How To Play Napoleon

• How To Play Napoleon Card Game
• How To Play Napoleon Total War Multiplayer
• How To Play Napoleonic War Games
• How To Play Napoleon Solitaire

Napoleon or Nap is a straightforward trick-taking game in which players receive five cards each; whoever bids the highest number of tricks chooses trumps and tries to win at least their bidden number of tricks. It is a simplified relative of Euchre, and has many variations throughout Northern Europe. The game has been popular in England for many years, and has given the language a slang expression, 'to go nap', meaning to take five of anything. It may be less popular now than it was, but it is s. Napoleon Bonaparte was neither the inventor nor the popularizer of this game, but his name is used for one of the bids. Two of his enemies, Wellington and Blucher, are also bids.

1. How to play Napoleon & Game Rules: Napoleon is a trick taking game for two or more player. It is played with a standard 52 playing card deck with Aces high and 2s low. The objective of Napoleon is to either be the highest bid and win all of your tricks or to win more tricks than the highest bidder.
2. The Napoleon of the hand then attempts to win (with the help of a secret partner) the number of points bid, using the declared suit as trump for the hand. The opponents attempt to prevent him from scoring enough points to fulfill his high bid. Before starting play of the hand, Napoleon names aloud any card.

Introduction

This page is about the British game known as Napoleon or Nap for short. There is a completely different Japanese game, also known as Napoleon - details can be found on the Japanese Napoleon page of this site.

Nap is straightforward trick taking game in which players receive five cards each; whoever bids the highest number of tricks chooses trumps and tries to win at least that many. It first appeared in the late 19th century. It may be less popular now than it was, but it is still played in some parts of southern England, in Strathclyde, Scotland, and perhaps in some other places in Britain. It is usual to play for small stakes and settle up after each hand.

Players and cards

Nap could be played by as few as three players, but it is better with four or more. There are no permanent partnerships; in each hand the high bidder plays against a team consisting of all the other players.

A standard 52 card pack is used, the cards in each suit ranking from high to low: A-K-Q-J-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2. Formerly it was played with the full pack, but nowadays many players prefer to reduce the pack by taking out the low cards of each suit, so reducing the number of undealt cards. For example three players might play with 24 cards (A-K-Q-J-10-9), four with 28 (from ace down to 8) and five with 32 (ace down to seven).

Deal

In most schools the cards are shuffled only at the start of the game and after a successful bid of 5 (Nap) or above. Otherwise they are just gathered together and cut by the player to dealer's right. The dealer deals five cards to each player - a batch of three each followed by a batch of two each, or two each followed by three each.

Deal and play are clockwise, and the turn to deal passes to the left after each hand.

Bidding

How To Play Napoleon Card Game

The bidding starts with the player to dealer's left, goes around the table clockwise and ends with the bidder. Each player has just one chance to speak and at your turn you must either pass or bid more than the highest bid so far. The possible bids, in ascending order, are:

• Three - the bidder undertakes to win at least three tricks.
• Four - the bidder undertakes to win at least four tricks.
• Nap (or Five) - the bidder undertakes to win all five tricks.
• Wellington - the bidder undertakes to win all five tricks (same as Nap, but for a higher reward). Wellington can only be bid if another player has already bid Nap.

Play

The high bidder leads to the first trick and the suit of this first card played by the bidder is trumps for the hand.

Each trick is won by the highest trump in it, or if it contains no trumps, by the highest card of the suit led. The winner of each trick may leads to the next trick.

In all tricks, players must follow suit, playing a card of the same suit that was led if they can. A player who has no card of the suit led is free to play any card - either trumping or discarding from another suit.

Scoring

If the bidder is successful each of the other players pays the bidder depending on the bid:

• Three: 3 units
• Four: 4 units
• Five (Nap): 5 units
• Wellington: 10 units

Variations

Additional bids are allowed by some groups as follows:

How To Play Napoleon Total War Multiplayer

• Two: A bid to win two tricks - if allowed this is the lowest bid, worth 2 units and ranking below Three.
• Mis, also known as Misère: A bid to lose every trick - it fails if the opponents can force the bidder to win a trick. It is worth 3 points and ranks between Three and Four in the bidding.
• Blücher: A bid to win all five tricks. It can only be bid after another player has bid Wellington, and is worth 20 units. (This bid is presumably named after Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, Prince of Wahlstadt, a Prussian general who led his army against Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo.)

