introduction dissertation napoleon

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Early life and education

The jacobin years.

• The Directory
• Consolidation of power
• Program of reforms
• Military campaigns and uneasy peace
• Founding the empire
• War with Britain
• Blockade and the peninsular campaign
• Consolidation of empire
• Disaster in Russia and its aftermath
• Downfall and abdication
• Elba and the Hundred Days
• Exile on St. Helena
• The Napoleonic legend

Who was Napoleon?

How did napoleon become emperor of france, what did napoleon accomplish, what happened to napoleon, was napoleon short.

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• Table Of Contents

Napoleon I, also called Napoléon Bonaparte, was a French military general and statesman. Napoleon played a key role in the French Revolution (1789–99), served as first consul of France (1799–1804), and was the first emperor of France (1804–14/15). Today Napoleon is widely considered one of the greatest military generals in history.

Napoleon first seized political power in a coup d’état in 1799. The coup resulted in the replacement of the extant governing body—a five-member Directory —by a three-person Consulate . The first consul, Napoleon, had all the real power; the other two consuls were figureheads. Napoleon eventually abolished the Consulate and declared himself Emperor Napoleon I of France.

Napoleon served as first consul of France from 1799 to 1804. In that time, Napoleon reformed the French educational system, developed a civil code (the Napoleonic Code ), and negotiated the Concordat of 1801 . He also initiated the Napoleonic Wars (c. 1801–15), a series of wars that carried over into his reign as emperor of France (1804–14/15). As Emperor Napoleon I, he modernized the French military.

After a series of military defeats in 1812–13, Napoleon was forced to abdicate the French throne on April 6, 1814. Napoleon returned to power in early 1815 but was again ousted on June 22, 1815. In October 1815 Napoleon was exiled to the remote island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean, where he remained until he died on May 5, 1821, at age 51.

No! “Le Petit Caporal” wasn’t petite—at least not by 19th-century standards. The estimated average height of a French man in 1820 was 5 feet 4 inches (about 1.65 meters). At the time of his death in 1821, Napoleon measured about 5 feet 7 inches (roughly 1.68 meters) tall, meaning that he was actually of above-average height.

Napoleon I (born August 15, 1769, Ajaccio, Corsica—died May 5, 1821, St. Helena Island ) was a French general , first consul (1799–1804), and emperor of the French (1804–1814/15), one of the most celebrated personages in the history of the West. He revolutionized military organization and training; sponsored the Napoleonic Code , the prototype of later civil-law codes; reorganized education; and established the long-lived Concordat with the papacy.

(See “Napoleon’s Major Battles” Interactive Map)

Napoleon’s many reforms left a lasting mark on the institutions of France and of much of western Europe . But his driving passion was the military expansion of French dominion, and, though at his fall he left France little larger than it had been at the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789, he was almost unanimously revered during his lifetime and until the end of the Second Empire under his nephew Napoleon III as one of history’s great heroes.

Napoleon was born on Corsica shortly after the island’s cession to France by the Genoese. He was the fourth, and second surviving, child of Carlo Buonaparte , a lawyer, and his wife, Letizia Ramolino. His father’s family, of ancient Tuscan nobility, had emigrated to Corsica in the 16th century.

Carlo Buonaparte had married the beautiful and strong-willed Letizia when she was only 14 years old; they eventually had eight children to bring up in very difficult times. The French occupation of their native country was resisted by a number of Corsicans led by Pasquale Paoli . Carlo Buonaparte joined Paoli’s party, but, when Paoli had to flee, Buonaparte came to terms with the French. Winning the protection of the governor of Corsica, he was appointed assessor for the judicial district of Ajaccio in 1771. In 1778 he obtained the admission of his two eldest sons, Joseph and Napoleon, to the Collège d’Autun.

A Corsican by birth, heredity, and childhood associations, Napoleon continued for some time after his arrival in Continental France to regard himself a foreigner; yet from age nine he was educated in France as other Frenchmen were. While the tendency to see in Napoleon a reincarnation of some 14th-century Italian condottiere is an overemphasis on one aspect of his character, he did, in fact, share neither the traditions nor the prejudices of his new country: remaining a Corsican in temperament, he was first and foremost, through both his education and his reading, a man of the 18th century.

