From Bonaparte to Napoleon I.
Battle(s) of the month
September 8, 1796: Battle of Bassano
The Battle of Bassano saw the French army rout the Austrian forces of the Alsatian general Dagobert Sigmund von Wurmser[...]
September 7, 1812: Battle of Borodino
General Kutuzov awaited the French one hundred and twenty-five kilometers from Moscow, in a sector he considered favorable. Napoleon, upon his arrival on the battlefield, deviated from his usual tactics and opted for a frontal assault[...]
Event of the day
september, 5
1800
Fall of Malta to the English.
Pictures of the month
September 25, 1805: Crossing of the Rhine by French troops
September 27, 1810 : Battle of Buçaco in Portugal
September 23, 1813: Prussian retreat to the River Spree
September 3, 1814: Maria Walewska embarks at Porto Longone and leaves the island of Elba.
Death of the day
September 5, 1829
Pierre Bruno DARUThe "raison d'être" of the Napoléon & Empire website
A Google search for "Napoleon Bonaparte" brings up over ten million results. The idea of adding a drop to this ocean can therefore only come from enthusiasts, determined as they are to bear witness to their fascination for a character endowed, according to Chateaubriand, with "the most powerful breath of life that ever animated human clay".
The Napoleon & Empire website makes no greater claim for its existence.
In our opinion, Napoleon's will, intelligence, daring and achievements make him the prototype of the "great man". Even if this concept is viewed with suspicion today, the fact remains that from a relatively modest family background and a peripheral province only recently incorporated into France − Chateaubriand described his family as "half-African" − he rose to power in one of the oldest and most important countries in Europe, before carving out an empire for himself on a continent then made up of the most prosperous, developed and powerful nations on the globe. Not even Caesar, a patrician born in the capital of the Roman Empire, or Alexander, heir to the kingdom of Macedonia, could compare with him in this respect. He owed his meteoric rise to his talent, of course, but also to his energy and, above all, his capacity for hard work. He always spoke of his genius in a somewhat mocking tone, while taking great pride in his ability to work tirelessly. In this way, his career is positively revolutionary.
His work is no less so. Napoleon's career, brief though it was, was so eventful that it has few parallels in French history. It fell to the First Consul, then the Emperor, to preside over the reconstruction of a new society based on new legal, political and social rules, on the ruins of the Ancien Régime destroyed by the Revolution. Less dazzling than his military prowess, this rebuilding proved more useful and more profitable to the nation − and more lasting, too, in its effects, for the institutional edifice it built proved to be of rare solidity, and was maintained for the most part well into the 20th century. France built its modern state on this foundation, and many European countries followed suit.
Why, with such a track record, does Napoleon arouse such admiration and fascination in some, and such hostility in others? Why did the French authorities prefer to remain as discreet as an English butler during the years 1996-2015, when so many glorious bicentennials were waiting to be commemorated? The charge against Napoleon over the re-establishment of slavery cannot by itself explain this phenomenon, especially as it only began in 2005, and other opportunities had already been squandered in previous years.
The primary cause certainly lies in the reputation for warmongering that attaches to his name, and the bloodshed for which he is held responsible. But is he really the only one to blame for the incessant conflicts that ravaged Europe during his reign? Is there no doubt that his adversaries were determined to make peace, and especially England, France's main historical rival, which financed hostilities against France for twenty-five years, for twenty-five years? Admittedly, the man many consider to be the greatest military genius of all time, and who always imposed himself on his enemies on the battlefield, may have abused this superiority. However, it is difficult to argue that his military ventures were driven by anything other than political considerations. It was Louis XIV who confessed: I loved war too much
; Napoleon, on the other hand, used it as a tool, never prolonging hostilities once his objectives had been achieved. Until then, however, he had waged war without qualms. If time and changes in attitudes and values have spoiled the prestige of great conquerors, let's not forget that Napoleon lived at a time when military glory and heroism were usually ranked among the noblest human achievements, and war was considered a school of virtue. In fact, we don't have to go back very far to recall the days when Hoche, Marceau, Kléber and Desaix were held up as examples to children in french schools.
General Bonaparte, some would argue, was certainly of the same caliber. But he didn't die like them at the turn of the century, and metamorphosed into an entirely different character: Napoleon I. This is the other recurring criticism levelled at him: that he stifled the Revolution. This is to forget — or to refuse to see — that his regime proved itself a worthy heir to the Revolution when it strove to secure the acceptance of its territorial annexations by the sovereigns of Europe. The Empire, as a political entity, combined elements of both monarchy and republic. The much-maligned wars commonly described as Napoleonic also brought about the collapse of large parts of the feudal and absolutist order throughout Europe. The Emperor remained consistently more popular among the lower classes than among the upper classes. He was also always concerned to provide employment for workers and to ensure that markets were adequately supplied.
All this, you may object, at the price of freedom. That's true. It's impossible to deny it. Napoleon's temperament and training combined to make him hate disorder. He saw it as the consequence of excessive freedom during the revolutionary years. He mistrusted excessive freedom and severely restricted it with all his might. In doing so, however, he met with little opposition in French society, which was generally indifferent to the loss, since equality had been proclaimed and secured, while the nation's dazzling grandeur, which came very close to total domination of Europe, flattered the pride of its people. The sacrifice made was, it seemed, amply compensated. And perhaps it was the prerequisite for achieving that synthesis of Ancien Régime and Revolutionary France which, from the 18th Brumaire onwards, was one of the objectives most doggedly pursued by both Consul Bonaparte and Emperor Napoleon. Although he was unable to achieve it for lack of time, and the respective elites of these two groups did not amalgamate, he nevertheless forced them, throughout his reign, to coexist and put their abilities at the service of the state, for the latter's greatest benefit. Indeed, the Consulate and Empire together make up one of those rare periods in French history when our country's successes were achieved exclusively at the expense of foreign powers, and not of a section of its own people.
It's clear, then, that he is such a complex and multifaceted figure that any judgment of him is bound to be reductive. Hence the contradictory accounts of his life, and the divergent assessments of him and his achievements. It is difficult to reconcile within a single figure the young Corsican patriot, the deposed and ailing prisoner, the victorious conqueror, the revolutionary general favoured by Robespierre and later Barras, and the authoritarian emperor. Napoleon played all these roles, and many more, in diplomatic, political, administrative and military spheres. He alone is the exception that confirms − or the example that invalidates, each to judge depending on one's own convictions − the view that history can be explained by the general laws of social evolution, and not by the consequences of the choices made by its major players.
In conclusion, Napoleon Bonaparte's life is one of history's most prodigious phenomena, one of its most irreducibly singular yet universal figures. His complexity continues to fascinate people all over the world. Each generation finds in him something that speaks to his own concerns. There's no doubt that the day when his story will cease to be written is still a long way off.
Lionel A. Bouchon