, 1970, pp. 71-78).

As the guillotine blade dropped and the massed canon fire dispatched the condemned by the hundreds, Fouché proudly wrote to Paris of his accomplishments, “Terror, salutary terror is now the order of the day (Schom, 1992, p. 112).”

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Fouche praised with parallelism

history, language & literature / /

From Central Missouri State University’s “Joseph Fouche“:

Such was Fouché’s accomplishment that Chaumette, a Jacobin extremist in the Assembly, publicly praised his efforts:

Citizen Fouché has worked the miracles of which I have been speaking. Old age has been honored; infirmity has been succored; misfortune has been respected; fanaticism has been destroyed; federalism has been annihilated; the production of iron has been activated; suspects have been arrested; exemplary crimes have been punished; grafters have been prosecuted and imprisoned – there you have a summary of the labors of Fouché as representative of the people (Zweig, p. 41).

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Joseph Fouche the atheist

history / /

From Central Missouri State University’s “Joseph Fouche“:

Moreover, Fouché was not content with merely attacking the aristocracy. He orchestrated a campaign of atheistic fervor never before seen in Europe. He abolished clerical celibacy and ordered priests to marry or adopt a child within a month. Churches were pillaged, and priests were forbidden from wearing their robes in public. By his command Christian funeral services were banned and the inscription, “Death is an eternal sleep,” placed over the gates of the cemeteries (Zweig, p. 39).

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