Napoleon's Snow Fort at Brienne, Antique Madou Lithograph, 1827

An original antique lithograph of the boy Napoleon at the military school of Brienne, from Madou's Vie de Napoléon, published at Brussels in 1827. The title "ENFANCE DE NAPOLÉON" is lettered in open capitals above the image. In front of the long wall of the school, groups of boys pack and throw snowballs. At the center the young Bonaparte, in a cocked hat and a long coat, stands with his hands clasped at his chest. A man wrapped in a cloak and wearing a tricorne sits in the right foreground beside a stone block.

The script caption reads: "Napoléon naquit à Ajaccio le 15 Août 1769 entra comme pensionnaire de l'État à l'école de Brienne, où son goût pour l'art militaire se développant, il fait construire en neige la 1ère redoute devant laquelle il exerce son génie. Cette campagne finît au dégel" In English: Napoleon was born at Ajaccio on 15 August 1769 and entered the school of Brienne as a pupil of the state, where, his taste for the art of war developing, he had the first redoubt built in snow and before it exercised his genius. This campaign ended with the thaw. The sheet is numbered "N.° 1." at the lower left and lettered "Lith: de Jobard." at the lower right.

The book appeared at Brussels in 1827 from the Lithographie royale de Jobard, Marcellin Jobard's press. According to its title page, the text was written by a society of men of letters from new documents dictated and corrected at Saint Helena by Napoleon himself, and the plates were lithographed by the Belgian artist Jean-Baptiste Madou (1796 to 1877) after painters of the French school. This is a plate from the first volume.

Napoleon entered the royal military school at Brienne-le-Château in Champagne in 1779 and left it in 1784 for the École militaire in Paris. The caption tells the story of the snow fortress.

This is an original antique print, not a modern reproduction. This item is sold unframed.