Some players double the payment for Nap, Wellington or Blücher if they are won but not if they are lost. Some double them whether won or lost - paying 10 for Nap, 20 for Wellington and 40 for Blücher.

In the variation Purchase Nap, before the bidding each player may pay a fixed stake - typically 1 unit - to a pool, and discard any number of cards. The dealer then gives the player an equal number of replacement cards from the undealt stock. The pool is won by the first player who bids Nap, Wellington or Blücher and wins five tricks.

Nap with a floater

This modern variation of Nap was first described to me by Darren Holmes. It is played in the South of England, specifically in Hastings and Reading; maybe also in other places. Michael Harris reports having played with a floater on Teesside in Northeast England in the 1960's, but including the full range of bids (from two up and Misère) listed in the variations section above. Ken Short played another version in the 1970's in Aylesbury and in the 1950's in Dorset.

There can be from three to seven players, and the pack is reduced as follows:

• 3 players: use 20 cards (A-K-Q-J-10 of each suit)
• 4 players: use 24 cards (A-K-Q-J-10-9 of each suit)
• 5 players: use 28 cards (A-K-Q-J-10-9-8 of each suit)
• 6 players: use 32 cards (A-K-Q-J-10-9-8-7 of each suit)
• 7 players: use 36 cards (A-K-Q-J-10-9-8-7-6 of each suit)

The cards are only shuffled at the start of the game and after a bid of Nap or above has been won.

Before each deal, each player must pay 1 unit into the pool or kitty. Then five cards are dealt to each player, and one 'floater' card is dealt face down in the middle. The bidding begins with the player to dealer's left and goes once round the table. Each player, immediately before bidding, can view the floater without showing it to the other players on payment of one more unit to the kitty.

Each bid can be with or without the floater: a bid without the floater ranks immediately above the corresponding bid with the floater. If the winning bid is with the floater, the high bidder can pick up the floater card and discard one unwanted card (possibly the same one) before leading to the first trick.

Note that you are allowed to bid 'with the floater' even if you have not paid to look at it in advance, and conversely, you might pay to look at the floater, and then choose to bid 'without the floater', knowing that the card will not help you.

The lowest bid allowed in this version is four tricks with the floater. The bids in ascending order and the payments for them are as follows.

For example, if there are five players and you bid Nap and win, you collect the kitty and win an additional 20 units (5 from each player); if you lose, you put 25 in the kitty and pay nothing directly to the other players. Notice that as the kitty grows larger it becomes more attractive to attempt a risky bid.

The highest bidder chooses trumps and plays the first card. The rules of play are as usual. Players must follow suit if they can; otherwise they play a card of their choice. The player who played the highest ranking card of the same suit as the leader wins the trick, unless one or more trumps are played, in which case the highest trump wins. The winner of a trick leads to the next.

Should everyone pass, no one being willing to bid as many as four tricks, then the cards are collected in and redealt by the person left of the dealer; as usual each player pays 1 unit to the kitty before the new deal.

Note that in Wellington you are obliged to lead a non-trump. It follows that a player who has five cards of the same suit cannot in practice bid higher than 'Wellington with the floater', and even that bid is viable only if the floater is a different suit: the player would need to discard a trump and lead the floater. If you do find yourself playing Wellington and all your cards are the same suit, your only legal option is to name a different suit as trumps, but you will certainly lose this bid when one of your cards is trumped.

In Ken Short's Aylesbury version there was no Wellington bid and the Bonaparte bid was known as Napoleon (as distinct from Nap). In his Dorset version the bids were 3 with, 3 without, 4 with, 4 without and Nap, which was the highest bid. There was no equivalent of Bonaparte or Wellington.

Links to other Nap pages and software

There was another set of Nap rules on Dave Barker's web site. Here is an archive copy of his Napoleon page.

Derek Lazenby has written a Nap program for Windows, which plays with a 28-card deck (ace to 8).