Napoleon was educated at three schools: briefly at Autun , for five years at the military college of Brienne, and finally for one year at the military academy in Paris. It was during Napoleon’s year in Paris that his father died of a stomach cancer in February 1785, leaving his family in straitened circumstances. Napoleon, although not the eldest son, assumed the position of head of the family before he was 16. In September he graduated from the military academy, ranking 42nd in a class of 58.

He was made second lieutenant of artillery in the regiment of La Fère, a kind of training school for young artillery officers. Garrisoned at Valence , Napoleon continued his education, reading much, in particular works on strategy and tactics. He also wrote Lettres sur la Corse (“Letters on Corsica”), in which he reveals his feeling for his native island. He went back to Corsica in September 1786 and did not rejoin his regiment until June 1788. By that time the agitation that was to culminate in the French Revolution had already begun. A reader of Voltaire and of Rousseau , Napoleon believed that a political change was imperative , but, as a career officer, he seems not to have seen any need for radical social reforms.

The Revolutionary period

When in 1789 the National Assembly , which had convened to establish a constitutional monarchy , allowed Paoli to return to Corsica, Napoleon asked for leave and in September joined Paoli’s group. But Paoli had no sympathy for the young man, whose father had deserted his cause and whom he considered to be a foreigner. Disappointed, Napoleon returned to France, and in April 1791 he was appointed first lieutenant to the 4th regiment of artillery, garrisoned at Valence. He at once joined the Jacobin Club , a debating society initially favouring a constitutional monarchy, and soon became its president, making speeches against nobles, monks, and bishops. In September 1791 he got leave to go back to Corsica again for three months. Elected lieutenant colonel in the national guard, he soon fell out with Paoli, its commander in chief. When he failed to return to France, he was listed as a deserter in January 1792. But in April France declared war against Austria , and his offense was forgiven.

Apparently through patronage, Napoleon was promoted to the rank of captain but did not rejoin his regiment. Instead he returned to Corsica in October 1792, where Paoli was exercising dictatorial powers and preparing to separate Corsica from France. Napoleon, however, joined the Corsican Jacobins, who opposed Paoli’s policy. When civil war broke out in Corsica in April 1793, Paoli had the Buonaparte family condemned to “perpetual execration and infamy,” whereupon they all fled to France.

Napoleon Bonaparte, as he may henceforth be called (though the family did not drop the spelling Buonaparte until after 1796), rejoined his regiment at Nice in June 1793. In his Le Souper de Beaucaire ( Supper at Beaucaire ), written at this time, he argued vigorously for united action by all republicans rallied round the Jacobins, who were becoming progressively more radical, and the National Convention , the Revolutionary assembly that in the preceding fall had abolished the monarchy.

At the end of August 1793, the National Convention’s troops had taken Marseille but were halted before Toulon , where the royalists had called in British forces. With the commander of the National Convention’s artillery wounded , Bonaparte got the post through the commissioner to the army, Antoine Saliceti, who was a Corsican deputy and a friend of Napoleon’s family. Bonaparte was promoted to major in September and adjutant general in October. He received a bayonet wound on December 16, but on the next day the British troops, harassed by his artillery, evacuated Toulon. On December 22 Bonaparte, age 24, was promoted to brigadier general in recognition of his decisive part in the capture of the town.

Augustin de Robespierre, the commissioner to the army, wrote to his brother Maximilien , by then virtual head of the government and one of the leading figures of the Reign of Terror , praising the “transcendent merit” of the young republican officer. In February 1794 Bonaparte was appointed commandant of the artillery in the French Army of Italy . Robespierre fell from power in Paris on 9 Thermidor, year II (July 27, 1794). When the news reached Nice, Bonaparte, regarded as a protégé of Robespierre, was arrested on a charge of conspiracy and treason. He was freed in September but was not restored to his command.

