William Tyler
Napoleon: General and Emperor

William Tyler - Napoleon: General and Emperor

- From here, good evening, or if you are watching in the morning or afternoon, good morning, good afternoon to you all. Now, I’m attempting to do Napoleon in one hour. Let me begin by saying what I’m going to do. When we were at school, if we studied Napoleon in whichever country you studied him, almost every one of us was taught about Napoleon, the military genius, who made a disastrous mistake by advancing into Russia in 1812, and was finally brought down by a combined Anglo-Prussian force at Waterloo in Belgium. If you were particularly unlucky at school, you had to learn the names of all his battles and their dates, and that’s what we did to learn about Napoleon. But that’s not all what I’m going to do in this talk. I want to look at his achievements in what I will call the home front. I want to look at how he was viewed in France at the time of his life and how he’s viewed in France today, and how the British viewed him then and the British view him today. In other words, I’m looking really under the title, the Legacy of Napoleon. But let me begin with a brief recap of this extraordinary man’s extraordinary career when he hit the heights and plumbed the depths. He was born, as we saw last week, in the recently acquired French island of Corsica. He was born in 1769. Oddly or ironically, the same year that the Duke of Wellington was born, 1769. It was two years earlier in 1767 that the Genoese, the Republic of Genoa, the Genoese sold Corsica to the French. They were heavily in debt. That’s why they sold it. Thus, Napoleon was only, by chance, born French.

His family were Italian minor aristocracy in Corsica. It said that although he spoke French fluently, he was after all sent to school in France at the age of nine, he continued to speak it with an Italian Corsican accent. One of the things I wish we could wave a magic wand over is to hear recordings of how people in the past actually spoke. It would be great to hear Napoleon. I mean, what would he have sounded like? We’ve no idea except people saying he kept his Corsican accent. I mean, did he talk like a stage Italian? I have absolutely no idea. But it’s interesting to note that. After school he went into the military, which is what people from families like his did, and he joined a rather less glamorous part of the army. Why? Because he was Corsican. He joined the artillery. Now, as events were to prove, artillery was the important aspect of battle at the end of the 18th and the beginning of 19th century, so he was in the right arm of the army, even though the reason for that was because he was a low status. The people of high status went into the cavalry. And of course, he was doing this under the Bourbons Royalist Regime, a very class-based society, as we’ve seen. He was a supporter of the revolution. Well, you’d expect him to be, I think. And as such, he first made his name as a soldier at the Siege of the Port of Toulon in 1793. So he is just in his early 20s, but his rise to preeminence in the army of the revolution was rapid. Two years later in 1794, he was responsible for putting down a royalist insurrection in Paris itself and he put it down by the use of artillery at the tops of streets. And it was Thomas Carlisle, the British author of an early life of Napoleon, who called this event The Whiff of Grapeshot. That’s how I learned it at school, but it isn’t what the French call it.

They really refer to it, the date that it happened. We call it The Whiff of Grapeshot, which is far more accurate in one way because it tells us what he was doing on that occasion. That was 1795. The following year, 1796, as the youngest general in the French Revolutionary Army, he has made the commander of the French army in Italy, fighting the Austrians and the Italians, part of Italy was Austrian, and part of it was Italian. And so he’s fighting Austrians and Italians, and in a series of battles in northern Italy, he won, and his military reputation was secured, perhaps one might say secure for all time. And that was 1796 and he was there until 1797. By now, Napoleon is married to his first wife, Josephine de Beauharnais. They had no children, and this is a matter that will come up again in a moment or so. In 1798, the government of France decided that it wished to capture Egypt. Egypt was part of the decaying Ottoman Empire, but it wanted to take Egypt because it wanted to kill British trade in the Eastern Mediterranean and beyond. This, of course, is before we get to the Suez Canal, but nevertheless, Egypt was an important place. And so he sets off on an expedition to conquer Egypt. Now, it’s not possible to say what his ultimate goal was. We know he was later to advance on Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, but he himself once said, I wish to enter India on the back of an elephant like Alexander. In other words, to strike at British India.

Well, he never did, but maybe India was in his mind to attack, or maybe that was just so much ballyhoo and what he was actually after was Constantinople. But things did not go well for him because in the August of 1798, the French Mediterranean fleet was overwhelmingly defeated by Nelson at the Battle of the Nile, sometimes called the Battle of Abu Qir Bay. This is thought by many naval historians to be the greatest victory in the age of sail, greater even than Trafalgar. Why? Because they annihilated the fleet. And Nelson did it by a completely new tactic. He divided, the French fleet were anchored offshore, off Egypt in Abu Qir Bay. They had French guns, artillery on the clifftops, but Nelson divided his fleet into two. One was on the seaward side of the French fleet and what, the French didn’t think was possible, the other half of Nelson’s fleet was on the landward side and thus they were able to rake the French fleet from both sides. It was an extraordinary piece of seamanship and daring in the age of sail. So Napoleon is now effectively cut off from France, cut off in terms of the retreat, if he had to retreat, and cut off in terms of supplies coming. However, he decided that he would advance from Egypt, which he’d captured at the Battle of the Pyramids, and he’d advance towards Constantinople. He never reached it because he was held at Acre in modern day Syria by Sir Sidney Smith. And well, to put it bluntly, he was defeated. He himself managed to escape the British blockade of Egypt, and he managed to escape back to France with some of his senior colleagues whilst abandoning his army to its fate. He was very lucky to be able to do that, but given that Nelson had had enormous trouble in actually locating the entire French fleet in the Mediterranean, perhaps it isn’t so unlikely that one ship could get through.

