The Pridi Banomyong Library Rare Book Room, Thammasat University, Tha Prachan campus, owns a number of rare and useful items of potential interest to students and researchers.
Among them is Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte by Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne, a French diplomat mainly remembered for his friendship with Napoleon Bonaparte.
The TU Library collection also includes several other books about different aspects of the life and historical impact of Napoleon.
Bourrienne first met Napoleon when they were eight years old, as schoolboys at the Military Academy at Brienne in Champagne, France.
Napoleon would later recall snowball fights that he directed:
Unfortunately the pleasure did not last long, for we put stones in the snowballs, so that many boys were injured, among them my friend Bourrienne, and the game was forbidden.
Napoleon also noted that at graduation when they were aged fifteen, he received the highest marks in all subjects.
By contrast, Bourrienne claimed that Napoleon was only successful in mathematics, whereas Bourrienne received the highest grades in all other classes.
Bonaparte continued his military studies and entered the army.
Bourrienne prepared for a diplomatic career, studying in Vienna, Austria, and Leipzig, Germany.
Appointed Secretary of the Legation at Stuttgart he remained there during the first years of the French Revolution, despite being ordered to return to France.
He did not do so until 1792, when he was reunited with Bonaparte in Paris.
They both witnessed the crowds threatening the French royal family in the Tuileries Gardens, one of the historical episodes of the French Revolution.
In 1795, Bourrienne was again in Paris, associating with Bonaparte, who by then was second in command of the Army of the Interior and soon left to command the Army of Italy.
Napoleon invited Bourrienne to Italy to help negotiate with Austria in 1797, using his knowledge of law and diplomacy.
Bourrienne understood that Napoleon would probably have a great career, so he began taking notes about him and saving relevant documents.
In 1796, he followed Bonaparte to Egypt as his private secretary.
After further travels, they worked on the Constitution of the Year VIII, which made Bonaparte First Consul for ten years.
Almost every day, Bourrienne arrived at 7am to work alongside Bonaparte, often continuing until 10pm.
At one point, Bourrienne left to become head of the police, but soon was recalled because Bonaparte needed him.
As Bonaparte became a dictator or monarch as Consul for Life, Bourrienne observed with admiration and concern how he seized power and obtained money for his family.
By the end of 1802, Bonaparte fired Bourrienne for no stated reason.
Historians suspect that Bonaparte was offended by Bourrienne’s financial speculations.
The two former friends never spoke again.
The memoirs which he later wrote about Napoleon offer a vivid, intimate, detailed account of his interactions with Napoleon and his mother, brothers and sisters.
Napoleon’s first wife Joséphine de Beauharnais and her children are described, as well as noted French politicians.
He recounts many discussions with leading personalities.
Although researchers have claimed that some of these conversations may not be recorded exactly, they are memorable and evocative.
Bourrienne often cites documents to back up his opinions.
Over the years, his rapport with Napoleon changed from that of a friend to colleague to rejected employee.
Nevertheless, Bourrienne apparently tried to give a fair portrait of Napoleon’s intelligence and statesmanship, as well as his political skills.
He also examined Napoleon’s hunger for power and money, his willingness to see French soldiers die in military campaigns, and his suppression of a free press.
Today, the Memoirs by Bourrienne always require fact checking when they are used by contemporary historians.
Still, one enthused reader, the German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe praised them in these terms:
All of the nimbus, all of the illusions, with which journalists and historians have surrounded Napoleon, vanishes before the awe-inspiring realisms of this book.
Here is a description by Bourrienne, quoting from recollections by his wife, of one meeting with Napoleon in mid-career. The incident underlines the strange sense of humor of Napoleon, who did not find a theatrical comedy funny, but he did laugh when telling of how a general was killed in battle:
Bonaparte remained in Paris, forming schemes for the gratification of his ambition, and his desire of making a figure in the world; but obstacles opposed all he attempted.
Women are better judges of character than men. Madame de Bourrienne, knowing the intimacy which subsisted between us, preserved some notes which she made upon Bonaparte, and the circumstances which struck her as most remarkable, during her early connection with him. My wife did not entertain so favourable an opinion of him as I did; the warm friendship I cherished for him probably blinded me to his faults. I subjoin Madame de Bourrienne’s notes, word for word:
On the day after our second return from Germany, which was in May 1795, we met Bonaparte in the Palais Royal, near a shop kept by a man named Girardin. Bonaparte embraced Bourrienne as a friend whom he loved and was glad to see. We went that evening to the Theatre Francais. The performance consisted of a tragedy; and [a comedy].
During the latter play the audience was convulsed with laughter. The part of Dasnieres was represented by Batiste the younger, and it was never played better. The bursts of laughter were so loud and frequent that the actor was several times obliged to stop in the midst of his part. Bonaparte alone (and it struck me as being very extraordinary) was silent, and coldly insensible to the humour which was so irresistibly diverting to everyone else. I remarked at this period that his character was reserved, and frequently gloomy.
His smile was hypocritical, and often misplaced; and I recollect that a few days after our return, he gave us one of these specimens of savage hilarity which I greatly disliked, and which prepossessed me against him. He was telling us that, being before Toulon, where he commanded the artillery, one of his officers was visited by his wife, to whom he had been but a short time married, and whom he tenderly loved.
A few days after, orders were given for another attack upon the town, in which this officer was to be engaged. His wife came to General Bonaparte, and with tears entreated him to dispense with her husband’s services that day. The General was inexorable, as he himself told us, with a sort of savage exaltation.
The moment for the attack arrived, and the officer, though a very brave man, as Bonaparte himself-assured us, felt a presentiment of his approaching death. He turned pale and trembled. He was stationed beside the General, and during an interval when the firing from the town was very heavy, Bonaparte called out to him, “Take care, there is a shell coming!”
The officer, instead of moving to one side, stooped down, and was literally severed in two. Bonaparte laughed loudly while he described the event with horrible minuteness.
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)