Scene Stratege (limited edition: 55 copies numbered)

To pronounce the name of Napoleon is to evoke perhaps the man of pacification, the Civil Code or the Concordat, but certainly the warlord, one of the greatest in history.

According to some scholars, Napoleon Bonaparte fought more battles than Alexander the Great, Hannibal and Caesar combined.

Equally revealing is the geographical scope of his campaigns, which covered all of Europe from Spain to Russia, passing through Germany, the Danube loop and Northern Italy, not to mention Egypt and Syria in the East. The Emperor still made his entrance in all the capitals of the old continent. Milan, Vienna (twice), Berlin, Madrid and Moscow.

Napoleon was one of the greatest warlords of all time.

His first weapon was audacity. The young Bonaparte was a dreamer, who saw himself as Julius Caesar or Hannibal. He borrowed symbols such as the eagle of the Roman Legion for his "Grande Armée" with ardor and a certain reverence. But before becoming an exceptional strategist, he had to train: a future artilleryman, he trained at the Royal Military School of Brienne-le-Château and then in Paris, began his career as an officer under Louis XVI and continued it during the Revolution. He made his mark in Toulon in 1793, when as a young captain he was already expressing reservations about the conduct of the siege.

It was during his first campaign in Italy that his tactical genius was revealed. He concentrated his forces and stunned the enemy with his speed of execution. He did not hesitate, at times, to expose himself in the front line. During the battle for the Arcole bridge in November 1796, he guided his men, flag in hand, under machine-gun fire. Faced with heavy Austrian fire, he finally landed in the mud of the swamp. But this act of bravery did not diminish the impression it made on the public.

Bonaparte also electrified a demoralized and starving army. He immediately found the tone that would characterize his orders of the day until the end:

"Soldiers! You have no shoes, no clothes, no shirts, almost no bread and our stores are empty. The enemy's stores are full of everything; it is up to you to conquer them. You want it, you can do it, let's go!

In many circumstances, such as at the bridge of Lodi, the little general showed unfailing courage, as he had already demonstrated before Toulon.

Bonaparte still behaved like a statesman. At the "court of Mombello", he received all the leading thinkers of Northern Italy. He dazzled them with his insatiable curiosity, his penetration, the lightning character of his judgment.

In Egypt, he also nurtured his reputation as a conqueror, following in the footsteps of Alexander, while at the same time being a child of the Enlightenment, concerned with the scientific benefits of his expedition.

Napoleon was a strategist until his fall. Recluse in St. Helena at the end of his life, he is the only defeated who managed to impose his vision of history. By reserving for himself a grandiose place, deserved by dint of his victories.

Napoleon came to power in a few years. A revolution gave birth to him, a People chose him, a Pope crowned him. (Victor Hugo)

He enlarged the borders of his Empire, like Charlemagne and Louis XIV, and built his State in the center of Europe.

Victor Hugo said:

"Everything in this man was inordinate and splendid. He was above Europe like an extraordinary vision."

Les Etains du Prince chose to represent this great strategist during a working day.

The Emperor works without limits, anywhere and everywhere, and with perfect method.

His remarkable memory classifies facts and ideas and gathers the results of this work.

"The various objects and affairs are stored in my head as in a cupboard...".

Even more surprising is the ease with which he finds a case he is suddenly told about.

A large part of his attention is focused on his correspondence: letters to ministers, generals, prefects and all those who work in the administration, so that they carry out his orders. They are also letters to ambassadors, ministers and foreign monarchs. And as he often thinks about several subjects at the same time, he dictates several letters to a different secretary. His secretaries had to be discreet and patient.