A passionate theatre-goer

Theatre and spectacle were close to Napoleon's heart. In the fifteen years of Consulate and Empire he saw 374 plays. But since he saw certain works more than once – in fact the record was Cinna which he saw twelve times – he actually made a total of 682 visits to the theatre, in other words nearly once a week religiously for 15 years. [1] He revered Corneille and was known as an intelligent critic of the theatre. Much of the time on Saint Helena was spent in critiques of plays and the reading of plays. Napoleon even took time to give the internationally famous actor, Talma, advice on how he should play Nero in Racine's Britannicus (3 December, 1799). ‘Emperors aren't like that', Napoleon is said to have told the star. And Napoleon's passion for the theatre even led to him have theatres built in his various palaces. The theatre at Malmaison, built in 1802 in a single month, was inaugurated with Beaumarchais's Barbier de Séville performed by a dilettante group of actors including Napoleon's step-daughter Hortense as Rosina and the painter Isabey as Svegliato. Exactly a year later, a theatre at Saint-Cloud was handselled with a production of Racine's Esther. For the first time, the actors of the Comédie Française, previously in effect the Bourbons' private troupe, performed at the Napoleonic court. Furthermore, Napoleon also commissioned plays, for example Marie-Joseph de Chénier's Cyrus, a flop performed a week after Napoleon's coronation in 1804, was ordered as part of the coronation celebrations. In this large chunks of the coronation service and the serment or oath were transported from France rather unconvincingly to the Near East. Napoleon would also have new plays read to him in private audience, as was the case with La Mort de Henri IV. Here Talma recited to Napoleon and Legouvé, the play's author. When Talma read the king's line in Act V ‘Je tremble, je ne sais quel noir pressentiment' (I tremble, I have a black forboding), Napoleon turned to the author to say ‘I hope, sir, that you will change that expression. A king may tremble, he is man just like any other, but he should never say it'. [2]

A Revolutionary enthusiasm

But theatre was not an exclusively Napoleonic preserve. After the elite theatres of the Ancien Régime, the Revolution flung open the door to the populace in general. In 1791, a bill was passed making it legal for any citizen to erect a theatre upon a simple declaration at the nearest administrative centre. And perhaps even more importantly, work by authors who had been dead more than five years could be put on absolutely anywhere – gone were the days where the King's theatre had sole rights and privileges over the production of particular authors. Indeed decrees of 1790 and 1791 abolished the Comédie Française's monopoly which it had once had on the French classical repertoire. The period from 1792 to 1806 was a golden age for theatre. One contemporary (1799) noted: ‘if this [the proliferation of theatres] continues there will be a theatre in every street in Paris. Lanzac de Laborie in his Paris sous Napoléon [3] cited the following remark from the period ‘It's a complete epidemic. There's not one dilapidated church or largish hall that has not been seized for the staging of plays'.

The Comédie Française

However, it was not so easy for some of the more established theatres. The Comédie Française, for example, one the principal Parisian theatres, had a chequered experience during the early Revolutionary period. It was not until during the Consulate that stability arrived in the shape of the First Consul. Bonaparte turned out to be a committed supporter of the erstwhile royal theatre. On 28 Pluviôse, An XI (17 February, 1803), a bill was passed re-establishing the theatre, now called the Théâtre-Français, to its full rights. As for the quality of the works being performed, despite the increasing popularity of the theatre in general, nevertheless contemporary plays were mediocre and far outclassed by the traditional repertoire. The greatest tragedian the period could offer was Luce de Lancival, whose Hector, as Napoleon remarked to Las Cases on Saint Helena, was nothing more than an ‘officer's mess tragedy' (tragédie de quartier général), i.e., good for setting you up to attack the enemy, but nothing more. [4] What was however remarkable were the actors of the period, such as Talma, Mademoiselle George and Mademoiselle Mars.

