Chapter 29: Le Jour de Gloire Arrives For Napoleon And France

December 4, 1804

Napoleon Crowns Himself Emperor And Resumes War With Britain

On December 2, 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte establishes hereditary power over France for his family, as he crowns himself Emperor at Notre Dame Cathedral.

The service is designed to mimic the standards set for royal successions across Europe.

To insure that Napoleon will reign “in the eyes of God,” Pope Pius VII attends the ceremony in person. The 62 year old pontiff has been in office for four years, and is intent on restoring the Church’s standing in France after seeing papal authority stripped away during the people’s revolution. His first step here is the Concordat of 1801, negotiated with Napoleon as First Counsul, which recognizes Catholicism as the “religion of the great majority” in France, while dropping claims to church lands seized during the overthrow of the old order.

Napoleon enters Notre Dame after Pius is already seated. He arrives with his wife, Josephine, in a carriage drawn by eight horses. He is gowned up in an eighty pound coronation mantle, supported by four manservants, and embroidered with “golden bees,” which he favors over the traditional fleur-de-lis symbol for France. 

When the moment comes for the Pope to crown him, Napoleon intercedes by placing the laurel wreath on his own head and repeating the act for Josephine as Queen. Pius then intones his blessing:  

May God confirm you on this throne and may Christ give you to rule with him in his eternal kingdom. 

The action is completed with Napoleon placing his hands on the Bible and declaring his civil oath of office. 

I swear to maintain the integrity of the territory of the Republic, to respect and enforce respect for the Concordat and freedom of religion, equality of rights, political and civil liberty, the irrevocability of the sale of national lands; not to raise any tax except in virtue of the law; to maintain the institution of Legion of Honor and to govern in the sole  interest, happiness and glory of the French people.

As absolute monarch he is now eager to turn his energy against fulfilling the “glory of the French  people.” 

His sights, as always, are on the British, and reversing the losses suffered four decades ago in the Seven Year’s War. He will attack them on land and sea, along with any confederates who join them.  

The days of French ascendance have arrived.

La Marseillaise (1792)

1715-1855

Sidebar: Roll Call Of Key 18-19th Century Foreign Monarchs

October 21, 1805

Napoleon’s Momentum Is Hindered Momentarily By Lord Nelson At Trafalgar

By the late summer of 1805, Napoleon has completed his plan to invade the British Isles, and has assembled a naval armada of French and Spanish ships to support the attack. But the invasion is delayed after Austria and Russia enter the war. Still, Napoleon is displeased by the lack of aggression he sees in the commanding officer of his fleet, Admiral Pierre-Charles de Villaneuve, who learns that he is about to be relieved.

On October 20, 1805, before his replacement can arrive, Villaneuve departs the port of Cadiz on the southwest coast of Spain, intending to sail south past Cape Trafalgar and the Straits of Gibraltar, into the Mediterranean and the French port of Toulon.

Villaneuve’s fleet is formidable, comprising 33 heavy duty warships, with some 30,000 sailors and 2,568 guns. 

At 11AM on October 21, they encounter the British navy, under the command of Captain Horatio Nelson, aboard his HMS Victory. 

Nelson is already a legend within the Royal Navy. He enlists as an Ordinary Seaman at age twelve, serving under his uncle, Captain Maurice Suckling, who turns him into a first rate sailor, despite his lifelong bouts of seasickness. By December 1778, age twenty, he is Master and Commander of the sloop HMS Badger. He is engaged briefly around Boston and New York during America’s Revolutionary War, then becomes a national hero in February 1797, after capturing two Spanish warships at the Battle of St. Vincent.

He is almost killed on multiple occasions. In 1794 enemy shot leaves him blinded in his right eye. On July 24, 1797, his left arm is shattered by a musket ball while leading a failed landing party assault on the Canary Island city of Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Amputation follows. In 1798 Nelson is knocked unconscious by shrapnel during the victorious Battle of the Nile. Afterwards he is awarded the honorary titles of Baron and Viscount.

On October 21, 1805, Nelson has been battling the British and French off and on for some twelve years. He is 47 years old and Vice Admiral of the White (ensign) Fleet, second highest command in the Royal Navy. He has 27 warships at his disposal, with 17,000 men and 2,148  guns. 

At 8AM the two fleets spot each other from a distance, the French still heading south toward Gibraltar, the English coming at them from the west. Villaneuve order his four-masters “to wear”  (or jibe), reversing course to head back to Cadiz. But Nelson keeps coming onto him. The famous command — “England expects that every man will do his duty”—is flagged up.

Around noon, the ships close on one another, with traditional naval strategy calling for Nelson to turn and “form lines of battle” stations parallel to the enemy. Instead, he plows straight ahead, striking the French in perpendicular fashion, and bringing on a “pell-mell” series of ship-against-ship action favorable to his more skilled seaman. This move, executed at no small risk of receiving initial broadside fire, also allows him to shoot into the sterns of many French ships, with the fire traveling through the entire length of the ship, to the bow.  

Nelson himself commands the lead ship, HMS Victory, into the fray.

British Line Of Battle

As Victory locks with the French Redoubtable, a musket ball takes Nelson in the left shoulder, slices through his seventh cervical vertebrae and lodges in his right shoulder. He knows immediately that the wound is fatal, and says so to his surgeon.

You can do nothing for me. I have but a short time to live. My back is shot through.  

He lingers below decks for another 3½ hours, still issuing orders, before succumbing to his wound. His last words are recorded as “Thank God I have done my duty.”

And his victory at Trafalgar is striking. Villaneuve’s fleet has suffered one ship sunk, seventeen ships captured, another eleven partially damaged and only four escaping unscathed. Some 4,500 of their seamen are killed, with another 2,400 wounded and 7,000 taken prisoner. On the British side, no ships are lost for good and total dead and wounded total 1,450. 

The Royal Navy has again demonstrated its supremacy on the high seas, and Napoleon casts aside all thoughts of an invasion of the English Isles.  

Despite this, Britain mourns the loss of its most famous admiral. His body is packed inside a cask of brandy and other agents for preservation. This is towed home alone with his wounded ship, Victory. On January 9, 1806, England’s most famous naval figure is interred at St. Paul’s  Cathedral. 

December 2, 1805 – October 14, 1806

On Land, The French Win One Major Battle After Another

Napoleon is characteristically undaunted by the loss at Trafalgar.  

On December 2, 1805, in the nine hour “Battle of The Three Kings” – near Austerlitz (now in the Czech Republic) — his undermanned force (73,000 vs. 86,000) pulls a stunning victory against Alexander I of Russia and the Holy Roman Emperor Francis II. Casualties for the day total a staggering 36,000 men. In response to the loss, Francis gives up his Holy Roman title and becomes simply King of Austria. 

Less than a year later, on October 14, 1806, Napoleon soundly defeats the 110,000 man Prussian army, in the two-part battle of Jena-Auerstadt, winning control over territory in what is now central Germany and Poland. Casualties here are even greater than at Austerlitz, totaling 50,000  soldiers.

With these two pivotal triumphs, he now effectively controls all of Europe, except for Portugal, and he again moves against the British by imposing a Continental Blockade halting all trade with England in his Berlin Decree, issued on November 21, 1806. 

Napoleon’s Early Campaigns