Word: napoleon
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...large grey smudge was included in an unsigned review of From 'Prentice to Patron, a biography of Isaiah Thomas, early U. S. printer. The undecipherable line was in a review by Lewis H. Titterton of With Napoleon in Russia, the newly-discovered memoirs of Napoleon's aide, General Armand de Caulaincourt* (TIME, Dec. 2). The line was at the end of a quotation from Napoleon which de Caulaincourt had offered as proof of the Emperor's unscrupulousness in winning allies...
...recently discovered memoirs as its choice for December. Readers found it an extraordinary portrait of a despot at the moment of his greatest eminence and the beginning of his fall, might question its authenticity only because the story of its discovery seemed too pat to be believed. After Napoleon's fall Caulaincourt lived in retirement, was stung to reply when rivals published memoirs that discredited him. His family withheld his exposures, fearing libel, until 1914. During the German invasion the manuscript was walled up in the Caulaincourt Chateau, lost when the chateau was blown up, found in 1933 when...
...With Napoleon in Russia begins in 1811, when Napoleon, confiding in no one, had already decided to go to war with Tsar Alexander. When Caulaincourt, who had been Russian Ambassador, warned him against the war, assured him that Alexander wanted peace, Napoleon said, "You speak like a Russian." Napoleon insisted with mixed irritation and playfulness that Caulaincourt had become Alexander's man. Forthright, convinced that the plan was suicide, Caulaincourt persisted even after he had been publicly humiliated by Napoleon, snubbed at receptions, rebuffed in his plans for marriage...
Unlike most accounts of the Russian campaign. Napoleon's victories seem, in Caulaincourt's account, almost more 'terrible than the famed retreat from Moscow. Day after day Napoleon's army raced after the fleeing Russians, whose complete disappearance seemed more mysterious and frightening as the troops became exhausted. None of Napoleon's spies returned. Counting on peasants to supply information and food, he found the country deserted. Believing that a battle would lead Alexander to sue for peace, he feverishly pursued an army that spread so widely he could scarcely determine the direction...
High point of With Napoleon in Russia is the description of Napoleon's taking of Moscow, a triumph literally turned to ashes. Before the retreat, as the advance guard pushed on, Napoleon and most of his staff were nearly captured when the army and wandering Cossacks unexpectedly collided. During the retreat, Caul-aincourt saw refugees who were clinging to wagons fall off, be crushed beneath the wheels, while stupefied drivers were heartened at the lightening of their loads. He saw horses that fell, torn apart for food before they were killed. Pursuer and pursued mixed in a vast mass...