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Art
Beyond Waterloo
A private collection on exhibit in Tallahassee gives a different perspective on the life of Napoleon Bonaparte.
By LENNIE BENNETT
Published March 12, 2006
I tend to divide famous dead people into two groups, those with whom I would like to dine and those I would not. n I can't decide about Napoleon Bonaparte. n That he was a complex, brilliant person is undisputed. But was he the kind of guy you could talk to? n Could Napoleon appreciate a joke or warm to a revelatory tete-a-tete? You will get few answers from "Napoleon: An Intimate Portrait" at the Museum of Florida History in Tallahassee, though it is worth seeing if you have even a passing interest in the Napoleonic era. "Napoleon" is a big show, nicely displayed and full of memorabilia, historical documents, art, jewelry and decorative objects, that strives to present a comprehensive study of the man but persists in having a sense of randomness, due probably to its provenance as a private collection. Pierre-Jean Chalencon, who owns it, has spent most of his life getting his hands on anything associated with the emperor-warrior. The results are impressive, the collection said to be one of the largest in the world. What has eluded Chalencon are the many unattainable treasures residing in museums that a more formally curated show might have made possible. So instead of getting a lavish display of military regalia or empire gowns, we have a soiled sleeve from one of Napoleon's velvet coats, removed, replaced but saved by his tailor, from whose family it was purchased. We learn an interesting fact about Napoleon as a result - that he was something of a cheapskate, about clothes anyway, who loathed discarding a perfectly good jacket that could be rehabilitated, a characteristic that would forever separate him from the blue-blooded aristocracy he constantly tried to trump. Art as art is minimal. The portraits and sculptures are mostly of the show's star and their value is in the changing face and figure of Bonaparte, from an etching of a dashing young general to a posthumous painting of a paunchy man with a comb-over who looks old beyond his years. In between are bronze, marble and plaster busts that reflect the neoclassicism of their time, one heroically proportioned, that present Napoleon in the style of a Roman emperor. An anomaly of him as the Corsican-featured man he was, one he actually posed for, we're told, stands out from the rest. Portraits show him in regal robes, supplemented by cases of actual accessories such as a red Legion of Honor sash and medal, an award he created to honor service to the empire. The most telling, sometimes poignant objects reveal Napoleon's relentless striving. He must have shimmered with ambition, even at the age of 10 when he entered a French military college and was mocked and ostracized for his provincial manners, his Italian accent and his lesser lineage. A letter written to a cousin when he was 15 lists his demanding, self-imposed daily regimen. By the time he was 16, he was a second lieutenant. His genius quickly became apparent and, after facing down the British fleet at Toulon and displaying a great deal of personal bravery, he became a brigadier general while still in his 20s. The exhibition is sprinkled throughout with his beloved maps, battle paraphernalia and other evidence of his extraordinary gifts as a strategist. The exhibition tracks his canny rise to greater power. His Egyptian campaign, intended to harass the British, began with glorious promise. Napoleon hauled a team of scientists, scholars and artists with the army who were charged with producing a body of work about the relatively unknown region. We see an engraving of a sting ray, for example, by Pierre Redoute, who would become famous for his botanical prints, and drawings of palms and the pyramids that would fuel a decorative craze for Egyptian-inspired motifs. But when victory in battle seemed unlikely, Napoleon abandoned the army to another general and returned in triumph to Paris to further his political agenda, behavior he would repeat with different, disastrous results during the retreat from Moscow 14 years later in 1812. Napoleon quickly seized absolute power and initiated a series of "reforms"- some of them truly commendable, others blatantly self-serving. He crowned himself emperor in 1804 in a lavish, stirring ceremony commemorated in several hand-colored prints here, along with velvet cushions, a section of wall covering and a wooden plaque made to adorn Notre Dame. A dress coat worn by one of Napoleon's ministers is exquisitely embroidered with silver thread. A gold medallion cast for the occasion is embossed with the emperor in profile wearing a crown of laurels. Napoleon's nepotism was legendary but there are few allusions to it. Evidence of his affection for his stepson can be surmised from a portrait as the general's aide-de-camp and later the Viceroy of Italy. His sisters and brothers, whom he placed on various European thrones, are partially represented in a few portraits and possessions. A touching inclusion is the small plaster hand of his son, Napoleon II, who was separated from him as an infant after