Napoleon, the Last Émigrés, and the Limits of Amnesty

Bibliographic Data

ID8958199
AuthorsTimothy Carapella (0009-0008-5715-9713, SUNY Geneseo, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume68
Issue1
Pages42-63
Publication date2024-10-17
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Historical Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0018-246X • E-ISSN: 1469-5103
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0018246x24000451
OpenAlexW4403490993
LanguageEN
References cited10

Even as emperor, Napoleon was concerned with the émigrés. Although his general amnesty for the émigrés, which was promulgated on 26 April 1802, permitted most of the émigrés still inscribed on the ‘general list’ to return to France, it also excluded those belonging to six compromised categories. The number of these exceptions was not to exceed 1,000, the decree stipulating that the first 500 should be named within four months. As it turns out, it actually took the Ministry of Police more than two years to prepare a draft list of exceptions, which ran to more than 800 names. But it was not until 1807 that the first official list of émigrés ( la première liste de maintenue ) was finally decreed. Surprisingly, that list contained only 171 names. A second list released in 1810 added only 29 more. Examining these much-reduced lists, which have been almost entirely ignored, throws useful light on Napoleon’s continuing worries about the émigrés after 1804. For even then, he saw the Bourbons and the last émigrés as his personal enemies, threats to the security of the Empire, and possibly even reminders of what he saw as his fragile political legitimacy

Amnesty · Economic history · Political science · Politics · European Political History Analysis · French Historical and Cultural Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law

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