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The Official Word: Justifying Sensitive Napoleonic Policies, 1804-1815 Richard J

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The Official Word: Justifying Sensitive Napoleonic Policies, 1804-1815 Richard J Florida State University Libraries Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School 2015 The Official Word: Justifying Sensitive Napoleonic Policies, 1804-1815 Richard J. Siegler Follow this and additional works at the FSU Digital Library. For more information, please contact [email protected] FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES THE OFFICIAL WORD: JUSTIFYING SENSITIVE NAPOLEONIC POLICIES, 1804-1815 BY RICHARD J SIEGLER A Thesis submitted to the Department of History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2015 Richard Siegler defended this thesis on April 13, 2015. The members of the supervisory committee were: Rafe Blaufarb Professor Directing Thesis G. Kurt Piehler Committee Member Jonathan Grant Committee Member The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies that the thesis has been approved in accordance with university requirements. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank Rafe Blaufarb for his invaluable advice and support throughout the completion of this thesis. Equal thanks are due to G. Kurt Piehler and Jonathan Grant for providing me with critique and bringing vastly different perspectives that have improved my thesis tremendously. All three of these professors have constantly challenged me to develop and hone my skills as a young historian both inside and outside the classroom. I am also immensely grateful to the Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution and Department of History for providing me with funding and assistance during my time at Florida State University. Much of the research for this thesis has come out of the stellar Special Collections housed at Florida State’s Strozier Library. A special thank you is also due to my good friend and Rare Books Librarian William Modrow. Without his tremendous support, humor, and insight during the hours I spent in Special Collections reading through mountains of Le Moniteur articles, the experience would have certainly not been the same. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ............................................................................................................................................v INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................................................1 CHAPTER ONE: A MOTION FOR HEREDITY ........................................................................29 CHAPTER TWO: THE CREATION OF THE IMPERIAL NOBILITY, 1806-1808 ..................51 CHAPTER THREE: ELEVATION OF JOSEPH BONAPARTE TO THE THRONE OF SPAIN, FEBRUARY TO JUNE 1808 ........................................................................................................71 CHAPTER FOUR: THE FAMILIAR STORY OF A FRENCH MONARCH MARRYING AN AUSTRIAN ARCHDUCHESS .....................................................................................................91 CHAPTER FIVE: A REIMAGINED LIBERAL EMPEROR DURING THE CENT-JOURS, MARCH 1815 ..............................................................................................................................104 CONCLUSION: GAZETTE NATIONALE OU LE MONITEUR UNIVERSEL AS THE SOUL AND FORCE OF THE NAPOLEONIC STATE ........................................................................120 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................127 Biographical Sketch .....................................................................................................................133 iv ABSTRACT My thesis explores how Napoleon and his bureaucrats crafted justifications for five sensitive shifts in domestic policy from 1804 to 1815. More specifically, how the Napoleonic state used the official press organ of the French government, the Gazette Nationale ou le Moniteur Universel, to present those justifications for public consumption is the central aim of this thesis. While largely assumed to be an instrument of propaganda for the Napoleonic regime, Le Moniteur has received few detailed studies as to the language, timing, and frequency of articles inserted into the political section of the official journal; of how the Napoleonic state used language to influence public opinion. My thesis will rectify this conspicuous absence and illustrate how Napoleon’s government explained its increasingly monarchical character through several key examples: (1) the creation of the hereditary empire in 1804; (2) the creation of an imperial noblesse from 1806 to 1808; (3) the elevation of Joseph Bonaparte to the throne of Spain in 1808; and (4) Napoleon’s marriage to Austrian archduchess Marie-Louise in 1810. The fifth chapter on Napoleon’s return to France in 1815 during the Cent-Jours is the exception that proves the rule. Returning from Elba, Napoleon used Le Moniteur to justify his return in a new “liberal” light, abandoning the overt monarchical character of his previous rule. This is a story of how the Napoleonic state attempted to carefully package meticulous justifications and extensive explanations for these sensitive changes that marked significant departures from previous domestic policy, for the French reading public. v INTRODUCTION Soon after its establishment in 1799 with the coup of 18 Brumaire, the Napoleonic state granted one of the most popular newspapers during the French Revolution, the Gazette nationale ou le Moniteur universel, the title of official journal of the French Republic.1 This decision to privilege a single newspaper as the official journal meant that Le Moniteur’s political section, covering both domestic and international news, was to be controlled directly by the government through Hugues-Bernard Maret’s state department. As the official mouthpiece of the Napoleonic state from 1799 to 1815, Le Moniteur was used as a tool of propaganda to prepare public opinion for significant and sensitive changes in state policy. Moreover, Le Moniteur served as a vehicle by which the regime justified and explained a series of policies that harkened back to the decisions and institutions of monarchical France. Manipulation comes in many forms and is relative. Every single newspaper or periodical has an agenda, government controlled or private, whether that is a political agenda or simply an obligation to sell a product in order to continue the profitability of their business. Unlike in the regimes of the eighteenth-century, where matters of politics, religion, and philosophy often had to be addressed indirectly, through hints and suggestions, or disguised in the dry, matter-of-fact tone that predominated the period’s gazettes.2 The Napoleonic regime brought matters of politics, philosophy, and pragmatism to the forefront of their justifications for sensitive shifts in domestic politics. Their goal was not to address such issues indirectly as earlier regimes had, but to craft contexts of necessity surrounding the change and outline the state’s point of view 1 Gazette Nationale ou le Moniteur universel, no 97, septidi, 7 nivôse an VIII de la république française, une et indivisible (A Paris, de l’imprimerie du citoyen Agasse propriétaire du Moniteur, rue des Poitevins, no 18). 2 Hans-Jurgen Lusebrink and Jeremy D. Popkin, eds., Enlightenment, Revolution, and the Periodical Press (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2004), 10. 1 through conscientious timing and coverage, as well as precise language to fastidiously package state-approved rationales for public consumption. This thesis explores how Napoleon and the state bureaucrats working for the political bureau of the state department justified four policy shifts that evoked immediate comparisons with the policies of ancien régime France: 1) the creation of the hereditary French Empire in 1804; 2) the creation of the imperial nobility (noblesse) 1806-1808; 3) the elevation of Joseph Bonaparte to the throne of Spain in 1808; 4) and Napoleon’s marriage to Austrian archduchess Marie Louise in 1810. All of these political decisions were significant deviations in the previous trajectory of the Napoleonic state that began its tenure in 1799 as a republic and gradually transformed itself into an empire, which increasing bore the trappings and policies of traditional European monarchies. The fifth chapter is the exception that proves the rule of Le Moniteur’s role as a mechanism of justification that details Napoleon’s effort to recast himself as a liberal emperor upon his return from exile in 1815 during the Cent-Jours. The traditional historiographical view of the early-modern French press under Bourbon rule has been: “For the period up to the French Revolution in particular, the press has often been dismissed as uninteresting because of the presumption, fostered by the revolutionaries and accepted ever after, that, stifled by censorship, it reflected only an officially approved view of the world.”3 The French press under the Napoleonic regime was certainly censored and surveilled. Yet, the Napoleonic state’s willingness to consistently and thoroughly justify its policies through the official press organ of the government, Le Moniteur, has received no scholarly attention. Through often complex, extensive, and detailed explanations, Napoleon’s state actively sought to 3 Censer and Popkin, eds., Press and Politics in Pre-Revolutionary France (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 1987), 2. 2 prepare and placate public opinion through the articles and news it carefully and intentionally
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