Les livres à la guerre : les bibliothèques portatives de Napoléon Ier

Résumé 0

While still a cadet, Napoleon I had made a habit of never parting with a big crate he would fill with his favourite books. Later on, be it in his imperial palaces or military travels and campaigns, he was always eager to have on hand some library suiting his documentary needs and literary taste. So, right from the first Italy campaign, he had portable libraries set up. In all his campaigns throughout Europe, Napoleon would thus always take with himself small volumes, carefully arranged in mahogany cases. His librarian, Antoine-Alexandre Barbier, was asked to select books, draw up inventories and forward new publications to the imperial headquarters. From one campaign to the other, the relationship between Napoleon and his librarian evolved: always uncompromising and continually demanding more books to read, the emperor began to plan an ambitious Napoleonic library printed for his own use, while Barbier, who had first struggled to find books that would please the emperor, finally managed to meet his master’s needs. He sent him great amounts of novels and built up for him collections pertaining to European history and geography. The last one of those portable libraries was chosen by Barbier a few days before the battle at Waterloo, but this is not the end of their history, for the emperor’s field libraries belong to the Napoleonic legend.