Talma

Though born in Paris, François Talma, 1763-1826, discovered his taste for theatre in London in 1778. There he was taken by his father's patron, Sir Oliver Clinton, to all the literary taverns in the English capital. Talma devoured all the Shakespeare, Milton and Pope he could lay his hands on. When back in Paris in 1784 he became friends with the Duc de Chartres who became Talma's patron. The young man thus became one of the first pupils at the Ecole Royale. Becoming known during the early years of the Revolution, Talma found himself on the wrong side of the political divide during the Terreur. Through the last-minute intervention of the painter Jacques-Louis David, he just escaped being guillotined for his Girondin sympathies. Talma and Bonaparte became friends gradually during the early years of the Consulate, primarily because Talma gave the impression of being the theatrical embodiement of the First Consul, something which clearly appealed to Bonaparte. And their friendship was to last until they were permanently separated by the exile to Saint Helena. They both shared a preference for Corneille over Racine and an enthusiasm for Classical antiquity. Talma taught the young Bonaparte much about the theatre and Bonaparte brought Talma into his entourage, the latter being frequently present at Malmaison, Saint-Cloud or the Tuileries meeting Talleyrand, Murat, Berthollet, Laplace and Monge. All through Talma's career of many ups and downs, Napoleon was to support the actor – indeed, they saw each other so often during the Consulate period that the rumour began to spread that Talma was giving Napoleon lessons in deportment. In 1804, Napoleon gave the actor a supplementary stipend of 1200 francs, and in the period 1806 to 1813 a series of sporadic emoluments amounting to a significant 195,200 francs. And in addition to money, Napoleon also gave Talma his opinion: the day after Talma had played Caesar in La Mort de Pompée, the First Consul said ‘you use your arms too much: men in power are more restrained in their movements; they know that a gesture is an order, a look is death. So limit your gestures and looks… In your first scene with Ptolemy, there's a line whose meaning escapes you…You say it with too much sincerity… At that moment, Caesar is not saying which he thinks. Caesar is not a Jacobin.' [5] Talma was regularly called upon to perform at the imperial palaces, and he was a feature of foreign state visits from as early as 1803. In thirty-eight years of career, he performed in more than seventy first performances. Manlius Capitolinus by A. de Lafosse d'Aubigny was particularly successful, with Napoleon ordering thirty-one private performances at Saint-Cloud. Whenever Napoleon was between campaigns, the two men would dine and spend time together, Napoleon comparing Talma's performance with his own experience. With Napoleon, Talma would choose his roles. Talma also had a brief affair with the Emperor's sister, Pauline, circa 1810. At the end of the First Restoration, Napoleon was faithfully in his box the day after the ‘vol de l'aigle' to see Talma in Hector. And the actor dutifully came to bid the Emperor farewell at Malmaison after Waterloo. Talma was similarly feted by Louis XVIII, performing in several great first performances (including a triumphal tour in London), until his last and greatest performance in Delaville's Charles VI. He died on 19 October, 1826.

The lowest bid allowed in this version is four tricks with the floater. The bids in ascending order and the payments for them are as follows.

For example, if there are five players and you bid Nap and win, you collect the kitty and win an additional 20 units (5 from each player); if you lose, you put 25 in the kitty and pay nothing directly to the other players. Notice that as the kitty grows larger it becomes more attractive to attempt a risky bid.

The highest bidder chooses trumps and plays the first card. The rules of play are as usual. Players must follow suit if they can; otherwise they play a card of their choice. The player who played the highest ranking card of the same suit as the leader wins the trick, unless one or more trumps are played, in which case the highest trump wins. The winner of a trick leads to the next.

Should everyone pass, no one being willing to bid as many as four tricks, then the cards are collected in and redealt by the person left of the dealer; as usual each player pays 1 unit to the kitty before the new deal.

Note that in Wellington you are obliged to lead a non-trump. It follows that a player who has five cards of the same suit cannot in practice bid higher than 'Wellington with the floater', and even that bid is viable only if the floater is a different suit: the player would need to discard a trump and lead the floater. If you do find yourself playing Wellington and all your cards are the same suit, your only legal option is to name a different suit as trumps, but you will certainly lose this bid when one of your cards is trumped.

In Ken Short's Aylesbury version there was no Wellington bid and the Bonaparte bid was known as Napoleon (as distinct from Nap). In his Dorset version the bids were 3 with, 3 without, 4 with, 4 without and Nap, which was the highest bid. There was no equivalent of Bonaparte or Wellington.

Links to other Nap pages and software

There was another set of Nap rules on Dave Barker's web site. Here is an archive copy of his Napoleon page.

Derek Lazenby has written a Nap program for Windows, which plays with a 28-card deck (ace to 8).