It it was extremely difficult in those days to be able to know on the open sea where the enemy was. You depended, and Nelson seemed to depend upon asking fisherman, “hi, had you seen the French fleet?” “No.” And in the end, of course, he did get it, but Napoleon managed to dodge going back, even though the British had taken Malta in between. Napoleon had taken Malta from the Knights Hospitaller on route for Egypt and then the British took it, and it remained British until the end of the British Empire and Malta became independent. I have to tell you a funny story, here. I was invited to speak to the University of Malta and to the University of the Third Age, and the University of the Third Age meeting wasn’t until about 11 o'clock and so I went into the letter from where I was staying in the university, and I’m in a suit, I’m all sort of pomp and I thought, what can I do? So I went to see a brilliant show in a Knights Hospitaller hospital, which is there, and I went to see it in the letter, and I was the only person there and I thought, well, this will kill time and it seemed quite interesting.

Shortly after it began, a whole party of German holiday makers arrived all kitted out in holiday gear, Gary shirts, shorts for the men and all that sort of stuff. And there am I in a suit, very conspicuous. So I thought, well, it doesn’t matter. And then we come to the British taking mortar from the Napoleon, and we begin to see on the screen, sort of, Union Jacks and stirring British music. And I thought, oh, well, that’s the Maltese for you. And then I had a dreadful thought, this is going on to World War II. What the hell will they do? Well, when we got to World War II, they played “Land of Hope and Glory,” “God Save the King,” we had Union Jacks all around, and it was, I thought, I’m never going to get out of this alive. So it’s quite interesting that during the course of this Egyptian campaign, Britain acquired Malta, which was a very important staging post in the days of the Indian Empire later when the Suez Canal is built and it was important as a base in World War II. By going to Egypt, another thing happened. Napoleon popularised Egypt. They took archaeologists with them. And so we get copies of Egyptian buildings being put up in France, and not only in France, they’re put up in England as well. Where I used to live in Essex, in Whitham, there was a non-conformist chapel, which was built as though it was, well, it was built like an Egyptian temple. It’s quite extraordinary how biggest Egyptian building in England was a great Egyptian house, which was built in the Strand in London, which was a place of entertainment. So anyhow, Egypt, he abandons his army. He is back in France.

He spun the story that he’d had great victories rather than great defeats, but actually, people in France weren’t particularly bothered. There’s no television, there’s no media. No one says it didn’t happen like that because France is being… The government isn’t working, bluntly. And in November of 1799, Napoleon led a coup against the government of The Directory. Now, The Directory was a very odd moment in the French revolutionary story, not least because it was a era of licentiousness. I’m not going down this road, but I think the men as well as the women listening to me will know of Directoire Knickers. Well, that’s where they come from. I’m not going further than that. On the 9th of November, or in the French Republican calendar, the 18th of Brumiaire, Napoleon led a coup, which overthrew The Directory and established a new form of government, a Consulate with three consuls, one of whom was Napoleon, but he later becomes first consul. In other words, the top dog. Then he becomes first consul for life, and then eventually in 1804, he declares himself emperor. So you can date his political career from 1799, which follows on from his military career. Now, many soldiers have subsequently taken successful political careers. If you think of Britain, Wellington was later to become Prime Minister. So let’s then look at what he does from 1800.

He begins to take control of Europe. In 1800, he defeated the Austrians at the Battle of Marengo. Rather important. There was a peace settlement then agreed in 1802, the Peace of Amiens. Now, if he had stopped at that point and devoted himself to the betterment of France, this whole story would have been different. Some of you may feel better, but without, what the French would call, la gloire, the glory, the myth of Napoleon. The peace broke down in 1803, and he began in that year, his wars of conquest. 1803, all those of you listening from America will know is a very important date in American history because Napoleon sold Louisiana to the American government and with the signature on a piece of paper, the size of America doubled overnight because Louisiana was not, I’m sure all of you who are American know, Louisiana wasn’t simply the state of Louisiana as it is on a map today, but was a whole sway of French territory to the west of United States territory, to the west of what had formally been British territory. It doubled the size of America in a signature. Why did Napoleon sell Louisiana, French America? Easy answer. He needed the cash to fund the wars that he was now determined on. In 1804, he crowned himself emperor.

This is Simon Sebag Montefiore writing about the coronation of Napoleon at Notre-Dame in Paris in 1804. “On the 2nd of December, 1804 at Notre-Dame, in a ceremony at which Pope Pius VII officiated, Bonaparte crowned himself emperor. He was not crowned by the pope. He wore a long satin chased with gold, a scarlet ermine mantle, and a golden laurel crown,” as in the days of ancient Rome. This is not Napoleon becoming a Bourbon King of France. This is Napoleon establishing something quite different. He wears the laurels of a military leader of a Roman emperor. “He whispered,” says Montefiore, “to his brother, Joseph, in Italian,” in Italian, “if only Daddy could see us now. But their mother, Letizia, who had survived 13 pregnancies, was there to see that apotheosis. Joseph had tried to stop Josephine being crowned empress because Louis and Hortense’s offspring would thereby be imperial grandchildren, while his would be grandchildren of a bourgeois. The Bonaparte sisters refused to carry her train, but Napoleon insisted, ‘my wife’s a good woman. She satisfies herself with diamonds, nice dresses, and the misfortunes of her ageing. If I make her an empress, it’s an act of justice. I am, above all, a fair man.’ He then crowned a kneeling, weeping Josephine, wearing a white robe and gilded satin mantle with diamonds, spangled across her coronet belt, necklace, and earrings. And a contemporary said, ‘so well made up, she looked 25.’” It cost them a huge sum of money. It cost them 8.5 million francs in the money of the day. This is the only coronation you can really think of in comparison is one that was modelled on this.

