The Campagne de France, 1814
Paris, Musée d’Orsay
Whilst a fruitful source of inspiration for the Romantics, the Napoleonic epic was no less influential upon Academic painters. Meissonier’s work, one of the artistic highlights of the Second Empire and the Third Republic, is ample witness. Though born only a few months before Waterloo, Meissonier was greatly interested by Napoleon (“How many times I have dreamt of the emperor!” he was heard to remark) and he sketched out a plan for a ‘Napoleonic cycle’ comprising five major dates: “1796”, “1807”, “1810”, “1814” and “1815”. Only “1807” and “1814” were ever finished – although he did complete two other paintings related to the cycle, namely, “1805” and “1806”. Meissonier perfectly summed up the painting here in the following words: “The Campagne de France. Heavy sky, ground churned up, staff battered, army exhausted. The emperor goes ever onwards, mounted on his white horse. It is not so much the defeat of the armies but the attitude of Napoleon I in this critical time which is important”.