We may never know Napoleon’s true reason for wanting to conquer all of Europe. It could have been because of his insecurities with his height. It may have been because he thought he was truly doing something good by delivering a constitution to every country he did conquer. I believe it was to end the rule of Kings and write a constitution for the people.
It is hard to have an opinion about someone who has such contrasting views. He had people representing him one way while there were other people who represented him in a completely different light. How do we know which one is true? He seemed to be loved by the people of France. He was exiled to Elba not by the people of France, but by the rulers of Austria, British, Prussia, and Russia. When he came back to France, he conquered it once again. The very soldiers that were sent to kill him instead joined him. He reigned the nation for 100 days, and I did not hear of any rebellions going on during the time of his ruling. There were rebellions due to Louis XVIII becoming the ruler. He was once again exiled, but once again not by the French people, but by rulers of countries.
He may have been a good man that happened to make mistakes, or he may have been an evil person that did a few good things along the way. I believe in some way he was a good man or he at least he attempted to be a good man that happened to have his downfalls like we all do, but the difference between a ruler having a downfall and an average person having a downfall is that the average person does not have the resources or the public eye on him to do and have those downfalls exposed to the world.
It is very obvious that he was egotistical, but in some ways he had the right to be. He had done something that had not happened since Roman times and that was the conquering of Europe. His other downfall was that he was too prideful to listen to someone about attacking Russia. I think one characteristic that is positive and also negative is his ambition. He was ambitious enough to become ruler of France, but he was too ambitious in attacking Russia. I think the laws he set forth in France were for the betterment of the French people. I do not believe he purposefully set any laws with the intention of hurting people. I believe everything he did; he did for the betterment of the people, not just the French but the Germans, Spanish, and Italians.
He realized that he made mistakes. Even though he did make mistakes, the people of France still loved him. Even though he lost a lot of soldiers, his soldiers still loved him. Today we learned that after he was exiled, and Louis XVIII tried to get people to forget about him and his revolution, people still would yell long live the Emperor instead of saying long live the King. This shows that despite Napoleon's many critics, he was both a good ruler and person, with the right idea in mind, but not always the execution.
You raise some interesting points here about how we view Napoleon. I guess it is a little bit too easy to simply form an opinion on the basis of a reputation that could have been somewhat skewed along the way. We often like to think we are looking at historical data with a critical eye, but his intentions do beg closer attention. Perhaps he did have the best interest of the people in France in mind; perhaps things just ended up going in a direction he didn’t aspire toward in the beginning. While I do think objective consideration on the basis of the facts at hand (as opposed to subjective ideas founded on a time-worn reputation) is necessary, and that part of this is considering how he was thought of in the public eye of the time, I still can’t help but think that whatever public support he obtained was mainly due to his representing a sort of break from the old regime, a break that at first might have seemed positive despite the rocky situations ahead. What I mean is that, at least in terms of his public recognition, maybe his support was not totally due to the people really believing in his cause, but just believing in something that offered a glimpse of a new system. But it could be that my feelings about him are still tied to my preconceived ideas, rather than real facts. It is not always easy to clearly separate the two out, especially with a topic as mired in our historical and cultural conscious as Napoleon.
ReplyDeleteYour blog does an excellent job of discussing the competing images of Napoleon and I agree with you in wanting to assign him noble aspirations. In many ways, Napoleon represented particular ideas and beliefs (Rights of Man, promotion based on merit, order and security, military glory) about the world and the political system. He drew his support from those people who could see their own world-view and values in him.
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