Do you remember Bokassa in Central Africa? His coronation was based upon that of Napoleon, and I think cost even more than that. Jeremy Black writes of the wars and the battles, which I’m not going to make you listen to drearily, or even worse, learn. Black says, “although propaganda…” And Napoleon was a great, had a great use of propaganda, well, and so did the British at the time. If any of you come across a chamber pot from the 18th, early 19th century with a picture of Napoleon in the bottom, do let me know and I would love to have a chamber pot with Napoleon’s face at the bottom of it. They were mass produced in Britain. And he went in, of course, of course, he went in for it, there’s a wonderful picture of him on horseback looking magnificent, but actually the picture was painted of Napoleon whilst he was actually sat on a donkey, not a horse, which I suppose is better than his nephew, Napoleon III, who was also portrayed as this great emperor on a horse and he was actually sat on a horse from a gym, a gymnasium horse. They were up to all sorts of things in the early 19th century. Modern propagandas have little to learn that’s new. “Although propaganda, presenting Napoleon as always in favour of peace, his regime in practise,” says Black, “celebrated power, not least that of victory in its activities, iconography, and commemoration. The Battle of Marengo in 1800,” which I referred to just now, when he defeated the Austrians, “a chaotic victory of improvisation over the Austrians was crucial to establishing the Napoleon’s power in Italy.

While his defeat of Austrian, Russian, and Prussian armies, notably at Ulm in 1805, Austerlitz in 1805,” and the one that’s going to cause trouble right into the 20th century, Gena, G E N A, “in 1806 in Prussia.” That’s the one we should we keep referring to as we go through the rest of the talks on France. “Was fundamental to the reorganisation of much of Europe.” He reorganised Europe so that in the end, it is the lead to the unification of Germany, the unifica- With all that that implies later, and the unification of Italy and to an awareness in the Balkans of nationalism, of Slav nationalism against both the Austro-Hungarian Empire and against the Ottoman Empire because on the benets of Napoleon’s grand army are carried the ideas of the French Revolution and none more, well, significant to the history of Europe than the idea of nationalism. It always strikes me as strange that Napoleon, who sought to be the conqueror of Europe, nevertheless spread ideas of nationalism, which in the 20th century utter rocked Europe to its core, not once, but twice. In 1805, the war took a bad turn for Napoleon, although he pretty well ignored it. The French fleet was again defeated, this time in the Atlantic off of Spain by Nelson, Nelson’s final battle, he dies in the battle, the battle of Trafalgar in October, 1805. This really put an end to any plans that Napoleon had for the invasion of Britain, which he did have. He had barges prepared at Boulogne for a quick crossing, but in order to do that, as in World War II with Hitler, he needed to command the channel. And he didn’t command the channel because of Nelson’s victory in the way that Hitler didn’t command the channel because of the success of the Battle of Britain. In 1809, he left Josephine to marry Mary Louise, Princess of Austria.

And now, he did so for two reasons. This isn’t love. If he loved anyone, it was Josephine. This was a political move. He was buying himself in to the monarchies of Europe. This was a calculated political move, but he also was desperately in need of an heir. He and Josephine had no children, as I said, Mary Louise is to give him a son. As an emperor, he needs a successor and the successor needs to be male and Mary Louise presented him with a son, also called Napoleon. The son disappears from history. When he falls from power, the son is with mother in the Austrian court in Vienna, and there he dies under no suspicious circumstances at all, and there he dies in his 20s. Sometimes the French refer to him as Napoleon II, which is why when his nephew becomes emperor, Louis Napoleon, he takes the title Napoleon III, but Napoleon II, you can, as it were put on one side. In 1812, Napoleon made arguably the biggest mistake of his life by invading Russia, where although he reached Moscow, the general whom Putin is dependent on in 2022, ‘23, winter, General Winter, the joke the Russians always use, General Winter savagely hit Napoleon’s army as it retreated back to France from Moscow. The Russians also burnt everything that could be used, but particularly food. This sounds exactly what is happening in Eastern Ukraine as I speak.

The Russians don’t change, except what they’ve miscalculated is the environment is changing and General Winter may not be as effective in 2023 as he was in 1812, or indeed in 1941 with Hitler’s advance towards Moscow. For a second time in his career, Napoleon abandoned his army to race back to France. Now, that’s not a sentence I would use was I speaking about Napoleon in France. Now, I wouldn’t get out of the door without being lynched, but the truth is he did, twice. Why? Because he’s about bigger things. He sees himself as beyond that. He’s not merely, he’s not merely a military commander at this time, he’s the emperor of France, and he’s got dreams of conquest, of recreating, oh, goodness me, how many people have sought to recreate the Roman Empire? Charlemagne, Napoleon, Hitler? No, maybe even the Russians, but it’s never going to happen. He can’t replace the men he’s lost. He lost, its estimated, half a million men on the retreat from Moscow and things begin to go badly as all the European powers are now in arms against him and the Russians can put however many men you want into the field. And he’s defeated in 1813 at what used to be called the Battle of the Nations and it’s now called after the city where outside of which it was fought, the Battle of Leipzig. The Battle of Leipzig in 1813. The British weren’t present because the British army under Wellington is still fighting its way through from Spain into Southern France.

