Napoleon Bonaparte
The Spirit of Conquest and Usurpation
In the political realm, historians debate whether Napoleon was "an enlightened despot who laid the foundations of modern Europe" or "a megalomaniac who wrought greater misery than any man before the coming of Hitler".
Many historians have concluded that he had grandiose foreign policy ambitions. The Continental powers as late as 1808 were willing to give him nearly all of his gains and titles, but some scholars maintain he was overly aggressive and pushed for too much, until his empire collapsed.
He was considered a tyrant and usurper by his opponents at the time and ever since. His critics charge that he was not troubled when faced with the prospect of war and death for thousands, turned his search for undisputed rule into a series of conflicts throughout Europe and ignored treaties and conventions alike.
His role in the Haitian Revolution and decision to reinstate slavery in France's overseas colonies are controversial and affect his reputation.
French liberal intellectual Benjamin Constant (1767–1830) was a staunch critique of political homogenisation and personality cult that dominated Napoleonic France and wrote several books condemning Napoleon such as "The Spirit of Conquest and Usurpation”.
1814 and "Principles of Politics Applicable to All Representative Governments" (1815).
According to Constant, Bonapartism was even more tyrannical than the Bourbon monarchy, since it forced the masses to support its grand universalist narrative through imperialism and jingoism.
The self appointed self crowned emperor
Napoleon institutionalized plunder of conquered territories: French museums contain art stolen by Napoleon's forces from across Europe. Artefacts were brought to the Musée du Louvre for a grand central museum; an example which would later be followed by others. He was compared to Adolf Hitler by the historian Pieter Geyl in 1947,and Claude Ribbe in 2005.
David G. Chandler, a historian of Napoleonic warfare, wrote in 1973 that, "Nothing could be more degrading to the former [Napoleon] and more flattering to the latter [Hitler]. The comparison is odious. On the whole Napoleon was inspired by a noble dream, wholly dissimilar from Hitler's... Napoleon left great and lasting testimonies to his genius—in codes of law and national identities which survive to the present day. Adolf Hitler left nothing but destruction."
Critics argue Napoleon's true legacy must reflect the loss of status for France and needless deaths brought by his rule: historian Victor Davis Hanson writes, "After all, the military record is unquestioned—17 years of wars, perhaps six million Europeans dead, France bankrupt, her overseas colonies lost.
McLynn states that, "He can be viewed as the man who set back European economic life for a generation by the dislocating impact of his wars."
Vincent Cronin replies that such criticism relies on the flawed premise that Napoleon was responsible for the wars which bear his name, when in fact France was the victim of a series of coalitions that aimed to destroy the ideals of the Revolution.
British military historian Correlli Barnett calls him "a social misfit" who exploited France for his personal megalomaniac goals. He says Napoleon's reputation is exaggerated.
French scholar Jean Tulard provided an influential account of his image as a saviour.
Louis Bergeron has praised the numerous changes he made to French society, especially regarding the law as well as education.
His greatest failure was the Russian invasion. Many historians have blamed Napoleon's poor planning, but Russian scholars instead emphasize the Russian response, noting the notorious winter weather was just as hard on the defenders.
The large and growing historiography in French, English, Russian, Spanish and other languages has been summarized and evaluated by numerous scholars.
Propaganda and memory
Napoleon's use of propaganda contributed to his rise to power, legitimated his régime, and established his image for posterity. Strict censorship, controlling various key constituents of the press, books, theatre, and art were part of his propaganda scheme, aimed at portraying him as bringing desperately wanted peace and stability to France. The propagandistic rhetoric changed in relation to events and to the atmosphere of Napoleon's reign, focusing first on his role as a general in the army and identification as a soldier, and moving to his role as emperor and a civil leader. Specifically targeting his civilian audience, Napoleon fostered a relationship with the contemporary art community, taking an active role in commissioning and controlling different forms of art production to suit his propaganda goals.
Hazareesingh (2004) explores how Napoleon's image and memory are best understood. They played a key role in collective political defiance of the Bourbon restoration monarchy in 1815–1830. People from different walks of life and areas of France, particularly Napoleonic veterans, drew on the Napoleonic legacy and its connections with the ideals of the 1789 Revolution.
Widespread rumours of Napoleon's return from St. Helena and Napoleon as an inspiration for patriotism, individual and collective liberties, and political mobilization manifested themselves in seditious materials, displaying the tricolor and rosettes. There were also subversive activities celebrating anniversaries of Napoleon's life and reign and disrupting royal celebrations—they demonstrated the prevailing and successful goal of the varied supporters of Napoleon to constantly destabilize the Bourbon regime.
Long-term influence outside France
Napoleon was responsible for spreading the values of the French Revolution to other countries, especially in legal reform.
After the fall of Napoleon, not only was it was retained by conquered countries including the Netherlands, Belgium, parts of Italy and Germany, but it has been used as the basis of certain parts of law outside Europe including the Dominican Republic, the US state of Louisiana and the Canadian province of Quebec.
The code was also used as a model in many parts of Latin America.
The reputation of Napoleon in Poland has been favourable, especially for his support of independence, opposition to Russia, his legal code, the abolition of serfdom, and the introduction of modern middle class administration.
