An Analysis of Napoleon’s Propoganda
The painting above was painted in 1804 by Antoine-Jean Gros and depicts Napoleon visiting the plague-ridden French troops at Jaffa, Syria in 1799. This painting was intended to portray the French Emperor as an almost Christ-like figure whose virtue and courage justified the horrible costs of war. The more immediate purpose, however, was to repudiate the claims of the British press that Napoleon had attempted to execute his diseased troops during his retreat to Cairo. This painting shows the way that Napoleon directly used art as propaganda.
After Napoleon claimed the French crown, he faced the challenging task of establishing his legitimacy with all three French estates. Without something connecting Napoleon to the French people, his armies would wither and his support in France would wane. Understanding this, and to counteract it, he knew that it was essential to foster patriotism among the French people. But how was he to reach the multitude of different people? The majority of France was illiterate, but the most powerful and influential citizens were literate. And what about the military? In this essay, I intend to prove that Napoleon’s use of a multimedia approach to propaganda was paramount in establishing the cult of personality that he would later use to come back from his exile to Elba.
Napoleon used newspapers to report on his military endeavors – first in Italy and later in Egypt. In Italy, he founded two different newspapers called the Courrier de l’Armée d’Italie and La France Vue de l’Armée d’Italie both of which addressed a different portion of the French population. The Courrier de l’Armée d’Italie was intended for the troops and the masses at home. It countered rumors that Napoleon’s campaign was failing and glossed over his defeats. Meanwhile, the La France Vue de l’Armée d’Italie was aimed at the revolutionary elite and provided a much more scholarly approach, describing the lands conquered and the exotic new intellectual discoveries found there.
Napoleon’s propaganda campaign in Egypt was different, however. Even before he set out, he knew that the expedition would be reported on even more than his Italian campaign. He recruited 160 scholars in different fields of study to accompany him; while this was driven in part by his genuine interest in history and other scholarly fields, it was also a propaganda coup. It allowed him to show himself as a man of the Enlightenment, and the newspapers reflected this. To distract from his many military failures, the papers often neglected to report on military actions, focusing instead on the work and discoveries of the scholars. This style of reporting only victories while always keeping the war in the public focus caused Paris to overflow with admiration and praise of Napoleon’s great campaigns. [2]
As Paris filled with tales of Napoleon’s battles from his newspapers, it is not surprising that artists became inspired by him. A large part of the artistic scene in France became focused on him and Napoleon encouraged this. He knew that by being depicted by coins, poems, plays, busts, and paintings, he would emblazon his image in the minds of the illiterate citizens of France. Once he became emperor, Napoleon commissioned some of the greatest artists of his time to portray him in heroic stances, winning wars, and in royal garments, all of which boosted public opinion. Napoleon also used art to appeal to tradition. In a painting done by Jacques Louis David in 1807, he can be seen at his coronation being blessed by the pope, invoking a level of ritual not seen since Charlemagne some 1000 years earlier. (See Appendix A.) Additionally, Napoleon was often depicted as a semi-religious figure. In 1810, Innocent-Louis Goubaud drew [insert full title here, especially since the title bears out your point that the works were done to burnish Napoleon’s image and were “suck-up” pieces]. (See Appendix B.) In this work, Napoleon can be seen sitting atop a globe, dressed in an imperial mantle, crowned with a laurel wreath, and holding a scepter featuring the Hand of Justice. He is surrounded by the dark clouds of Destiny swirling around him. From the beginning of his campaigns, Napoleon used pictures as well as words to deliver propaganda to the French people.
Napoleon undoubtedly tried to spread his image and establish his cult of personality, but did it work?
Well, consider this: in April of 1814, Napoleon was exiled to Elba following the Treaty of Fontainebleau. More than 11 months later in March of 1815, Napoleon and a thousand troops from Elba landed at Golfe-Juan on the south coast of France. Firing no shot in his defense, Napoleon’s ragtag force grew until it became an army. On the 5th of March, his old military regiments began to return en masse. An anecdote illustrates the depth of Napoleon's cult of personality: when troops were deployed to stop Napoleon's forces at Laffrey, France, Napoleon stepped out in front of them, ripped open his coat, and said "If any of you will shoot his Emperor, here I am." The men that were sent to stop him instead joined him[3]. On the 19th of March, Napoleon entered Paris and took the French capital without firing a single shot. The people of France rejoiced at his return. Despite ultimately failing, Napoleon’s return illustrates just how generally loved among the French public he was.
Without a doubt, Napoleon was successful in securing the loyalty of the French people. By founding newspapers on the front, he cultivated public opinion and cultivated patriotism among French citizens. By using art and other forms of non-literary depiction, he spread his image and generated a cult of personality. Finally, as seen in the Hundred Days after his return, Napoleon was greatly loved by the French population, proving the effectiveness of his propaganda campaigns.
[1] https://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/napoleon-bonaparte-visiting-plague-stricken-jaffa
[2] https://www.warhistoryonline.com/napoleon/napoleon-used-media-boost-greatness.html
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Days