It’s probably unsurprising given the importance of good footwear to a largely foot-bound army that the regulations for shoes in Napoleon’s army were extremely detailed and called for a high quality shoe. Specifications went into fine-grained detail about the materials to be used, size of the various parts and method of construction right down to the number strands for the thread used in the stiches used to join the soles. The shoes were described in the An X equipment dimensions and price list as being:

In reversed calfskin with tanned edges, the external sole in leather strengthened by jusée (oak based tanning liquid, known as ouze in English), trimmed on the edges and the heel with a sufficient quantity of hobnails.

The 1812 uniform regulations specified the following materials be used:

• The upper, vamp and quarter were in reversed calfskin or oiled cowhide

• The top sole, welts and arch were in tanned cowhide

• The bottom sole and heel pieces were strong leather tanned with jusée

Notably, carboard and faux-leather don’t feature anywhere in this list so where does the story come from? Supplying armies was as a big business then as it is today and armies went through shoes at a prodigious rate – the French army issued one million pairs of shoes during the 1806-07 campaign. Most of the shoe supply was done via private contractors who would be employed by regimental supply officers or the ministry for war administration. Attempts had been made to have shoes constructed within the regiment – each unit had their Master Cordwainer and shoemaking was a common civil occupation amongst recruits – but this was largely unsuccessful and the contractors remained a necessary evil. With an average cost of 3.75 to 5.5 francs for each pair of shoes there was lots of money to be made from supplying the army and the manufacturers had an infamous reputation for scams and shoddy merchandise. A frequent trick was to glue the shoes together instead of stitching them, resulting in the shoes falling apart well short of their expected life. Napoleon frequently complained to the Minister of War Administration about the quality of shoes being supplied – on the 11th of August 1804 for instance, he complained that the shoes received by the Italian regiment were worth barely a quarter of what had been paid for them. In September 1811 he aimed a volcanic blast at the minister regarding the reports he was receiving about the outfitting of the Regiment d’Illyrie:

The clothes intended for the first three battalions could not be put into service because they are too small, badly made and the cloth has not been finished#. The back and the sleeves aren’t doubled. Who had these clothes made? Why hasn’t the cloth been finished? Why are they too tight? Why are the buttonholes only cut? You will see in the report that the shirts are too short for the men; that the shoes are useless and have cardboard soles; that the haversacks are too small and of poor quality; and that finally the regiment lacks half the shakos it should have.

# Napoleon’s particular complaint was that the wool had not been decatised

As you relate, there is a story that large numbers of the shoes supplied in preparation for the Russian campaign were of inferior quality, made of fake leather and with cardboard soles, that meant that the troops who were left to struggle with the snow suffered greatly due to their shoes falling apart. The usual suspect behind this is Gabriel-Julien Ouvrard, an extremely rich financier and partner in the Michel Brothers contracting firm. Ouvrard had been arrested on Napoleon’s orders several times for financial irregularities and by the 1812 campaign had actually been imprisoned since 1809 for trying to broker a peace with England behind Napoleon’s back. The problem with the story is that it doesn’t really appear in the contemporary chronicles of the Russian campaign or in the inspections prior to the campaign – given his explosion about the poor shoes for one regiment, you would expect Napoleon to have noticed if there was systemic cheating going on for tens of thousands of pairs of shoes. Doubtless shoes would be falling apart by the time the army was retreating from Moscow – the army had marched from France to Moscow and were retreating back again in appalling conditions – but Ouvrard appears to be innocent in this case, even a book with a title like “Un grand profiteur de guerre sous la révolution, l'empire et la restauration, G.-J. Ouvrard” doesn’t mention the alleged shoddy shoes.

There had in fact been a massive scandal with shoes supplied with cardboard soles, but this had occurred in 1793 not 1812. At the nadir of the fortunes of the Republic, with enemies invading on all sides and internal revolts brewing, reports from the field armies were received by the Committee of Public Safety that the armies were being supplied with sub-standard goods, such as sabres made from tin instead of steel or the aforementioned cardboard shoes. The members of the Committee raised a great outrage about wealthy profiteers becoming even richer by leaving the brave defenders of la Patrie to die. There were calls for investigations and trials and it was decreed that those found guilty would be executed (most of the accused seem to have emigrated in short order). The newspaper “Le père Duchêne” denounced the alleged enemies of the Republic, calling them “supplier-thieves who tread on the brave defenders of la Patrie with papier-mâché shoes and cardboard soles”. The imagery of the ragged conscript and the unscrupulous financier become something of a patriotic trope in the late 19th century – Victor Hugo writes of an apothecary who becomes rich by supplying cardboard shoes the Army of Sambre and Meuse in Les Misérables for instance – especially with the reactivation of the National Guard around the time of the Franco-Prussian war. The brave conscript with “semelles de carton” becomes a rallying image when France is again threatened by external enemies.