The following March he refused an offer to command the artillery in the Army of the West , which was fighting the counterrevolution in the Vendée . The post seemed to hold no future for him, and he went to Paris to justify himself. Life was difficult on half pay, especially as he was carrying on an affair with Désirée Clary, daughter of a rich Marseille businessman and sister of Julie, the bride of his elder brother, Joseph. Despite his efforts in Paris, Napoleon was unable to obtain a satisfactory command, because he was feared for his intense ambition and for his relations with the Montagnards , the more radical members of the National Convention . He then considered offering his services to the sultan of Turkey .

Department of History

Napoleon: A Concise Biography

This book provides a concise, accurate, and lively portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte's character and career, situating him firmly in historical context.

David Bell emphasizes the astonishing sense of human possibility--for both good and ill--that Napoleon represented. By his late twenties, Napoleon was already one of the greatest generals in European history. At thirty, he had become absolute master of Europe's most powerful country. In his early forties, he ruled a European empire more powerful than any since Rome, fighting wars that changed the shape of the continent and brought death to millions. Then everything collapsed, leading him to spend his last years in miserable exile in the South Atlantic.

Bell emphasizes the importance of the French Revolution in understanding Napoleon's career. The revolution made possible the unprecedented concentration of political authority that Napoleon accrued, and his success in mobilizing human and material resources. Without the political changes brought about by the revolution, Napoleon could not have fought his wars. Without the wars, he could not have seized and held onto power. Though his virtual dictatorship betrayed the ideals of liberty and equality, his life and career were revolutionary.

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The fictional representation of the Napoleonic wars in selected nineteenth century authors

Mayhew, Jeffrey (1973) The fictional representation of the Napoleonic wars in selected nineteenth century authors. Masters thesis, Durham University.

An introduction delineates the scope of the thesis and summarises its findings in a comparative survey of the texts utilised in the study. Five chapters cover five selected authors who are represented by one or two of their works. The first chapter considers Erckmann-Chatrian's Waterloo with particular attention to its form as a first person account and as a work specifically imbued with anti-war sentiments. Firstly the political climate prior to the Waterloo campaigns as described in Waterloo is analysed and then the description of the actual campaigns. The second chapter traces the development of Stendhal's political ideas and of his attitude towards Napoleon, largely through his non-fictional writing. It then examines the Napoleonic legend, and the mal du siecle as portrayed in Le Rouge et le Noir and the Italian campaigns and Waterloo as described in La Chartreuse de Parme. Chapter three considers Balzac’s political ideas and his attitude towards Napoleon and then presents an analysis of Le Colonel. Chabert. including a close study of the battle of Eylau, and a survey of the Napoleonic element in Le Medecin de campagne. The fourth chapter traces Hardy's interest in history and the genesis and development of the ideas which resulted in The Trumpet- Manor and The Dynasts. The first is considered in its entirety and the second for its presentation of the battle of Waterloo. Lastly chapter five examines Tolstoy's interest in the period and in particular his ideas on history as expressed in the Epilogue to War and Peace. An examination of Tolstoy's presentation of the battle of Borodino concludes the chapter.

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Napoleon Bonaparte and Its Revolutions Essay

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Introduction

Napoleon’s life in the military, napoleonic revolutions, works cited.

Napoleon is among the most renowned leaders in the world due to his conquest and abilities. During his lifetime, napoleon was able to achieve great success in his leadership, some of which the other emperors could only dream of.

Napoleon was both a military and a political commander; he is considered to be among the greatest military commanders due to his conquest of various regions, sometimes using an army that was by far weaker compared to other armies. The political and military achievements of Napoleon have been studied by many scholars and have been documented in many books.

Napoleon Bonaparte was born on 15 august 1769 in Ajaccio, in a Mediterranean island that was known as Corsica. He was the second son of Carlo and Letizia, a lawyer who did not have connections with the rulers and noblemen of the country.

This therefore made Napoleon not to have the advantage of being born in a wealthy family that would have facilitated his rise to power. However, this did not hinder Napoleon from becoming wealthy. In fact, by the time of his death, napoleon had acquired vast wealth due to his own ability and by the sheer luck of being in the right place at the right time (Dugdale-Pointon, Para. 2).