In fact, when peace comes with the defeat of Napoleon at Leipzig, Wellington is actually in Toulouse, which was a rather royal city and Wellington is welcome once the news of Napoleon’s defeat has come through is welcome with open arms and in fact, what he was doing, Wellington using roads built by Napoleon, Wellington was headed towards Paris. But the inevitable battle between Britain and France on land and of the battle between Wellington and Napoleon never takes place. And Napoleon is forced to surrender, and the allies send him into exile to the Mediterranean island of Elba. At this point, for many of the French, including presidents, very often use the next part of the story as an iconography of themselves and that is the hundred days, the glorious hundred days. There’s that word again, la gloire, the glorious hundred days. Napoleon escaped Elba, dodging the British fleet that was monitoring the island in February, 1815, and he arrives in the south of France with very few supporters. An army is sent by Louis the 18th from Paris, commanded by one of his own, Napoleon’s own generals, General Ney and Ney sees him and simply bows and turns his army around. So the army sent by Louis XVIII to capture Napoleon now becomes Napoleon’s army against Louis XVIII and the allies. There isn’t going to be any successful outcome. He’s lost already the cream of his troops, the old guard, for example, the young guard is not the same, those crack troops around him, he himself is not particularly well, the Battle of Waterloo, he has piles and he faces, he faces Wellington of Britain and Blucher of Germany and although Blucher was as mad as a hater, at least he was a competent general and at Waterloo, it all ends in the June of 1815. This time, there is no going back.

This time, because he surrenders to the British, the British alone make the choice, and they decide to send him to an island extremely remote. It’s remote enough today. Saint Helena in the South Atlantic owned, interestingly, not by Britain, but by the East India Company. And there’s no coming back from there. And six years later, he dies on Saint Helena in 1821. Not poisoned, not poisoned by arsenic as the French once believed, poisoned by the British, but actually, he died of stomach cancer in 1821. In 1840, his body is brought back to France and buried at Les Invalides in Paris, which I’m sure lots of you have seen. Like Icarus in the ancient story, Napoleon reached for the sun and stars, but crashed in flames. From first consul in 1799, to first consul for life in 1803, to emperor of the French in 1804 was a mere 16 years, from 1799 to Waterloo in 1815. Just imagine if he’d been content with France what he could have done. But I think it’s no point in saying that. I think there is absolutely no point. He was driven and he was driven by ideas of military conquest. Now, although he wasn’t, by no means was he stupid and in many ways he was radical and many ways he was a revolutionary, but he was also an autocrat. I’ve always thought in terms of French history, that if de Gaulle had dared, he would’ve crowned himself emperor in 1944. But he couldn’t.

He was more democrat, even though his family were royalists and very Catholic, his father was headmaster of a Jesuit school in northern France, de Gaulle was deep down a democrat, and Napoleon, deep down, was confused. Part in him was a Democrat, provided you agree with him. He’s an autocrat and he’s a military genius, but he went too far. He overstepped what was possible. He was, like Icarus, drawn to the sun and crashed. 16 years only was he in political power. For most of those years, he’s fighting. For one of those years, he’s in exile. He’s fighting, but he worked so hard. He was a complete workaholic. On campaign, he would have a tent set up as an office, and he’d be drafting laws himself. He had a workload which is incredible. He had taken France in those 16 years to the heights of European power. He’d restored France to the France of Louis XIV and la gloire. And he changed the whole of Europe by his spreading of the ideas of the French Revolution and in particular, as I said before, the idea of nationalism. But there’s another part of Napoleon’s story, which is too often overlooked. One historian has written this, “Napoleon enjoyed an impossibly rich and buried career, transforming the face of France in the process.” He established the whole concept of prefectures in France, he introduced a civil law code, the Code Napoleon, a penal code, a commercial code.

The Code Napoleon, has been a model for hundreds of codes across the world and because it differs from Anglo-American common law, it has proved, well, in the end, I think it proved impossible for Britain because although people may not in Brexit have voted knowing about it, this was one of the things that irked politicians. I don’t think it irked any lawyers, but it irk politicians. He established the Bank of France. Thank goodness he did that. This began to resolve, although he needed the money from the sale of Louisiana, et cetera, et cetera, for the wars, if there was peace, he wouldn’t have needed that, but at least they begun, finally, to tackle the financial crisis of the later Bourbons of Louis XV and Louis XVI. He stopped the nonsense of the Republican calendar and returned to an ordinary calendar. He built upon the decimalization that had been introduced at beginning of the revolution and he introduced educational reform. But you have to be a bit careful about educational reform. We’re not talking about the sort of reform that, say, Britain undertook later in the 19th century, but he undertook educational reform and the basis of his reform still is there, you can see it in the French educational system of today. Jeremy Black writes this, “Napoleon supported educational reform and was responsible for the idea of the lycees, schools for educating the children of the elite.”

The only equivalent to lycees in England is grammar schools. “Several were soon built in France, including the Lycee Lakanal in Sceaux, the first state funded boarding school in the rural area around Paris.” So he set up secondary education for the children, for the boys, of the sons of the middle classes. Well, that is before Britain, but don’t think this is radical in terms of girls, in terms of reaching down into the bulk of society. It isn’t. Black goes on, “at the same time, as throughout French history, it is necessary to note the range of experience and in the areas Arras and Saint-Omer in 1802 and 1804, surveys reveal that hardly 35 to 40% of the men were reckoned as knowing how to read and write and fewer than 5% of the rural population was considered well-educated.” Now, that is not so in Germany, where education is advancing more rapidly. It’s not really so either in England. But the reason in England is because Protestants needed to read the Bible and I mentioned that before. In Germany, it is a commitment to education rather than for any ulterior purpose. There’s also industrial development under Napoleon, led by a man called Jean-Antoine Chaptal, C H A P T A L, Chaptal, C H A P T A L. He was an extraordinary polymer. He was a chemist, a physician, an agronomist, agronomist, an industrialist, a statesman, an educator, and a philanthropist. Napoleon had him appointed Minister of the Interior, but his real claim to fame, he was the key to the industrialization of France, which had fallen well behind Britain and Prussia in Germany.

