Camp of Boulogne, the Invasion Flotilla, Antique Madou Lithograph, 1827

An original antique lithograph from Madou's Vie de Napoléon, published at Brussels in 1827, lettered "CAMP DE BOULOGNE" in open capitals above the image. On a height above the harbor, officers in bicornes confer at the right, one gesturing toward the sea. In the middle distance a column of infantry with fixed bayonets marches past, and beyond lie the harbor, a long jetty with a square tower, vessels of the flotilla and the town with its spire. At the left a tricolor flies from a tall staff over the camp huts, a helmeted cavalryman sits his horse, and a cannon lies in the right foreground.

The caption below the image reads: "Napoléon presse les préparatifs de l'expédition qui s'organise contre l'Angleterre. Sa présence accroit l'énergie et l'ardeur des troupes de terre et de mer" In English: Napoleon hastens the preparations for the expedition being organized against England. His presence increases the energy and ardor of the troops on land and at sea.

Vie de Napoléon was published at Brussels in 1827 by the Lithographie royale de Jobard, the press of Marcellin Jobard. Its title page describes a text written by a society of men of letters from new documents dictated and corrected by Napoleon at Saint Helena, with plates lithographed by the Belgian artist Jean-Baptiste Madou (1796 to 1877) after the first painters of the French school. This plate comes from the first volume, which runs from Brienne to the camp of Boulogne.

From 1803 to 1805 the army destined for the invasion of England was concentrated in camps along the Channel coast around Boulogne, while a flotilla of flat-bottomed boats was built and gathered in the harbors to carry it across. Napoleon held the first distribution of the Legion of Honor to the army at Boulogne on 16 August 1804. In late August 1805, with no command of the Channel, the camps were broken up and the army marched east toward the Rhine and the campaign that ended at Austerlitz.

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