Napoleon had his first opportunity in the military when he was the captain of artillery, which was under General Jacques Dugommier at the siege of Toulon (Dugdale-Pointon Para. 2). He managed to capture Fort Mulgrave and the promontory of L’Eguillette; these were very crucial ports that enabled the French military to have the commanding position using their artilleries.

This forced the allied forces that had captured Toulon to withdraw from the island (Dugdale-Pointon Para. 2). Moreover, this acted as Napoleon’s path to the rise in power. His expertise to drive out the revolutionary forces from Toulon, earned him a promotion to the rank of Brigadier-General shortly afterwards in December 1793.

The military excellence of Napoleon Bonaparte enabled him to rise through the ranks of the French military at a very fast rate. When napoleon was 26 years old, he was made the second in command of the Army of the interior. With this position, Napoleon was able to fight many other battles with their enemies, and in most cases, he was the victor.

Napoleon had arrived in Paris from a battle in Egypt, where his troops had severely lost, hence making him to sneak back to France and leave his troops in Egypt, when he found a power vacuum which had been created due to the internal unrests in the country. He staged a coup, appointed himself as the ruler of France, and had the title of First Consul (Dugdale-Pointon Para. 11).

Since a large portion of the other army had perished in Egypt, Napoleon formed another army and soon after, started his conquest of other lands starting with Austria. Napoleon was to later lead other revolutions, which would ultimately lead to the expansion of his empire.

Napoleonic revolutions were generally different from the aims of his predecessors. In undertaking the revolutions, Napoleon was of the view that a strong centralized state was of utmost importance in the strengthening of the advances, which had been made by the revolution (Holmberg Para. 4).

Napoleon tried to spearhead revolutions, which would bring about stability to the French and strengthen the powers of the centralized government. In fact, when Napoleon was a Brigadier-General, he helped the government to restore order, as some rebels were openly planning a coup against the leadership (Dugdale-Pointon Para. 4).

Napoleon’s revolutions were generally different from those of his predecessors in that, upon conquest of a nation, Napoleon facilitated the creation of government based upon the consent of France as a whole. Napoleon regarded himself – and it was generally true – not as a military leader, but a person whom the members of the country saw had the right civilian qualities that enabled them to accept him as their leader (Holmberg Para. 4). This created stability in the revolutions, which Napoleon made as he generally accepted by the people.

Napoleon was also different from the other revolutionaries in that, he not only staged the revolutions, but also took measures to ensure that the advances made by the revolution were consolidated. By so doing, Napoleon ended the revolutions taking place in France at the time (Holmberg Para. 5).

Most of the revolutions, which took place before napoleon, had come to power mainly led to disunity between the ordinary people and noble men in the society. However, Napoleonic revolutions were different in that, Napoleon’s revolutions tried to bring about social change in the country.

Napoleon ensured that careers were given to people who had the abilities to do the jobs regardless of the social status of the person at birth. In addition, Napoleon reformed the French institutions, bringing order and stability to the country. Under Napoleon, the French were able to forge a unity among them (Holmberg Para. 6).

To enhance the equality of the society further, Napoleon led to the development of the Napoleonic Code and the Legion of Honor. The Napoleonic code ensured that all the members of the society were subjected to a common justice system. The Legion of Honor on the hand ensured was a reward given to the members of the military, civil, and judicial service.

The Legion of Honor provided unity to the above sectors and in effect, leading to the forging of the unity ties between the above groups who compromised a large percentage of the population (Holmberg Para. 8).

Napoleonic revolutions led to the stability of France through the creation of measures that brought social change to the country. The Napoleonic revolutions can therefore be said to have led to the end of the revolutions, as they brought about the much needed equality, stability, and unity between the French.

Dugdale-Pointon, T. “ Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) ”. 2006. Web.

Holmberg, Tom. “Napoleon and the French revolution.” Napoleon Bonaparte internet guide . 2008. Web.