A passionate theatre-goer

Theatre and spectacle were close to Napoleon's heart. In the fifteen years of Consulate and Empire he saw 374 plays. But since he saw certain works more than once – in fact the record was Cinna which he saw twelve times – he actually made a total of 682 visits to the theatre, in other words nearly once a week religiously for 15 years. [1] He revered Corneille and was known as an intelligent critic of the theatre. Much of the time on Saint Helena was spent in critiques of plays and the reading of plays. Napoleon even took time to give the internationally famous actor, Talma, advice on how he should play Nero in Racine's Britannicus (3 December, 1799). ‘Emperors aren't like that', Napoleon is said to have told the star. And Napoleon's passion for the theatre even led to him have theatres built in his various palaces. The theatre at Malmaison, built in 1802 in a single month, was inaugurated with Beaumarchais's Barbier de Séville performed by a dilettante group of actors including Napoleon's step-daughter Hortense as Rosina and the painter Isabey as Svegliato. Exactly a year later, a theatre at Saint-Cloud was handselled with a production of Racine's Esther. For the first time, the actors of the Comédie Française, previously in effect the Bourbons' private troupe, performed at the Napoleonic court. Furthermore, Napoleon also commissioned plays, for example Marie-Joseph de Chénier's Cyrus, a flop performed a week after Napoleon's coronation in 1804, was ordered as part of the coronation celebrations. In this large chunks of the coronation service and the serment or oath were transported from France rather unconvincingly to the Near East. Napoleon would also have new plays read to him in private audience, as was the case with La Mort de Henri IV. Here Talma recited to Napoleon and Legouvé, the play's author. When Talma read the king's line in Act V ‘Je tremble, je ne sais quel noir pressentiment' (I tremble, I have a black forboding), Napoleon turned to the author to say ‘I hope, sir, that you will change that expression. A king may tremble, he is man just like any other, but he should never say it'. [2]

A Revolutionary enthusiasm

But theatre was not an exclusively Napoleonic preserve. After the elite theatres of the Ancien Régime, the Revolution flung open the door to the populace in general. In 1791, a bill was passed making it legal for any citizen to erect a theatre upon a simple declaration at the nearest administrative centre. And perhaps even more importantly, work by authors who had been dead more than five years could be put on absolutely anywhere – gone were the days where the King's theatre had sole rights and privileges over the production of particular authors. Indeed decrees of 1790 and 1791 abolished the Comédie Française's monopoly which it had once had on the French classical repertoire. The period from 1792 to 1806 was a golden age for theatre. One contemporary (1799) noted: ‘if this [the proliferation of theatres] continues there will be a theatre in every street in Paris. Lanzac de Laborie in his Paris sous Napoléon [3] cited the following remark from the period ‘It's a complete epidemic. There's not one dilapidated church or largish hall that has not been seized for the staging of plays'.

The Comédie Française

However, it was not so easy for some of the more established theatres. The Comédie Française, for example, one the principal Parisian theatres, had a chequered experience during the early Revolutionary period. It was not until during the Consulate that stability arrived in the shape of the First Consul. Bonaparte turned out to be a committed supporter of the erstwhile royal theatre. On 28 Pluviôse, An XI (17 February, 1803), a bill was passed re-establishing the theatre, now called the Théâtre-Français, to its full rights. As for the quality of the works being performed, despite the increasing popularity of the theatre in general, nevertheless contemporary plays were mediocre and far outclassed by the traditional repertoire. The greatest tragedian the period could offer was Luce de Lancival, whose Hector, as Napoleon remarked to Las Cases on Saint Helena, was nothing more than an ‘officer's mess tragedy' (tragédie de quartier général), i.e., good for setting you up to attack the enemy, but nothing more. [4] What was however remarkable were the actors of the period, such as Talma, Mademoiselle George and Mademoiselle Mars.