Napoleon abdicated and Marie-Louise, the child's mother and the emperor's second empress, returned to her royal Austrian family. Napoleon was said to be a doting father but we have no proof of it. Instead, there is a tender letter to "ma chere maman" in a perfect schoolboy hand. The most fascinating of Napoleon's relationships, with his first wife, Josephine, is explored superficially. He fell in love with the older, more sophisticated woman some considered her a courtesan and was tortured by her infidelities. As his fortunes rose, the emotional balance of power shifted and she became the supplicant. He philandered, too; a portrait of one of his mistresses is in the show. He crowned Josephine empress anyway, in 1804, then divorced her five years later because she could bear no heir. A few pieces of her china are here, some bibelots. The most riveting object is the red leather portfolio, heavy with gold leaf, containing the Bonapartes' bill of annulment. It is painfully eloquent in its official elegance. Josephine retreated to the Malmaison villa, where she died in 1814, shortly after Napoleon was banished to Elba. A lock of her chestnut hair was clipped and preserved. Napoleon's reaction to her demise is not mentioned in the exhibition. Engravings and drawings from the miserable failure of the Russian campaign on the heels of a punishing occupation in Spain lead us to Napoleon's downfall. Objects include his spartan collapsible metal campaign bed, an engraved copper pot and a grenadier's hat. Napoleon's army was routed in 1813, Paris fell and Napoleon was bundled off to Elba. He staged a brief comeback, sending his replacement, the ineffectual Louis XVIII, scurrying out of Paris. Louis' portrait is juxtaposed with Napoleon's symbol of return, a gilded wood Eagle of One Hundred Days, the approximate duration of his second reign. Napoleon at this point was in a deep pickle. After his defeat at Waterloo, the British shipped him off to the barren rock of St. Helena far off in the Atlantic Ocean and too remote for any hope of escape. It was a diminished life, reduced to a single set of silver tableware kept in a small case and too few books to while away the hours. The British guardians seem to have been humane but little more, and historical sources say (though there is no allusion in the show) that he continued to be autocratic toward the loyal few who followed him into exile. "Napoleon" is full of small revelations amid this trove, tantalizing as an amuse bouche. The assumption is that we can extrapolate an opinion based on them. That, of course, is the realm of historical fiction. In fairness to the collection, Napoleon himself was intent on creating a mythology about himself, and in his time that meant a persona of majesty and mystery - which was doable when the regime controlled most media - rather than today's paparazzi-fueled cult of personality. And much was obliterated after Napoleon's last exit from Paris too. What has survived indicates a lack of introspection, an aversion to emotional intimacy. Still, we yearn for more glamor than the long johns and shirt he wore during his final exile on St. Helena or the scraps of silk from Versailles. And what do his toothpicks and toothpaste tell us? Napoleon's only child, who became the Duke of Reichstadt through his mother's family, died in 1832, about 11 years after his father, without an heir. Josephine, the woman scorned for dynastic ambitions, got the last word. Napoleon married his brother to Hortense, Josephine's daughter from her first marriage, and made them King and Queen of Holland. Their offspring relate Josephine more directly than Napoleon to the royal houses of Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Greece. The exhibition ends with one of Napoleon's "broadside" hats, slightly battered but more iconic and noble than any crown, and testimony to his most enduring passion. Search Google for Napoleon quotes and you find only stentorian cliches from Bonaparte. On the day of my search, four out of the first seven sites were devoted to the 2004 cult hit Napoleon Dynamite. In the movie, the loopy protagonist is asked on a school bus ride what he's going to do that day. "Whatever I feel like I wanna do," he replies. Maybe that's the point, and the lonely consequence, of all Napoleons. * * * The Museum of Florida History also has a large and engrossing permanent collection about the state's past that's worth an extended tour. The Napoleon connection is part of that history. His nephew Charles Louis Napoleon Achille Murat bought plantations in Florida in the 1820s, married the great-grandniece of George Washington and became a prominent member of the Tallahassee community. He is buried in a local cemetery. Objects from their estate are set up near "Napoleon." Lennie Bennett can be reached at (727) 893-8293 or lennie@sptimes.com.
[Last modified March 10, 2006, 12:00:55]
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Fifty years ago, they were screwed-up kids sent to the Florida School for Boys to be straightened out. But now they are screwed-up men, scarred by the whippings they endured. Read the story and see a video and portrait gallery.
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