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Napoléon n’est plus? Reflections on a bicentenary

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Laura O’Brien, Napoléon n’est plus? Reflections on a bicentenary, French History , Volume 35, Issue 4, December 2021, Pages 532–546, https://doi.org/10.1093/fh/crab053

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On a July evening in the summer of 2021, the cool air inside the Dôme church at Les Invalides provided a welcome respite from the lingering Parisian heat. The site was quiet, with few taking advantage of the museum’s extended opening hours, and as I descended into the crypt that has, since 1862, housed Napoleon’s remains, I realized I was the only visitor. In the cavernous silence it was just me, the enormous red porphyry sarcophagus that contains what’s left of Napoleon Bonaparte, and a new addition. Suspended above the tomb was the skeleton of a small horse, its left foreleg raised, as if captured forever in motion.

The equine skeleton is Memento Marengo , a work by the French artist Pascal Convert commissioned as part of Napoléon? Encore! , an exhibition of contemporary art organized by the Musée de l’Armée and Éric de Chassey, director of the Institut national de l’histoire de l’art (INHA), to mark the bicentenary of Napoleon’s death on 5 May 1821. 1 The work is a 3D-printed copy of the skeleton housed at the National Army Museum in London, said to be that of the mythic Marengo, Napoleon’s favourite horse. 2 As Convert has noted, the work is rather different in tone and subject matter to his previous commemorative commissions, including his 2003 memorial to executed Resistance fighters at Mont-Valérien. 3 The artist imagined Memento Marengo , as the title suggests, as a kind of modern memento mori : a recognition of Napoleon’s rise and fall and his ultimate mortality. Citing ancient burial practices in which warriors were buried with their steeds, Convert imagines the horse as ‘a celestial vehicle to carry the spirit of the dead [soldier] on to new battles’. 4

Memento Marengo cleverly reflects the tension between Napoleon as mere mortal and the persistence of his legend. The sight of the horse’s skeleton in the grandiose setting of the Dôme church inevitably reminds the visitor of the mortal remains encased and hidden from view in the sarcophagus below, while simultaneously invoking the familiar iconography of the providential man on horseback. 5 Yet the work has not been well received in some quarters, including among some of those most closely involved with the Napoleonic bicentenary. For them, the work is both disrespectful to Napoleon and to the setting of the Dôme church, with Thierry Lentz, director of the Fondation Napoléon, questioning whether it showed sufficient respect for the ‘national necropolis’. 6 In Le Figaro , Pierre Branda, historian and directeur du patrimoine for the Fondation, denounced the work as a ‘fake’, referring to the uncertainty surrounding the origins of the skeleton in London. Yet Branda’s criticism of the work went further than merely questioning its authenticity or appropriateness. Memento Marengo , he argued, ‘symbolised the deconstruction of French history’. ‘This emaciated horse is like a Trojan horse for bad thinkers [ mauvais penseurs ]’, Branda claimed, ‘Their targets are carefully chosen. They spare the minorities to offend the majority’. The furore over Convert’s work left its mark in the Dôme church, too. On an interpretative sign (unrelated to the artwork) near the entrance to Napoleon’s crypt, I noticed that someone had scrawled ‘CHEVAL SCANDALEUX’. 7

The controversy surrounding Convert’s Memento Marengo is emblematic of what Le Parisien referred to even before the May anniversary as ‘the bicentenary of discord’. 8 In the absence of a central state commemorative committee, the Fondation Napoléon, in line with its mission of promoting the study of both empires and preserving Napoleonic heritage, has been the main driver and overseer of activity in what the Fondation has designated ‘2021 Année Napoléon’, in partnership with a broad range of cultural organizations, associations, French embassies (in Malta and Belarus) and the network of ‘Villes impériales’ across France. 9 The proliferation of bicentenary events is in stark contrast to the rather muted reaction to news of Napoleon’s death in exile in 1821. 10 Yet this bicentenary was never going to pass without controversy, particularly in the aftermath of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020 and increasing interest in the place of imperial legacies and slavery in public history. In the case of France and Napoleon, this manifested itself in a renewed focus on the reimposition of slavery by Napoleon in 1802 and the violence of French troops in Haiti and the Antilles, as well as other long-standing themes including Napoleon’s misogyny and authoritarianism.