Talma

Though born in Paris, François Talma, 1763-1826, discovered his taste for theatre in London in 1778. There he was taken by his father's patron, Sir Oliver Clinton, to all the literary taverns in the English capital. Talma devoured all the Shakespeare, Milton and Pope he could lay his hands on. When back in Paris in 1784 he became friends with the Duc de Chartres who became Talma's patron. The young man thus became one of the first pupils at the Ecole Royale. Becoming known during the early years of the Revolution, Talma found himself on the wrong side of the political divide during the Terreur. Through the last-minute intervention of the painter Jacques-Louis David, he just escaped being guillotined for his Girondin sympathies. Talma and Bonaparte became friends gradually during the early years of the Consulate, primarily because Talma gave the impression of being the theatrical embodiement of the First Consul, something which clearly appealed to Bonaparte. And their friendship was to last until they were permanently separated by the exile to Saint Helena. They both shared a preference for Corneille over Racine and an enthusiasm for Classical antiquity. Talma taught the young Bonaparte much about the theatre and Bonaparte brought Talma into his entourage, the latter being frequently present at Malmaison, Saint-Cloud or the Tuileries meeting Talleyrand, Murat, Berthollet, Laplace and Monge. All through Talma's career of many ups and downs, Napoleon was to support the actor – indeed, they saw each other so often during the Consulate period that the rumour began to spread that Talma was giving Napoleon lessons in deportment. In 1804, Napoleon gave the actor a supplementary stipend of 1200 francs, and in the period 1806 to 1813 a series of sporadic emoluments amounting to a significant 195,200 francs. And in addition to money, Napoleon also gave Talma his opinion: the day after Talma had played Caesar in La Mort de Pompée, the First Consul said ‘you use your arms too much: men in power are more restrained in their movements; they know that a gesture is an order, a look is death. So limit your gestures and looks… In your first scene with Ptolemy, there's a line whose meaning escapes you…You say it with too much sincerity… At that moment, Caesar is not saying which he thinks. Caesar is not a Jacobin.' [5] Talma was regularly called upon to perform at the imperial palaces, and he was a feature of foreign state visits from as early as 1803. In thirty-eight years of career, he performed in more than seventy first performances. Manlius Capitolinus by A. de Lafosse d'Aubigny was particularly successful, with Napoleon ordering thirty-one private performances at Saint-Cloud. Whenever Napoleon was between campaigns, the two men would dine and spend time together, Napoleon comparing Talma's performance with his own experience. With Napoleon, Talma would choose his roles. Talma also had a brief affair with the Emperor's sister, Pauline, circa 1810. At the end of the First Restoration, Napoleon was faithfully in his box the day after the ‘vol de l'aigle' to see Talma in Hector. And the actor dutifully came to bid the Emperor farewell at Malmaison after Waterloo. Talma was similarly feted by Louis XVIII, performing in several great first performances (including a triumphal tour in London), until his last and greatest performance in Delaville's Charles VI. He died on 19 October, 1826.

Mademoiselle George

Marguerite-Joseph Weimer, known as Mademoiselle George (1787-1867), was along with Mademoiselle Mars, one of the great female leads of the Napoleonic period. Supported by Talma, her career began when she was only sixteen when she played Clytemnestra in Racine's Iphigénie en Aulide. She was subsequently Emilie in Corneille's Cinna (28 December, 1802), held the title role in Racine's Phèdre (16 February, 1803), and was Hermione in Andromaque (1 July, 1803). The critics were unanimous. Not only was she a beautiful woman (tall, shapely, brown hair, black penetrating eyes, small, straight nose, powerful mouth, in short, as Lucien Bonaparte put it, 'Superbe femme'), she was a remarkable actress. On 4 August, she was already earning 4,000 Francs a year.

Then came her affair with the Bonaparte. And if we are to believe Napoleon on Saint Helena, she was the only actress he ever ‘had'. [6] Via his valet, Constant, Napoleon invited Mademoiselle George to Saint-Cloud. She came on 8 June, 1803. In her (somewhat fanciful) Memoirs (written in 1857), she described her meetings with the First Consul. According to her, she had never had a lover before Napoleon, and that she only gave in to him on the third evening. However, as Marc Allegret has noted, this seems unlikely, since the Emperor was a man in a hurry, in all matters! Also according to the Memoirs, Napoleon apparently nicknamed her Georgina and was loving and playful with her. At the Tuileries, the First Consul received her in what had been Bourrienne's apartment, which communicated directly with Napoleon study. According to Stendhal (but how could he have known?), Bonaparte only saw Mademoiselle Georges sixteen times. She claimed many more. Josephine was, it was said, tremendously jealous of her.

