AUDIENCE WITH NAPOLEON THE EMPEROR

One more Jiříkovice related event allegedly took place prior to the Battle of the Three Emperors. Village representatives humbly requested an audience with Napoleon in order to ask him to spare their lives and the village, which was located directly in the middle of the battlefield. In Jiříkovice, it is said that there was also a peasant woman among the petitioners who brought both food and milk to Napoleon. Whether this really transpired and when, exactly, this encounter happened is not known. It is possible that the story about the peasant woman is merely an abridged version of the more commonly known tale about an Austrian spy who brought a jug of milk from Šlapanice to Žuráň in order to give it to Napoleon. Allegedly, this was one of the ladies at the Court of Countess Kounic.
Interestingly enough, this handed-down tale depicting Jiříkovice farmers visiting Napoleon is identical to the scene captured on canvas by the French Captain (later General) who, during the Battle of Slavkov, was an aide to Marshal Berthier, General Commander to Napoleon's army. This man's name was Louis Francois Lejeune. He painted a group of people respectfully shuffling their bare feet before the Emperor. The men, however, are warmly dressed and they nervously clench their fur caps in their hands. It was soldiers who had already worn out their own boots on the trail to Slavkov who deprived these men of their outer foot wear. The picture, one scene of which may be found on an African Malese postal stamp, was not painted directly on site. It is conceivable that Captain Lejeune's sketches served him as models. Lejeune's landscape correspond with relative precision to locations around Santon, near Tvarozná. Santon is depicted here, along with the quarry and St. Mary's Chapel, on top of the hill. Lejeune must have had to make the landscape sketches from some eastern location near Tvarozná, as is obvious from the Brno - Vyškov road position. Perhaps the meeting shown in the picture took place right here. It is also possible that the French painter was witness to a similar meeting that took place in a completely different location, and that he merely incorporated the strange group of bare footed farmers along with Napoleon and his entourage into his rather precise landscape reproduction.