Jean-Baptiste Muiron (1774-1796) is one the hero figures of the Napoleonic legend. Bonaparte's ADC in Italy, he fell beneath a hail of Austrian bullets at Arcole bridge on the 15th of November, 1796, using his body to protect his general. A providential figure in Napoleon's destiny, Muiron received posthumous homage in the form of a frigate, at the time under construction in Venice, named after him. At Saint Helena, Napoleon still remembered the companion who had sacrficed himself to save his life and made the last codicil in his will the bequest of «one hundred thousand francs to the widow, son, or grandson of my ADC Muiron, with me at Arcole and killed whilst covering me with his body».
The frigate La Muiron was part of the fleet which sailed to Egypt in 1798. After escaping the catastrophe at the Battle of the Nile (Aboukir), it was to be the ship in which Bonaparte returned to Europe in the June 1799. Even though Napoleon was never again to sail in her, it nevertheless remained the target of special attention. Indeed, so much so that in 1807, the emperor wrote to Decrès: «I wish this frigate, upon which I returned from Egypt, to be kept as a monument and preserved, if possible, for several hundred years. I would feel a superstitious pain were a misfortune to happen to this frigate». This remarkable attitude can also be seen as early as 1803 when the First Consul commissioned a 1/72 scale model of the boat. This relatively small-scale vessel was made in the Toulon arsenal by Jean Lille, quartermaster 'de manoeuvre', and Claude Meirier, quatermaster carpenter, and delivered to Napoleon in 1805. Whilst the large vessel was to be the object of daily ceremonial commoration in the port at Toulon, the model was to take pride of place in Napoleon's library at Malmaison, commemorating both the sacrifice of Muiron and the return from Egypt, both key moments in the rise of Napoleon. The perfect image of the large version, complete with 44 cannon all its rigging, the model was still in Malmaison in 1829. Bought by General Gourgaud, it was to enter the collection of the Musée de la Marine in 1844. La Muiron itself was dismantled in Toulon in 1850.
Karine Huguenaud (tr. P.H.)
June 2004