Being Received by Napoleon

Meeting between Goethe and Napoleon on 2 October 1808 in the reception room of the Imperial Palace
Erfurt City Archives

The first meeting in Erfurt with a major scholar could not have pleased Napoleon. On his first visit to the city on 23 July 1807, he requests a meeting with the famous scientist and professor at the Univesity of Erfurt, Johann Bartholomäus Trommsdorff, the father of scientific pharmacy. Three times he poses the same question to him: Who is the greatest contemporary chemist? Trommsdorff sharply replies to the emperor: “Since the revolution chopped off the head of the great Lavoisier, chemistry lost its head.” Irate about this answer and with a scathing look, Napoleon swings onto his horse and leaves the city. Napoleon bestows glamour and public interest in the 1808 Congress of Erfurt by having receptions almost regularly in the Imperial Palace and also specifically inviting major thinkers there. On 2 October, he meets with Johann Wolfgang Goethe, the Weimar Privy Councillor, whose “avocation” is poet and cosmopolitan. The conversation takes place in the salon “chambre d’audience”, the reception room with a bay window. In the one hour conversation, they talk about personal concerns, questions in literature and the French theatre. Both interlocutors are impressed with each other. Napoleon takes leave of him with the words: “Vous êtes un homme!” For 10 October, the famous academic Christoph Martin Wieland receives an invitation from Napoleon, who holds him in high regard as a German Voltaire. The conversation is very one-sided, with Napoleon asking only a few trivial questions. Nonetheless, the emperor ascribes great significance to the talks with both major thinkers, because they exercise influence on the thinking and actions of the people. As a symbol of their recognition, Napoleon grants Goethe and Wieland the Grand Cross of the Légion d’honneur.