Caesars casino app android. However, rumour and Mademoiselle George's penchant for gossip caused the break. [7] At their parting, Napoleon slipped her a wad (40,000 francs according to George's Memoirs) and the abandoned actress proudly declared ‘the First Consul left me to become Emperor'.

But her career at the Comédie Française carried on with plays by Corneille (Cinna, La mort de Pompée, Polyeucte, Nicomède, Rodogune) and by Racine (Andromaque, Iphigénie, Phèdre, Bajazet). In serious debt in 1808, she left the Comédie Française to move to Russia where she hoped for a wealthy husband. But she returned to Paris in 1813, to be reinstated at the Comédie Française, where she paraded her Bonapartist sentiments. This political engagement was recognized by Napoleon when he returned during the Hundred Days. However, on Louis XVIII's return, she was excluded from the Comédie Française, so she went on tour abroad, only returning to France in 1821. She lived to the great age of eighty.

How To Play Napoleonic War Games

Mademoiselle Mars

Mademoiselle Mars (Anne-François-Hippolyte Boutet, 1779-1847), one of Mademoiselle George's rivals on the Parisian stage, was renowned for her beauty. Daughter of acting parents, she began her career in ingénue parts at the age of fourteen at the Théâtre Feydeau. Her first great success was L'Abbé de l'Epée in 1803 (seen by Napoleon twice). Subsequently she was Céline in Molière's Misanthrope and Elmire in Tartuffe. Although purported to have once been a mistress of the Napoleon's, the emperor's remark concerning the actresses he had ‘had' would seem to contradict this. Nevertheless she would appear to have been a supporter of the Empire. When asked during the Restoration to cry ‘Vive le Roi', she replied, ‘Did you ask me to say ‘Vive le Roi'. Well, there you go, I just said it'. She is best remembered for being the first to play Doña Sol in Hernani. She died in 1847.

Theatre and the State

But although Napoleon loved the theatre (especially tragedy), he also considered it a political tool. Las Cases cited Napoleon as saying on Saint Helena ‘Were [Corneille] alive, I would make him a prince… Tragedy warms the soul and elevates the heart, can and should create heroes. In this respect, perhaps, France owes to Corneille some of her greatest deeds.' [8] And as a political tool, it had to be wielded by the right hands. So after the flourishing of theatre at the end of the Revolutionary period and during the Consulate, Napoleon took it upon himself to limit the number of theatres in Paris. On 8 June, 1806, a decree was passed limiting Parisian theatres to twelve, distributed evenly throughout all the neighbourhoods. And yet again in 1807 the number of licensed theatres was reduced still further to eight – four grand theatres (the Théâtre-Français, the Opéra, the Opéra-Comique and the Opéra-Buffa), and four secondary theatres (Vaudeville, founded 1792, the Variétés, founded 1777, the Ambigu-Comique, founded 1769, and the Gaîté, founded in 1760). Each theatre was not allowed to perform anything other than its specific repertoire. And no other theatres could be opened without permission. The censor made sure that theatre repertoire was kept under tight surveillance. Furthermore, since the suppression of the Police générale, all new plays had to be sent to the Minister of Justice. In 1808, the Comte de Rémusat, close associate of Napoleon's and Premier Chambellan, became Surintendant des Théâtres. Whereas earlier, Napoleon had exercised control over theatrical productions ‘backstage', as it were, by conversing with Talma and other theatre entrepreneurs, getting them (as we have seen) to modify their texts so that the result was ‘decorous', from 1807 on, the theatres were limited and repertoire scrutinised carefully. The police intervened at the Hospice de Charenton where the Marquis de Sade was putting on his plays. And so, by a combination of overt and covert control, but not so much through the commissioning of plays or the sponsoring of free performances (at which the Grande Armée Bulletins would also be read out) the Napoleonic theatre was kept on the rails of what was appropriate.

How To Play Napoleon Solitaire

In the end, Napoleon's theatres laws were not rescinded in the Second Restoration. And they remained in place to provide the foundations for the relationship of the theatre and state throughout the whole of the nineteenth-century. [9]