Napoleon had an influence on the establishment of modern Germany. He caused the end of the Holy Roman Empire and helped create middle sized states such as Bavaria and Württemberg along the great powers Prussia and Austria. Although he also directly or indirectly helped to reduce the number of German states (from about 300 to fewer than 50), the middle sized states tried to prevent the unification of Germany as a federalist state. A byproduct of the French occupation was a strong development in German nationalism which eventually turned the German Confederation into the German Empire after a series of conflicts and other political developments
Wanting to humiliate the original People and Descendants of The French Bloodline Kings - he began by dismantling all that they had stood for and was the original laws and ways --he made the give up all rights and began major oppressive works
Napoleon indirectly began the process of Latin American independence when he invaded Spain in 1808. The abdication of King Charles IV and renunciation of his son, Ferdinand VII created a power vacuum that was filled by native born political leaders such as Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín. Such leaders embraced nationalistic sentiments influenced by French nationalism and led successful independence movements in Latin America.
Napoleon also significantly aided the United States when he agreed to sell the territory of Louisiana for 15 million dollars during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson. That territory almost doubled the size of the United States, adding the equivalent of 13 states to the Union.
From 1796 to 2020, at least 95 major ships were named for him. In the 21st century, at least 18 Napoleon ships were operated under the flag of France, as well as Indonesia, Germany, Italy, Australia, Argentina, India, Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.
Napoleonic restoration of slavery in 1802 after it had been abolished
France incorporated slavery in all of its early modern overseas colonies, including Canada, and was the first nation-state in the world to issue a general emancipation act (see the separate Oxford Bibliographies articles on French Atlantic World, the Haitian Revolution, Emancipation, and Abolition of Slavery).
In fact, France abolished slavery twice, in 1794 and in 1848, each time in the midst of revolutionary turmoil. Yet the historical forces that prompted these two legislative acts were distinct. The 1794 decree (16 Pluviôse, Year 2) by the Constituent Assembly in Paris—which succeeded two decades of antislavery activism in the British and American contexts, but tepid antislavery activism in France itself—was prompted by the unfolding colonial slave revolt, weak colonial control, and incursions by Britain and Spain in Saint-Domingue.
However, the resultant 1794 decree was implemented in only Saint Domingue, Guadeloupe, and Guyana; it remained a dead letter in Martinique, Senegal, Réunion, Ile de France (Mauritius), and French India. Slavery was restored throughout the French empire in 1802, with the exception of Saint-Domingue, which claimed its independence as Haiti, the world’s first black republic, founded by former slaves and their descendants. Antislavery sentiment slowly returned under the Restoration and the early, liberal phase of the July Monarchy, but ran up against the organized colonial lobby, which countered most abolitionist initiatives led by a small, relatively weak coterie in Paris.
The 1848 emancipation, organized by the fervent antislavery activist Victor Schoelcher in Paris, was one of the first, decisive steps of a new republican government after decades of procrastination by the July Monarchy; but unlike Britain and America, it was not sustained by a large, populist antislavery movement. In contrast to the robust historiography of antislavery and emancipation in the Anglo-Atlantic over the past three quarters of a century, the abolition of slavery and the lingering legacies of slave emancipation in the French-speaking world have attracted significant attention only relatively recently.
However, the recent anniversaries of France’s two emancipations—in 1793–1794 and, following Napoleonic restoration of slavery in 1802, in 1848—have recently prompted more sustained attention, as has the bicentennial of the Haitian Revolution, now understood as the first decolonization movement to successfully expel a major European power and replace it with local rule by formerly colonized people. This article is organized chronologically, from the emergence of antislavery ideology in the 18th century, through the Revolution and the first emancipation, to the second and definitive abolition of 1848. A final section on Emancipation and Memory examines the contested representation of France’s history of slavery and emancipation in the recent past.
As a rule, French historiography observes a sharp divide between the Ancien Régime, the Revolution, and the succeeding governments of the 19th century; to date, there is no comprehensive overview that addresses solely the two French abolitions of 1794 and 1848 in one monograph. Dorigny 1995 and Dorigny 2008 are rare attempts to address both events within a historical continuum.
Blackburn 1988 remains a breakthrough interpretation of Atlantic emancipation. Drescher 2009 considers both French emancipations within the broader global history of abolition. For comprehensive studies of the 19th-century abolition movements, see Jennings 2000 and Schmidt 2001.
Blackburn, Robin. The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery: 1776–1848. London: Verso, 1988.
NNNReprinted in 2011, this is the first major effort to present Atlantic emancipation from the 18th through the early 19th centuries as a continuum, comprising events in many imperial regimes across time. It sees the cascading sequence of antislavery measures as the product of political instability in the Atlantic world, featuring the two French revolutions (along with the American Revolution and Latin American independence movements) as key junctures for abolition and emancipation.
resources:
Dorigny, Marcel, ed. Les abolitions de l’esclavage: De L.F. Sonthonax à V. Schœlcher, 1793, 1794, 1848; Actes du colloque international tenu à l’Université de Paris VIII les 3, 4 et 5 février 1994. Saint-Dénis, France: Presses Universitaires de Vincennes, 1995 conference volume published during the bicentennial celebrations of the first abolition, this collection includes research by many of the foremost French scholars of French antislavery of this generation. Dorigny, Marcel. Anti-esclavagisme, abolitionnisme et abolitions: Débats et controverses en France de la fin du XVIIIe siècle aux années 1840. Quebec: Presses de l’Université Laval, 2008.
This slim (thirty-nine pages) booklet considers the continuities between France’s first and second abolitions.
Drescher, Seymour. Abolition: A History of Slavery and Antislavery. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Drescher’s magnificent synthesis is an essential starting place for the understanding of abolition as a worldwide historical phenomenon. His treatment of French emancipation is excellent to the point of his publication date (2009).