Thierry Lentz (Ed.): 1810. Le tournant de l’Empire (1810, the turning point of the Empire)

The year 1810 may have seemed like an empty year in the abounding reign of Napoleon. He did not deliver big fights, did not undertake major reforms, and did not understand the importance of the emerging economic crisis. The only notable event was the marriage of the Emperor and Marie-Louise. However, it was much more of a turning point than has been said, and than Napoleon himself would have believed. The Franco-Austrian union weighed heavily indeed on the dispute between France and Russia. It saved the Habsburg Empire from the dismembered considered after Wagram. It strengthened the monarchical character of a regime hitherto regarded as a dictatorship of public salvation. Moreover, the Emperor let Bernadotte becoming heir to the throne of Sweden and did not go to Spain, as he should have done, to take the Peninsula in hand. By his divorce and remarriage, he finally braved the Pope. Such were some of the repercussions of Napoleon’s marriage to the daughter of Francis I. They show that all parts of the infernal machine that will be the downfall of the Empire in 1814 are in the process of adjusting their positions in the year 1810. This volume brings together the interventions of the conference on 8 and 9 June 2010, organized by La Fondation Napoléon and the Souvenir napoléonien, held at the Centre des Archives diplomatiques à La Courneuve. Details of speakers and topics: click here.

Paris: Editions of the Fondation Napoléon – Nouveau Monde Editions, 2010, Series Etudes, 419 pages. Language: French.

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