Napoleon's hat, worn in the Russian campaign.
Yesterday, with several hours between downtown meetings, we went to the current big exhibition at Montreal's Beaux-Arts Museum, about life at Napoleon's court. Ten years ago, the museum received a large bequest of one of the world's largest collections of Napoleonic memorabilia, from Ben Weider, the Montreal-born Canadian fitness entrepreneur. According to the notes on the exhibition, Weider had a lifelong fascination with the French ruler, and believed he had been wronged by history and was poisoned by the English on St. Helena. He was the founder and president of the International Napoleonic Society, became a member in 2000 of the French Legion of Honor (established by Napoleon himself) theories on Napoleonic history. Whatever that has to say about Weider, or Quebec, I won't speculate, but the fact is that in conjunction with major museums and collections in France, the Beaux-Arts has mounted a large and impressive exhibition that does give a pretty good idea of what life at Napoleon's court was like.
Hand-painted Sèvres porcelain.
Hand-embroidered waistcoat and jacket for a man in the Grand Chamberlain's service.
The exhibition includes major paintings by David, Ingres, Gros, Prud'hon and Gerard, as well as gold and vermiel tableware from Napoleon's court; hand-painted Sevres china; hunting rifles; elaborately embroidered clothing; furniture; a collection of cardboard soldiers representing the various regiments; crucifixes, candle-stands and communion vessels from the private chapel; and paintings and artifacts from the exiles on Elba and St Helena.
Portrait of Talleyrand, by Paul Prud'hon.
There were portraits by the great French painters of that time of all the major figures of the court, his two wives, the popes and cardinals -- and there were paintings of hunting, of wars, of favorite horses, of parades through Paris, of women of the court with their children. The overriding impression though, was of a man who calculated how to style himself as Emperor and did everything in his power to establish and maintain his ultimate sovereignty.
Portrait of Raza Roustam, Mameluke (1806) by Jacques Nicholas Paillot de Montabert. Raza Roustam had been kidnapped in Georgia at the age of thirteen and became a Mameluke -- the Arabic term for slave -- in the service of the bey of Cairo. During the Egyptian campaign, he was presented to Napoleon, who afterwards kept him at his side, attached to the royal household; Roustam slept outside Napoleon's bedroom "His primary function was that of a good-natured and non-threatening figure splendidly garbed in muslin and trimmings with a role in the spectacle of everyday life in the imperial court."
"The Dream of Ossian," painted by Ingres for the ceiling of Napoleon's bedroom in the Roman palace he never occupied; Ingres bought back the painting after Napoleon's death and reworked it.
It's astounding that a man who rose to power after the French Revolution had toppled the monarchy could have had such overreach, such megalomania, and established a court with as much excess as the Kings of France. Napoleon even styled his son "The King of Rome," and imprisoned the the pope who had crowned him after installing his own uncle, a cardinal, as the religious figurehead of his realm. And the people who had only a little earlier cried "off with their heads!" accepted it! It's incredible!
I walked through the rooms with a strange combination of disgust mixed with appreciation for the sheer beauty and workmanship in the paintings, textiles, and porcelain in particular. And I was grateful to be seeing these paintings in Montreal, where security is minimal, the galleries aren't crowded and a visitor like me can get close to the surface of the paintings to study them. Regardless of the subjects they were painting, the French artists of that time were astounding masters.
And then we returned home to the news of the current American president's plans for a great military parade: a president who already believes himself above the law, spends the taxpayers' money like water, has no compassion for the poor or disenfranchised, and could easily involve the nation is more wars. There's really not much to say; the agonized eyes of Ossian's dog express the feelings better than words.
