Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Conversation
    The Conversation
    The Conversation
    Ebook54 pages45 minutes

    The Conversation

    By Jean D'Ormesson

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Several years after the French Revolution, in the winter of 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte has to make a crucial decision: to keep the main ideals of the new France alive or to elevate the country into a powerful base by making it an empire and becoming emperor.

    One evening at the Tuileries Residence in Paris, Second Consul Jean-Jacques Cambacérès, a brilliant law scholar and close ally, listens as Napoleon struggles to determine what will be best for a country much weakened by ten years of wars and revolutions. Torn between his revolutionary ideals and his overwhelming longing for power, Napoleon Bonaparte declares that it can only be achieved by his taking the throne.

    Bonaparte attempts to rally Cambacérès to his cause and maps out in great detail why France must become an empire, with him as its Emperor. The Republican hero desires only one thing: to forge his legend during his lifetime. France has arrived at a crossroads, and Bonaparte must break many barriers to fulfill his ambition. “An empire is a Republic that has been enthroned,” he declares. And so, through the night, French history is made. With historical erudition, d’Ormesson remarkably captures the man’s vertigo of triumph, which ultimately leads to his fall.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcade
    Release dateNov 6, 2013
    ISBN9781628722970
    The Conversation

    Related to The Conversation

    Related ebooks

    Biographical/AutoFiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • UNLIMITED

      Octavia E. Butler on Mars

      Dec 15, 2021

      Octavia E. Butler on Mars
      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Living Greatly

      Oct 22, 2019

      Living Greatly
      10 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Who Has Seen The Wind?

      Sep 17, 2024

      Who Has Seen The Wind?
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Taking Sides

      May 8, 2022

      Taking Sides
      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Guerrilla Thriller

      Feb 5, 2023

      Guerrilla Thriller
      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Of The People

      May 19, 2019

      Of The People
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      After The Fall

      Oct 15, 2021

      After The Fall
      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Collecting France’s Empire

      Jun 10, 2022

      It has become de rigour when writing about French Colonies stamps for the popular collecting press in Britain or North America nowadays to begin with a reminiscence on the pleasures of a juvenile treat. The delight came from opening and rummaging thr

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Regal Rise Of Le Petit Caporal

      Oct 27, 2022

      WITH RETROSPECT, Napoleon claimed that there was a specific moment when he first realised he was superior to other men. It was just after the Battle of Lodi (10 May 1796), when he was leading the French revolutionary army in Italy and his soldiers ha

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Shockwaves Of Revolution

      Jul 8, 2021

      Shockwaves Of Revolution
      10 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      France’s Unspoken, Unfinished Civil War

      Jun 30, 2022

      IT IS SUMMER NOW AND FRANCE is a fairyland of sunlight. But everywhere they look, the French see only their own shadow. Where does it come from, this little flicker of gloom that follows the French even when their days are long, their evenings warm,

      8 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Anniversaries

      Feb 18, 2021

      The ruthless Roman general ravages the Greek city Of all the great characters in Roman history, Lucius Cornelius Sulla ranks as one of the most ruthless. A brilliant general and cunning politician, he rose to fame in his campaigns against Rome’s enem

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Viveur Pitch

      Dec 1, 2023

      Viveur Pitch
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Many Faces Of Napoleon

      Nov 23, 2023

      The Many Faces Of Napoleon
      13 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      From Cantons To Shooting Thalers

      May 8, 2019

      The end of the 18th century revealed the decrepit dysfunction of the old governing system, which was a bunch of violent criminals doing whatever they pleased with other people’s time and money. All of human history has been megalomaniacal tyrants, pu

      9 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Defender Of The Faith

      Oct 2, 2017

      The Spanish lancers bore down on their Dutch counterparts outside Gembloux on 31 January 1578, in the Walloon province of Namur, and scattered them like ashes in the wind. Soon the fabled Spanish tercios, led by Don John of Austria, arrived on the fi

      7 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Anniversaries

      May 9, 2024

      Anniversaries
      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The End Of Empire

      Jun 17, 2020

      The End Of Empire
      8 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Rise Of Napoleon

      Nov 2, 2023

      The Rise Of Napoleon
      10 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Silkworms of San Leucio

      Jul 4, 2024

      The Silkworms of San Leucio
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Letters

      May 12, 2022

      I feel that the article concerning Napoleon (April) was unfair to its subject. While his later career frequently saw his original ideals undermined by the reality of power, he was from the first a believer in the revolution, as his letters and genera

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Conversation

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Conversation - Jean D'Ormesson

      PROLOGUE

      CROSSING THE RUBICON

      There are moments when historical events seem poised to reveal their full significance: Alexander the Great at the head of his army, on the verge of taking on the vast and inexhaustible Persian Empire; Hannibal preparing to cross the Alps with his elephants, to strike at the heart of Rome; Caesar, of course, standing on the banks of the Rubicon; dawn on June 17, 1940, in Bordeaux, that instant before General Charles de Gaulle climbed into General Edward Spears’ plane—bound for London, and for what appeared a hopeless, if glorious, act of resistance.

      The moment I will try to capture here involves Napoleon Bonaparte, at the height of his adoration by the French people, whom he has pulled back from the abyss created by years of chaos and misrule. He is on the brink of declaring himself Emperor of France.

      We must keep in mind what led up to this moment. In November 1799, the thirty-year-old Bonaparte, just returned from conquering Egypt, triumphed over the Vicompte de Barras, head of the Directory, and, with assistance from his brother, Lucien, and Abbé Sieyès, succeeded in his coup d’état on 18 Brumaire in the Revolutionary Year VIII, ending the Directory’s four-year rule. The five directors (only the first two really counted)—Barras, Sieyès, Louis-Jérôme Gohier, Roger Ducos, and Jean-François Moulin—were replaced by a Consular Committee (commission consulaire), consisting of three members—Sieyès, Ducos, and Bonaparte himself. This would itself soon be replaced, following the terms of a new Constitution, by yet another triumvirate: Bonaparte, who was to be called First Consul; Jean-Jacques Régis de Cambacérès, Second Consul; and Charles-François Lebrun, Third Consul. The First Consul held the true power. The others were mainly advisers.

      At the start of the Consulate, France was in a perilous state. Business and industry were a shambles. Industrial output had diminished by 60 percent in Paris, and by 85 percent in Lyon. The ports of Marseille and Bordeaux were effectively closed. The network of roads had been destroyed. Coach service had become completely unreliable. Everywhere, and especially in Provence and in the West, roving bands of brigands operated almost uncontested. The forests and fields were devastated. The currency had been devalued by 99 percent. The state’s coffers were empty; soldiers and government employees complained they were due a year’s-worth of salary. There were no taxes, no budget, no balance sheets. The country had lost its way and become victim to every form of excess and abuse. For four years, from Revolutionary Year VIII until XII, meaning from the end of 1799 until the beginning of 1804, Bonaparte worked tirelessly to get France back on its feet.

      In February 1800, three months after the coup of 18 Brumaire, a referendum on the Consulate resulted in more than three-million Frenchmen voicing their support for Bonaparte; a mere 1,500 opposed him. The First Consul moved into the former royal palace in the Tuileries, then into the one in Saint-Cloud. He founded the Banque de France; sealed the borders and declared amnesty for those who had already immigrated; stage-managed the Concordat of 1801, restoring to the Roman Catholic Church its civil status; revamped public education; created the lycée school system and the Légion d’honneur; and minted the first French franc—in his own image. He also crossed the

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1