He was the founder and first president in 1801 of the Society for the Encouragement of National Industry and he set up various industrial expositions, fairs to which people could go, young men could be recruited into industry and so forth. He also wrote a book after Napoleon had been defeated. He published the book in 1819, but it had an enormous impact on France. It’s called “De l'industrie francaise,” “Of French Industry.” It surveyed the conditions and needs of the French. It was a really like a government report, in essence. So things were happening. But any Frenchman or woman listening to me tonight would at this point be going red in the face because not all the reforms were positive. He repealed the earlier revolutionary legislation that abolished slavery throughout the French Empire. He reintroduced slavery, largely because the island of, half the island of Saint-Domingue, half of it is French and half was Spanish or Hispaniola and in Haiti, were producing so much sugar that the French wanted more, more than all the other islands of the British Caribbean put together, sugar and coffee. But it led to revolts in Saint-Domingue and it led to the independence of Haiti and that’s another deeply depressing story, is the slave revolt and slave-led kingdom of Haiti. His reforms, bluntly, were not always thought through with care, partly I think because everything came from him rather than in, well, hopefully, in Western democracies today, politicians are advised by advisors, by civil servants, so that they are told, well, minister, if you do that, this is a consequence.

Napoleon went headlong into it, so mistakes were made. I am not particularly bothered about mistakes being made. He was radical. It is, I know, difficult to reconcile this autocrat with the radicalism of the French Revolution. It would be very interesting if one could talk to Napoleon and say, “did you see yourself after you crowned yourself Emperor? Did you see yourself as representing the Republic?” And he would’ve said yes, because in the oath that he took in Notre-Dame, excuse me, he declared himself, he declared himself as a supporter of the values of the revolution. So he’s a strange figure in many ways. Now, his legacy in France is certainly a mixed one. Now, I’ve got this quotation from the military historian, English military historian, Gregory Fremont-Barnes, and I’ve chosen this in case… Jules has this thing. Jules, if you are listening, this is especially, especially for you, and it goes like, it goes like this. If I find the right page, it would be helpful. I’m actually on the wrong page. I’m on page 28, and I’m meant to be on page 58. “Felix Markham in his 'Napoleon and the Awakening of Europe,’ published in ‘65, asserted that, 'historians of Napoleon act either to be fascinated into adulation by his personality or repelled by the spectacle of the millions of lives sacrificed to his ambition’ unquote.

With these words, Felix succinctly summed up the bias characterising most of the vast body of literature now in excess of, well in excess of a hundred thousand volumes, and focusing on Napoleon in all his guise, his commander, head of state, and legal and social reform.” In France, his legacy is mixed. Have a dinner party of French friends and ask them of Napoleon’s legacy, and they will be on one way or on another. If they’re academics, they will be on one way or the other. If you’ve got politicians, it’s even worse because they will claim Napoleon for themselves, Macron, or they will declare themselves as anti-Napoleon and Republican. It’s a terrible mix. In his book, the “Passion, Death and Resurrection,” which is on the list I put on my blog, Philip Dwyer wrote this, “Napoleon is often credited with dragging Europe into the modern era, leaving an overall positive legacy for France. Historians usually trot out his civil code, the Bank of France, the prefectorial system, and other institutional reforms as proof of the beneficial legacy of the Napoleonic era. However, Napoleon was incapable of establishing a stable and legitimate polity.” In other words, he landed in exile and the Bourbons came back. “His drive to conquer, prolonged wars between France and the rest of Europe, leaving millions dead and wounded in their wake and France materially and geographically worse off than before he started. Napoleon is also touted as the man who saved the revolution, or at least as a man who consolidated the revolution, not that they were in any danger of disappearing when he came to power in 1799.

That too is part of the Bonapartist myth. Instead, he left France just as divided, if not more so, in 1815 as when he took power in 1799. The religious compromise that was the Concord Act with the Vatican quickly turned sour, slavery was reestablished, the opposition and parliamentary life were muzzled, his autocracy, and France was transformed into a virtual police state. One French scholar has gone so far to suggest that Napoleon’s two greatest legacies, the centralised state and the love of glory, delayed French modernity for a very long time.” So he isn’t a person that has the majority of people for him or against him. He is, in the English phrase, Marmite, Marmite being a salty confection you put on toast in Britain, and you either like it or you hate it. The same with Napoleon. You like him or you hate him, but we’re fascinated by him. We’re fascinated. Not only the French, but the British too are fascinated by Napoleon. Films are made in Hollywood about Napoleon. Books are written, novels are written about Napoleon. There’s a novel called “Napoleon in America,” which poses what would’ve happened had Napoleon persuaded the British to allow him to go to America into exile rather than Saint Helena. And there are history books galore. There’s magazines in France, there’s regular magazine comes out on the- I don’t know how they can keep producing it year after year.

They must replicate, but perhaps people like reading the same story written by a different person. We’re fascinated by Napoleon. We can’t really get over Napoleon. Napoleon’s body was finally brought back from Saint Helena to France in 1840 during the reign of the Bourbon King, the last Bourbon King of France, Louis Philippe. It was buried in a magnificent dome, created for the purpose at Les Invalides. It’s thought that maybe a million people took to the streets of Paris to welcome the body home and since then, there’s been a long stream of visitors from all countries, but particularly, from Britain to Les Invalides. If any of you have never been, please go. It’s an amazing place. It’s quite a simple coffin, but as you are there and you walk round it, I don’t know, but I felt something. I don’t know, it’s imagination you might say, but I felt that I was in the presence of something really very special in Napoleon. It’s an interesting place, but today, there’s a lot of criticism on Napoleon in France, academic criticism, political criticism, and popular criticism. Academic criticism that he should have dealt with the opportunities presented to him better to have improved France. Politically, well, those who think he was an example of how strong rule is important in France to those who thought and think that he portrayed the revolution and popular because of the number of deaths he caused and now in the age of wokism, because he turned back the clock on the abolition of slavery. French opinion today is divided. It’s been divided ever since the British took him to Saint Helena in 1815.

