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| Battle of Maida by Philip James de Loutherbourg |
"Bounaparte is a false great man: the magnanimity that makes heroes and true kings was lacking in him." ~ François-René Chateaubriand, On Buonaparte and the Bourbons
At a recent gathering of like-minded friends, the subject of Napoleon Bonaparte came up and a heated debate ensued. As might be expected, director Ridley Scotts’ 2023 historical drama starring Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon was mentioned and, not surprisingly, it was unanimously lampooned by everyone there who saw it. I have not seen the film myself, nor am I planning to any time soon.
Listening to our friend’s arguments, I’m inclined to believe his misguided enthusiasm for the Corsican emperor and military commander is based primarily on his “Italian” ancestry. Needless to say, we all felt differently. I continue to hold the opinion that simply being Italian isn’t enough to garner my support or praise for an individual. I’m sorry, even though I believe blood ties are important, they are not everything.
Not wanting to shout over the tumult, my limited contribution to the spirited exchange was briefly citing the estimated 100,000 Southern Italians killed during the Napoleonic invasions of the Kingdom of Naples in 1798 and 1806 and recounting Vicomte de François-René Chateaubriand’s harsh criticisms of Napoleon. A problematic figure himself, a few hardliners objected to me citing Chateaubriand. Not overthinking it, I just wanted to knock Napoleon, aka "The Devil’s Favorite."
Born to destroy, Buonaparte carried evil in his belly just as naturally as a mother carries her fruit: with joy and a kind of pride. He had a horror for the happiness of men. He said one day: "There are still several happy persons in France; these are the families who do not know me, who live in the country, in a chateau, with thirty or forty thousand pounds in rent; I will know how to reach them.' He kept his word. Seeing his son play one day, he said to a bishop who was present: "Monsieur Bishop, do you believe that this has a soul?" Everything that distinguished itself by a certain superiority appalled this tyrant. Every reputation bothered him. He was jealous of talents, of intelligence, of virtue. He did not even love the sound of a great crime, were this crime not his work. The most disgraceful of men, his greatest pleasure was to injure those who approached him, without thinking that kings never insult anyone because one cannot take vengeance upon them, without reminding himself that he spoke to the nation most delicate of its honor, and to a people formed by the court of Louis XIV and justly renowned for the elegance of its customs and the grace of its manners. In the end, Buonaparte was but the man of prosperity. As soon as the adversity that makes virtues shine touched this false great man, the prodigy vanished: in the monarch could be seen only the adventurer, and in the hero, the newcomer to glory.
[…]
Today, miserable man, we take you at your word and interrogate you with your own speech. “Tell us, what have you done with that France so brilliant? Where are our treasures, the millions of Italy, and of all of Europe? What have you done, not with one hundred thousand, but with five million Frenchmen, all of whom we knew, our parents, our friends, our brothers? This state of things cannot endure. It has plunged us into a hideous despotism. You wanted a republic, and you brought us slavery. We wanted the monarchy established on the bases of equality of rights, morality, civil liberty, and political and religious tolerance. Have you given it to us? What have you done for us? What do we owe to your reign? Who was it that assassinated the duke of Enghien, tortured Pichegru, banished Moreau, fettered the sovereign pontiff, seized the princes of Spain, and fought an impious war? You. Who was it that lost our colonies, destroyed our commerce, opened America to the English, corrupted our morals, took the children from our fathers, devastated our families, ravaged the world, burned more than a thousand villages, and filled the earth with horror for the name of the French? You. Who was it that exposed France to plague, invasion, dismemberment, and conquest? Again, you. Here is what you could not ask the Directory, and what we ask you today. How much more guilty are you than those men whom you found unworthy to reign! Should a legitimate and hereditary king have burdened his people with the least part of the evils that you have done to us, he would have imperilled his throne; and you, usurper and foreigner, you became sacred to us because of the calamities you poured out upon us! You will still reign amidst our tombs! At last we regain our rights through suffering. We will no longer adore Moloch. You will no longer devour our children. We want no more of your conscription, your police, your censors, your nocturnal executions, your tyranny. We are not alone; the whole human race accuses you. It demands vengeance from us in the name of religion, morality, and liberty. Where have you not spread desolation? In which corner of the world has a hidden family escaped your ravages? The Spaniard in his mountains, the Illyrian in his valleys, the Italian under his bright sun, the German, the Russian, the Prussian in their smoldering villages, all demand the return of their sons whom you have slaughtered, the tents, cabins, castles, and temples that you have burned. You have forced them to come and seek among us what you have stolen from them, and to find their bloody spoils in your palaces. The voice of the world declares you the most guilty man to have walked the earth, for it is not upon barbarians or degenerate nations that you have poured out so many evils, it is amidst civilization, in a century of lights, that you have wished to live by the sword of Attila and the maxims of Nero. Lay down your scepter of iron. Descend that pile of ruins you have made of a throne! We chase you out as you chased out the Directory. Go! if you can, for your only punishment, witness the joy that your fall brings to France, and contemplate, while crying tears of rage, the spectacle of public rejoicing!"
Notes
[1] Reprinted from Critics of the Enlightenment: Readings in the French Counter-Revolutionary Tradition edited and translated by Christopher Olaf Blum, ISI Books, 2004, pp. 25-27
