Alexander and Napoleon kissing

The picture above is a sketch of unknown origins, completed at some point after Napoleon and Tsar Alexander I got together to sign the historic Treaty of Tilsit, which united Europe after the first Napoleonic invasions (albeit temporarily). While the artist’s meaning isn’t clear, it’s probably propaganda meant to popularize the idea of the treaty among Russians

Did Napoleon and Tsar Alexander really kiss?

Yes, but there a a few things to consider:

Your likely asking this because you heard or read it somewhere and you want someone to confirm it, because you think it's funny or strange or kind gay that Napoleon and Alexander kissed. From a modern perspective this incident does seem noteworthy, but I don't think the kissing would have been seen as noteworthy at the time.

The Napoleonic Wars where 200 years ago, peoples attitude towards these things have changed a lot. While it's possible that kiss came from agfection (Napoleon and Alexander got along pretty well when not at war with each other), it

Speculating about the lives of celebrities, artists, and political figures is actually a long and glorious historical tradition. Among the Napoleon/Alexander admirers was Tolstoy, whose War and Peace spent considerable time fictionalizing the two men and their complicated friendship

Napoleon said something to Alexander, and both Emperors dismounted and took each other’s hands. Napoleon’s face wore an unpleasant and artificial smile. Alexander was saying something affable to him…

In spite of the trampling of the French gendarmes’ horses, which were pushing back the crowd, Rostov kept his eyes on every movement of Alexander and Bonaparte. It struck him as a surprise that Alexander treated Bonaparte as an equal and that the latter was quite at ease with the Tsar, as if such relations with an Emperor were an everyday matter to him.

France and Russia had been at war since the summer of 1805, and Napoleon had had the best of it. Alexander had witnessed the destruction of an Austro-Russian army in 1805 at Austerlitz, which was perhaps Napoleon’s most brilliant victory. Russia fought on without Austria, but Napoleon soon defeated a second Russian ally, Prussia, atJena-Auerstadt in 1806, and pushed on eastwards to threaten a Russian empire not invaded by foreign armies for a century.

He was stopped in February the next year at the bloody midwinter battle of Eylau,which he claimed to have won, despite the Russians withdrawing in good order. But five months later he scored a decisive victory at Friedland – Prussian territory – and Alexander at once sued for an armistice. Napoleon welcomed the approach. Although victorious, he was far from his home base and was ill-equipped to push further east.

The two rulers met to settle peace terms at Tilsit on the river Niemen, the frontier between Russia and Prussia. Neutral ground was created by a raft moored in mid-stream. And here they set about dividing spheres of influence in Europe between them.

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