In Paris, there’s lots of streets, landmarks, railway stations commemorating his generals, his armies, and his victories, but only one tiny narrow street, the Rue Napoleon, carries his name. There are only two statues of Napoleon in Paris. The 200th anniversary of his death last year was a problem. It was a problem for Macron. This is what “The Week” newspaper magazine published in Britain said, “President Macron, widely regarded as rather a Napoleonic figure, later wreathed Napoleon’s tomb in Les Invalides. It was a delicate balancing act for Macron, who insisted he was, quote, ‘commemorating, not celebrating’ unquote, the Emperor’s legacy. Quote, ‘Napoleon could be both the soul of the world,’ said Macron, ‘and the devil of Europe.’ Macron described the reintroduction of slavery as a fault, a betrayal of the spirit of the Enlightenment, but he listed many of Napoleon’s achievements, such as his support for meritocracy and the arts and sciences. He declared, ‘we love Napoleon because his life gives us a taste of what is possible if we accept the invitation to take risks.’” There’s the politician in Macron. The BBC reported from the far left party in France at what Macron did or with planning to do at Les Invalides last year. “Politicians like Alexis Corbiere from the far left party, France Insoumise, believed the state and especially the president, should not be commemorating Napoleon’s anniversary at all.” ‘He’s making political use of history, and that poses a problem for me,’ he told the BBC. ‘It’s worrying in the current French climate when there is widespread doubt about democracy, and when some French people perhaps even hope for an authoritarian strong man.’“ Well, it isn’t only France, is it, that’s facing such a position?

There are many commentators saying that western democracies are flirting with the idea of more autocratic rule. I leave that to you to think about. In England, and in England, it was quite extraordinary. He is, he was hero-worshiped. Of course, during his lifetime, when we’re fighting him, he’s the enemy. Boney.. Mothers used to tell their children who wouldn’t go to sleep, "if you don’t go to sleep, Boney will come and get you.” Oh, there was all of that. And there were cartoons of him and I talked to you about the chamber pot. But he surrendered in the end to the British, and he surrendered most appropriately on the quarter deck of a British man-of-war to an ordinary British officer, Captain Maitland, commanding officer of HMS Bellerophon. And Captain Maitland refused to receive him as a monarch, but received him as a general. He brought him back to the southwest of England and anchored in Torbay, where Torquay is, right down in Devon. He anchored in Torbay. Well, he may have anchored in Brixham just down the coast. We’re not entirely sure where he did anchor, but he anchored there in the southwest and he was ordered by the admiralty on no account to allow Napoleon to come ashore. Why? Because there were large crowds gathering to see him, to hero-worship him.

One historian said,“ Napoleon soon became a must-see tourist attraction. He often walked the ship’s decks and was soon receiving gifts of flowers and fruit from well-wishers. At six o'clock, the bell rang, dinner was announced, and he went below, followed by his attendants, ran an extract published in the news from Torbay. Our jolly tards with their usual good humour, put out a board, chalked, ‘he’s gone to dime.’” But they were worried because he was being quoted in the high court as a witness in a trial and if he put one foot on British soil, he would’ve been forced to give evidence in London in the trial and the British authorities did not want in London. There was also the possibility that some lawyers, British lawyers, were believing that the British government had acted illegally, but they could not deal with anything unless he set foot on British soil. If he did, they were prepared to argue the case to the high court. This is not what the British government want. He’s not allowed. He’s then sailed to Plymouth because that has the naval dockyard and so they thought he would be safer and he couldn’t escape or people couldn’t rescue him. Well, that’s true, they couldn’t. But even larger crowds came to Plymouth, and this is the days before railways, even larger crowds came to see him and take boats and go out and go round and he waved to them. He was a real big noise. He’s not, this is not Hitler, this isn’t the Kaiser. He’s acting more like Nelson Mandela.

The British warm to him, he’s a hero to the British. But in the end, he’s transferred from HMS Bellerophon to a larger ship, HMS Northumberland, and off he sails to Saint Helena only to return in a coffin in 1840 to Les Invalides. Now, many of you know me too well and know that I never have one conclusion, I often have lots. Well, today, I think I’ve got time. Oh, well, yes. I’ve got three conclusions, they’re quite short. First of all, this is Simon Sebag Montefiore quoting the Duke of Wellington and I go back to the beginning as Napoleon as a general, “Wellington said when he was asked, ‘who was the best general ever?’ Said, ‘in this age, in past ages, in any age, Napoleon.’” Well, that sum, CV comment, what a fantastic thing to say. Montefiore himself says, “Napoleon Bonaparte bestowed his era like a colossus. No one man had aspired to create an empire of such a magnitude since the days of Charlemagne. Napoleon’s ambition stretched from Russia and Egypt in the east to Portugal and Britain in the west. I mean, even though he did not succeed to quite this extent, his brilliant generalship brought Spain, the low country, Switzerland, Italy, and much of Germany under French domination, albeit at the cost of two decades of war and some 6 million dead, although his enemies regarded him as a tyrant, and indeed, much of his rule was oppressive.”

Final comment comes from Cecil Jenkins in his “Brief History of France.” And with this high finish, “the end of the Napoleonic drama brought the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy, yet there could be no restoration of either France or Europe as they had been before the revolution, the preceding quarter of a century seemed to many to have devalued the old unifying values, not only of Christendom, but of the Enlightenment itself. Europe, if only because Napoleon’s wars had stirred up resistance across the continent, was turning into a hotbed of competing nationalities. This will be the century of German and Italian unification, as of Greek and Belgium independence. In France itself, as it moved rather belatedly towards the industrial society, there will be increasing polarisation between secular ideologies such as democracy and socialism and a royalist-inclined Catholicism.”

