Say what you will about Napoleon, he was no slouch when it came to war and politics. His monumental ego did not get in the way of his overwhelming victories on the field of battle nor his success in bringing to the Nation of France a period of stability after the chaotic French Revolution.
I was charmed as a boy by a little 3-inch brass bust of Napoleon which my grandmother kept on her dresser and which I now possess. Napoleon greatly admired George Washington, as did most Americans who also responded with a great affection for Napoleon in those years. This to the extent even that my great grandfather’s middle name was “Napoleon”.
Napoleon’s favorite food was chicken. I found that out by discovering it had been served to him following the pivotal Battle of Marengo, in Italy.
In fact, there were two battles of Marengo on July 14, 1800. Napoleon lost the first one by 3:00 in the afternoon and then won the second one by dusk. He had stretched his army too thin and the opposing Austrian army had overrun it. However, one of his top generals, Louis Desaix, famously told Napoleon: “This battle is completely lost but there is still time to win another one.” Desaix then led a cavalry charge against the tired, battle-weary Austrians and soundly defeated them. Over 12,000 men on both sides were killed during the fighting on that single day. It was a huge loss for the Austrians and a stage-setting victory for Napoleon. General Desaix, also a personal friend of Napoleon, was killed in the charge which he led, gravely saddening Napoleon, who later would have Desaix’s name engraved into one of the stones of the Arch du Triomphe in Paris.
“Dunand, serve up immediately!”
Napoleon, who was notoriously superstitious, made it a point never to eat anything before or during a battle which meant that he was ravenous at the conclusion of one and this was the case at Marengo. He told his chef, Dunand, to rustle up a celebratory meal and be quick about it.
Alas, in the haste to engage the enemy, Dunand’s chuck wagon, with all its provisions and utensils, got left behind. And it was already getting dark. Dunand quickly rode away on horseback to surrounding farms where he foraged a chicken, a bottle of white wine, some tomatoes,a few mushrooms, eggs, basil, crawfish, even an iron skillet. He cut up the chicken with Napoleon’s sword and used the emperor’s own brandy to work up some culinary magic which he served to his boss. Napoleon loved it. He loved it so much that he ordered it to be served after every subsequent battle. And there were many battles during the Napoleonic Wars.
You Can Do This
In oil in a medium hot skillet, fry a whole chicken, cut up, seasoned, dredged in flour. When done, remove onto paper towels and set aside.
Meanwhile, boil a bottle of white wine until it is reduced by half. Set aside. Drain the frying oil from the skillet and add a tablespoon of olive oil.
Slice 2 onions, smash and chop 3 cloves of garlic, finely chop a handful of fresh basil and a handful of fresh parsley, slice enough fresh mushrooms to fill 2 cups then add all this into the skillet on medium heat and stir until softened.
Add the reduced white wine.
Add 3 fresh, ripe tomatoes cut up.
Add 2 teaspoons of chicken base paste.
Add the browned chicken pieces.
Pour in 1/2 cup of brandy.
Cover and simmer on low heat for 30 minutes.
Serve with a hot baguette.
Chicken Marengo first served to Napoleon. Now you can make it in your own kitchen. (So Eat your History!)
Napoleon Bonaparte’s history has receded into the sands of time and has been all but lost to current generations who think of him mainly as a short, military sort of guy with an inferiority complex who crowned himself Emperor and lost the Battle of Waterloo to the Duke of Wellington.
But the truth is that Napoleon was 5-feet, 7-inches tall, which was average height for a male human at that time, and won more battles than Alexander the Great. In the process of shaking up all of Europe, he also won more battles than Julius Caesar. Let that sink in before you dismiss Napoleon as second-rate. His impact in France and much of the rest of Europe was enormous, not least among reasons for which was his creation and subsequent enactment of France’s first Civil Code or “Napoleonic Code” in March, 1804.
Napoleon’s Civil Code ensured the countrywide equality of all male citizens before the law, universal male suffrage, property rights and religious liberty while abolishing all feudal customs.
Before that, most of France was a crazy quilt of local laws and a seemingly incurable mess. Incidentally, Louisiana adopted the “Code Napoleon” even before becoming a state in 1812. The legal system in that state still follows it. Incidentally, it was Napoleon who sold Louisiana (the Louisiana Purchase) to President Thomas Jefferson in 1803 for $11 million.
“My glory is not that I won forty battles and dictated the law to kings. Waterloo wipes out the memory of all my victories. But what will be wiped out by nothing and will live forever is my Civil Code.” (Napoleon Bonaparte).
Believe it or not, Napoleon was also a gifted writer who wrote a romance novel at the age of 26. It is titled “Clisson and Eugenie” in which a young, soldier, deeply in love, dies a heroic death and saves his country.
Napoleon had been fascinated by antiquity since he was a child. In 1798, he led a huge expedition to Egypt consisting of 400 ships and 54,000 men, including 150 scientists, engineers and scholars whose job was to capture Egyptian history. And they did that with incredible success. The result was an exhaustive inventory of drawings and writings of hundreds of tombs and temples and obelisks.
The most remarkable of the artifacts they brought back was the famous “Rosetta Stone” on which there was a decree chiseled both in hieroglyphics and in ancient Greek which then allowed scholars to translate the Egyptian characters for the first time in modern history. You can see it today in the British Museum at London.
Napoleon, who once reputedly said that “an army marches on its stomach”, was one of he first military commanders to use canned food for his troops because it could be transported over great distances without spoiling.
On June 22, 1815, after the defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon was forced to abdicate and in October that year was exiled to the remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean. He died there six years later. His remains were finally lodged in a crypt at Les Invalides on the banks of the Seine in Paris. He had written the following on the island in 1815:
“For what infamous treatment are we reserved! This is the anguish of death. To injustice and violence they now add insult and protracted torment. If I were so hateful to them why did they not get rid of me? A few musket balls in my heart or my head would have done the business and there would at least have been some energy in the crime.”