[Teaser] Napoleon's Old Guard

I'm excited to share with you all the beginnings of the documentary in production on Napoleon's Old Guard. We've got some exciting new Napoleonic content in the works, including Napoleonic reenactors for our Live History series! For now, enjoy this teaser of the Old Guard script.

Intro

Napoleon Bonaparte rose to prominence over the course of the French Revolutionary Wars, eventually emerging as the Emperor of France to make war upon the powers of Europe who dared to defy him. Napoleon’s long, bloody campaigns would see him hailed as one of the greatest military commanders of history. And yet even he would admit that these victories were won on the back of his soldiers, and in particular the most devoted veterans of the Grande Armée. Referred to by Napoleon as his children and by the rank and file as The Immortals they stood as one of the most feared military units of its age. Today let us cover the vaunted history of the Old Guard.

Origins

For centuries, the cream of an army could be found in those units trusted to guard the person of the monarch. While rulers largely ceased to lead their armies in person by the 18th century, their guards continued to form an elite corps within the army, and the French kings with their military households were no exception. Their guard consisted of three main formations: the French Guard, the Garde du Corps, or Bodyguard, and the Swiss Guard.  These corps fought in many campaigns over the 18th century, but the Revolution that embroiled France from 1789 would spell their end. The French Guard defected to join the Revolution with the storming of the Bastille in 1789, the Body Guard was disbanded in 1791 after the Women’s March on Versailles, and the Swiss Guard was annihilated defending the palace of the Tuileries from revolutionaries in 1792. This was not the end of France’s troubles; war with Austria and Prussia had been underway since April and June, respectively, and a succession of coups and uprisings would embroil Paris for years to come.

While the French revolution abolished the guard formations of the monarchy, the need to protect leading statesmen was only more urgent in this time of upheaval.  For this purpose, the French Republic formed two units that would become the foundations of the Imperial Guard.

The first was the Grenadiers of the Legislature. Later renamed the Guards of the Legislative Body, this corps was the largest of those that would later form the Old Guard at about 1200 men, and included many former French Guards among their ranks. Their most notable action was in the Vendee, the theatre of a brutal civil war between the Revolutionary government and the Catholic and Royal Army in western France. This represented an alliance between the peasants, who resented the National Convention’s policy of conscription, and the nobility and church, who resented the policies of land redistribution. Once the revolutionary government crushed the Catholic and Royal Army in battle, they laid much of the region to waste in retaliation for the uprising.

The second major unit in the Old Guard’s ancestry was the Guard of the Directory.  The Directory was the government of France that emerged out of the Thermidorean Reaction, in which the National Convention overthrew Maximilian Robespierre and his Committee of Public Safety, the architects of the Reign of Terror that had gripped France since 1793. The Directory’s architects designed it to be a more conservative government that its predecessors. The Constitution of the Year III imposed property requirements on voters, and elections were indirect, with voters choosing electors who would actually elect legislators.  These legislators served in two councils; the lower house was the Council of 500, and the upper the Council of Ancients, selected from the oldest legislators. The Council of 500 nominated potential Directors, with the Council of Ancients making the selection from the list. These Directors comprised the French Executive.

The Guard of the Directory consisted of two companies of foot guards and two of horse guards, for a total of 120 infantry and 120 cavalry. These men had to be at least 25 years of age and combat veterans of two campaigns of the Revolutionary Wars. The directory also required its Guard be literate, and at least 5’10” tall, using English measurements.

Bonaparte himself composed a small corps dubbed the Horse Guides to protect his person after he was nearly captured by a party of Austrian cavalry early in his First Italian Campaign. These accompanied him on the 1799 expedition to Egypt, and a few returned with him to France.

The Guards of the republic played a crucial role in the 1799 coup that brought Bonaparte to power.  Seeing the country embroiled in civil strife, scandal, corruption, and defeat on the battlefield, powerful politicians sought a ‘sword’ with which they could end the ailing Directory and form a new government for the moderate center.  Popular after his victories in Italy and Egypt but without a powerful army, they settled on Napoleon; this “sword” would prove to have two edges.

The Brumairians executed the coup in two steps, on the 9th and 10th of November respectively.

The first step had been neutralizing the directory; two of the plotters were already members, two were imprisoned until they resigned, and the last they bribed into departing.  The executive branch was now vacant.

Next, the plotters announced that an uprising was underway and used their support in the Council of Ancients to remove the legislative meeting place from Paris, ostensibly for their safety.  This would deprive the radical Jacobins of the Parisian mob, their strongest pillar, and left them isolated against the troops loyal to Napoleon.  The vote was held early in the morning at the Tuileries, and the Guard of the Directory delivered invitations only to allies of the plotters to ensure its success.

With 7,000 men, Napoleon escorted the legislature to the chateau of St. Cloud. There the legislative bodies demanded evidence of the supposed uprising and the identities of its leaders.  Napoleon’s answers failed to satisfy them, and recognizing the coup in progress, the chamber erupted into brawling chaos. Many in the Council of 500 shouted for Napoleon to be outlawed, and weakly he staggered from their chamber. Their Guard was close at hand, putting Napoleon in danger.

Napoleon’s brother, Lucien, though, was the president of this Council, and sent word that decisive intervention was needed within 10 minutes.  Napoleon then told the Guard that the president requested to be removed from the chamber; once outside, Lucien accused some deputies of the Council of being British pawns, of attempting to assassinate his brother, and of holding the other deputies hostage with daggers drawn.  He then drew a sword and declared he would kill Napoleon himself if he ever betrayed the Republic.

The Guard was convinced. With a column of grenadiers behind him, Charles Dumoulin declared to the chamber:

‘In the name of General Bonaparte, the legislature is dissolved. Good citizens must leave.’

The council dispersed; a few allies were recalled to put a legislative rubber stamp on the coup, turning power over to a provisional government led by three Consuls and Napoleon Bonaparte. After a ten year experiment with representative government, the French people now stood by as a dictator consolidated power; few mourned the Directory’s passing, and for most French, the republic had brought little but war, taxes, and conscription.

The Guards of the Legislature and the Directory became the Guard of the Consuls, standing by as Napoleon wrested power from the other plotters and promulgated a new constitution in which he ruled France as First Consul, and when the Senate —largely appointed by Napoleon as First Consul— declared him Emperor in 1804, the Consular Guard became the Imperial Guard.  They had helped solidify the new regime’s victory over the Second Coalition, and as the Peace of Amiens crumbled and a Third Coalition loomed on the horizon, the new Emperor would need his “marching rampart” more than ever.

But before we get to this history, let us acquaint ourselves with the men of the Guard itself, starting with their equipment, which varied by unit.  At the inception of the Imperial Guard, the vast bulk of its infantry served in either the Corps of Foot Grenadiers or the Corps of Foot Chasseurs. They will be the main subject of this video, but Old Guard also included a Battalion of Sailors; originally intended to man Napoleon’s ship for the invasion of England, they found themselves pressed into infantry and artillery service, despite their cavalry-style uniforms.  A company of Veterans also existed as a way to honor distinguished soldiers no longer fit for active service.