And that’s the story, ladies and gentlemen, that we will begin to tell next week with the restoration of Louis XVIII, the brother of the guillotined Louis XVI. Thanks ever so much for listening. I’m sure there will be questions and comments. There are. Let’s see where we go.

Q&A and Comments:

Oh, dear, I’m sorry about that, Marian. Marian says, “I’m Swiss living in the US. Today, I had to choose between your lecture and the Switzerland-Brazil football game.” I don’t know the result of that. Well, good luck for you.

Yes, we… Who is this? Nicholas. “I read a biography some years ago that suggested he was going to Portsmouth to train as a sailor. The family had little money, so went to a lesser gunnery school.” No, no, no, I don’t think there was ever any suggestion he would train here. He might have trained in France, but not here. I’ve never read that anywhere. Yes, Carly.

Joy, “Acre is in Israel.” I apologise for that. I think it was in Syria at the time. Right, okay.

Who is this, long quote? Naomi. “Hi, in the late 1990s, my late husband and I took a sea journey from South Hampton to Cape Town. The ship stopped only three times, and one of those visits was to Saint Helena, where we chose to join the excursion to Napoleon’s prison complex. Although we had always known he was a small man, it was a total shock to see his uniforms and nightwear, also his bed, all of which are tiny. It was a fascinating few hours with an excellent guide.” You are so lucky. Yeah, everyone, yeah, yeah.

I’m following the Muslim principle that you must have a mistake in every carpet that’s made, so I have to have a mistake in every lecture.

Harry. Oh, Harry says, “the Egyptian Hall was not in the Strand, it was in Piccadilly.” Apologies.

Phil says, “as you probably know, Beethoven dedicated his third symphony to Bonaparte until Napoleon declared himself Emperor. Beethoven then sprung into a rage, ripped the front patron his manuscript, and scrubbed out Napoleon’s name.” Great.

Q: Shelly, “was Napoleon influenced by the Roman Republic, the three rulers, then the Roman Empire?”

A: Yes, yes, indeed he was.

Q: “Why wasn’t Napoleon killed by the allies after Waterloo?”

A: Who is that? Shelly? Because we didn’t kill people like that. There was no, well, you couldn’t just kill somebody. It is possible that he might have been put on trial, but we don’t put people on trial until we reach 1945. The Kaiser was never put on trial. We simply wouldn’t have put a sovereign on trial. If you mean the allies in general, no, there was no procedures for that, and if you mean Britain, certainly not. And if we had, he would’ve been found innocent, I think.

Q: “Why do some say France ceded its territory in 1763?”

A: Sorry, don’t know that. I’m not sure what you’re referring to.

Oh, hang on. I’ve lost it now. Let me just scroll down.

“Louis David’s paintings of the coronation of Napoleon and Napoleon on horseback donkey covered beautifully by Patrick on Sunday.” Oh, great. Good.

Q: “Is it true that lost a Battle of Waterloo because of his piles?”

A: Not entirely so. It is true that he did, he was in pain. But the truth is that he was let down by his own side in not holding the Prussians back. Once the Prussians joined the British, it’s all over for him. He had his original plan was to make sure that he fought both armies, but both separately. Once they united, the numbers defeat him.

Q: “In history, has any general been known to stop his advances and glee over reaches?”

A: Oh, what an extraordinary good question. Yes, Wellington. No, Wellington. Cromwell. Yeah. Yeah. Washington. Oh, yeah, we could go on.

“Some said he could not conquer Europe, others said… He could not conquer Europe, others said Corsica.” Sorry, I’m sorry I don’t follow that.

Rita, Egyptian Hall.

Yes. Jonathan, “it’s also true that Wellington stayed at inn in Saint Helena close to where Napoleon was to live when he was exiled on the island.” Yes, that’s true. Wellington had been, Wellington served in India, remember? And on his way back, he did stay because the ships went there to, I was going to say refuel, but refuel with water and food and yes, Wellington knew Saint Helena. That’s absolutely true.

Q: “Why did he need a coronation?”

A: Well, you’d have to ask him why he needed a coronation.

Q: “And why not become king?

A: Well, I can answer the second. He did not want to become king because he did not want to be seen as a Bourbon. He wanted to be seen as the em- He didn’t call himself the emperor of France. He called himself the emperor of the French and there is this really significant difference in that and that is important. As emperor of the French, he can still maintain, however tenuously, that he’s supporting the Republic. Why he needed a coronation? Well, I think to give himself status amongst the other monarchies of Europe. Incidentally, the king, Charles, when in Scotland, he’s king of England, but in Scotland, he’s king of the Scots and there’s a big difference there as well. That goes back to the Middle Ages and an arrangement with Rome, but that’s another story for another day.

"Growing up in Cape Town,” says Sheila, “we learned about the peace of Amiens, which led to the French being at the Cape until the Battle of Trafalgar.” That’s right, after which a British returned. the British had arrived to take over in 1795, and after Napoleon conquered the Netherlands, they could go out to the Cape, ruled it as the Batavia Republic and Cape Town was known as Little Paris. Absolutely right.

Oh, Monty, I love that. You win tonight’s gold star, Monty. Some trivia about Napoleon, a palindrome. Abel was I, ere I saw Elba. Oh, I love palindromes. Abel was I, ere I saw Elba. I shall use that, Monty, on another occasion.

Q: “What about Napoleon’s reforms of French laws and currency?”

A: Exactly what I said in my talk, Edmund. Have read that the Prussian school system was created for military purposes. I think it was not created for military purposes, but I think it was based on military models, which is not quite the same thing. No, he came to an arrangement with the Vatican. The story of the relationship between church and state is one that we shall see goes on in France and becomes an issue later in the 19th century.

Q: “Why does France get a free pass when historic persons are being-” Hang on. “Being accused…” Sorry. “When other people-” “Why does France get a free pass on slavery whilst other people are…” “Why does France get a free pass when historic persons are being accused of preserving slavery?”

A: Can’t answer that. Well, partly. It’s an Anglo-American thing about slavery. Well, it’s American and then it became British. The American story is quite different. The American story is different because the slaves are actually in America. The France and Britain story is that they’re in the Empire. That makes a difference, but because Britain follows America in many cultural things, the problems caused in America over issues relating to slavery have arrived in Britain as well.

That’s a… Oh, Brian, thank you. Oh, good, Brian. Glad you liked the quote from Felix. Some of us went to the same Oxford College and Felix Markham was the historian of Napoleon and was what I might describe as eccentric, Etonian, head of history in our college in Oxford. And although Brian and I both read law and not history, we knew all about Felix. But the other person I mentioned, it was a historian.

Yeah, Gabriel and Kitty emphasised the point that I made. “It’s interesting how few places named Napoleon in France, not even a metro station.”

Q: Why am I putting forward such negative views of Napoleon? “Why not dwell at least a little on as many successes on the battlefield?”

A: Well, the French would answer because of the 6 million dead. I don’t think I did put a negative. I’m sorry if you read it in that way. It was attempt to be a balanced approach. But when I was giving the negative, I was telling you how the French think of it today, which I think is important. But don’t say when you get to France, “think of his great victories.” That doesn’t go down well. It really doesn’t.

“The prince regent based his coronation robes on Napoleon. He sent a spy to check out Napoleons, then insisted that his robes had more ermine.” Oh, I love that. Who is that? Pamela. Wonderful story.

Mimi says, “he gave full rights to French citizen Jews.” Yes. I’m not… I don’t know whether Trudy is speaking to you about Jews under- Yes, she is talking to you about Jews under Napoleon. That’s why I didn’t go into that.

Oh, the place is Les- Thank you, Karen. You’ve answered Carol’s letter. Les Invalides. It also has a very, a very good military museum. But in addition, it has a very nice cafe. I’m always on the lookout for decent cafes if I’m on holiday and charging around seeing things. A very nice cafe there.

Q: Oh, they, sorry, I’m asked, “it’s surprising that the French had stopped slavery before Britain?”

A: No, it isn’t surprising. In the early days of the revolution, that’s what they did. Because that’s what the Enlightenment would sell them, would tell them to do. It’s in the early 1790s, they abolished slavery. We don’t have a revolution and so ours does not come about until they’re…

“It’s not woke to assess Napoleon and like reintroduces slavery. Many people at the time campaign for abolition, not in France. Too much use of the term wokery sounds like sneering in my humble opinion and I dismiss those teachers in joy who refuse to go along with the long held safe views.” Well, wokism is a difficult concept. You have to be very careful. And I was referring to the French taking wokism views.

Q: “Why did it take France years to return Napoleon’s remains to France?”

A: A good question, because the Bourbon monarchy of Louis XVIII and Charles X wouldn’t dream of doing it for fear of what it might do to their rule. Louis Philippe is a constitutional monarch. Things are different. And French opinion, by the 1840s, had changed.

“It is said he poisoned his own wounded in Acre, but modernised France.”

“He had razzmatazz.” I love that word, Stewart. Considering the kings of Britain at the time, George III and George IV as Regent, no wonder the British were interested in seeing him. Well, that may be true.

Stewart says, “regarding the greatest general, he had no comment regarding Wellington, but feared Nelson, keeping a small painting on him and in his office.” That’s nice of you. Thanks.

“I have an 1845 photo of one of my ancestors wearing his Waterloo medal.” Fantastic, Avril. Fantastic. I had a friend who is Jewish, she was a student of mine long time ago now, and her whatever, great-grandfather, also had a medal, a Waterloo medal and she was a German Jew. She had escaped here to Britain before the Second World War, before the Holocaust. She lived here the rest of her life. And I remember talking to her like that and she said, I knew she was German, and she said, “yes, my great-grandfather,” I think it was, “had a British Waterloo medal.” So we said, how did he have a British Waterloo medal? She said he was a soldier in the Hanoverian Legion. They were not in the Prussian army. They were in the British army ‘cause Hanover was still part of Britain. And so there are Germans with Waterloo medals from Britain. I love that. Yes, he gave full rights to as French introduced the penal code still used there today. Yes, all of that is absolutely true. Yes, you see, because of how I did it, you are now, as it were, also taking sides in my imaginary dinner party, some wanting to place Napoleon on a pedestal, some wanting to knock him down. Well, I think it’s later this week that Trudy is speaking about Jews and Napoleon, so you’ll get all your questions answered.

• Hi, William. I’m jumping.

• Oh hi, hello.

• Thank you for that very interesting talk. And you achieved exactly what you set out to do. And that’s exactly what we like to do, is to stimulate discussion because there’s a yin and a yang to everything. It just depends on which perspective you’re looking at, which bias, which facts are being presented, what one’s belief systems are. So I want to just thank you for an outstanding presentation and William, it’s time for you to have a drink.

• It is, I will go.

• Of water, of water.

• I know when I’m dismissed.

• No, no, no.

• I got carried away tonight, they had such interesting questions. I will now remain silent.

• We love you, we love you, and we thank you and we’re grateful always for fabulous presentations.

• Thanks very much. Thanks.

• Stimulating. Thanks, everybody. Thanks for joining us. Thank you, Jude.