The experience of the Année Napoléon in 2021 speaks to several broad themes: state commemoration, particularly of controversial figures; popular engagement with the past; and the impact of anniversaries on scholarly work, both in terms of the involvement of scholars in shaping commemorative activity and how anniversaries can provide a platform for developing their fields. Anniversaries, in Tyler Stovall’s memorable phrase, are ‘dates on steroids’: an opportunity to ‘mobilize…public interest in that event and in history in general’. 11 But historical commemorations—especially when they concern a figure as significant but divisive as Napoleon—cannot escape their political context. 2021 has raised important questions about the place of Napoleon in contemporary France, including the uses to which his memory is put: in particular, how the bicentenary, as the case of Memento Marengo shows, became mired in highly politicized concerns about perceived threats to French history and values writ large. In reflecting on the experience of the Année Napoléon across three key areas—state commemoration, exhibitions and public engagement and writing Napoleonic history in 2021—this essay aims to consider the implications of the bicentenary for the reception and future of Napoleonic studies, which I understand in its broadest possible sense.

In March 2021, the Élysée spokesman Gabriel Attal confirmed that President Emmanuel Macron would mark the bicentenary of Napoleon’s death. 12 No detail was given at this stage as to what the state ceremony would actually entail: a reflection, perhaps, of continued uncertainty about the impact of COVID-19 on event planning and of the controversy that already surrounded potential state involvement in the anniversary. In early February, Le Parisien outlined these tensions, with Macron ostensibly caught between ‘deux feux mémoriels’: on one side, those who (such as the left-wing politician Alexis Corbière) argued that ‘the Republic does not have to celebrate its gravedigger’, and on the other, ‘des “napoléonistes”’, concerned that a rejection of the bicentenary by the state might reflect an effort to ‘cancel’ Napoleon and turn France into an ‘amnesiac nation’, in the words of the veteran Napoleonic historian Jean Tulard. 13 Debates such as this over Napoleon, his legacy and the extent to which he should be commemorated in the present are nothing new in modern France, despite the tendency in some of the bicentenary discussions and coverage to act as if he had only become a controversial figure in recent years. As Jacques-Olivier Boudon told Le Parisien , ‘With only a year to go until the presidential election [of May 2022], there are risks associated with celebrating such a divisive figure.’ 14

It was eventually confirmed that the ceremonies on 5 May would be relatively low-key: a speech delivered at the Institut de France to a select audience, including some lycée students, and a wreath-laying ceremony immediately afterwards at Les Invalides. 5 May would prove a busy day for wreath-laying. In the morning, wreaths were placed at Napoleon’s tomb by the current Prince Napoléon, the designated heir, accompanied by the president of the Fondation Napoléon, Victor-André Masséna, and by representatives of the Souvenir napoléonien, another organization that promotes Napoleonic memory and history. 15 A troop of reenactors in full Napoleonic-era military dress stood sentinel above the tomb during the ceremonies, before the annual anniversary mass for Napoleon was held at the church of Saint-Louis-des-Invalides. Regardless of how limited the state ceremonial would be, Macron’s decision to do something on the anniversary of Napoleon’s death was a significant one. Not since August 1969, when Georges Pompidou travelled to Ajaccio to mark the bicentenary of Napoleon’s birth, had a French president actively participated in a Napoleonic commemoration. 16 The anniversaries of the early 2000s—Austerlitz in 2005 and even the 2002 bicentenary of the reimposition of slavery—were ignored by Jacques Chirac’s government. 17 And, unsurprisingly, there was no statement from the Élysée in spring 2021 on the 150th anniversary of the Paris Commune of 1871. As Sudhir Hazareesingh has noted, Macron’s explicit participation in commemorating Napoleon was perhaps a natural decision for a president with one eye on the impending election, whose vision of himself as someone who transcends divisions of left and right aligns neatly with ‘the Napoleonic myth of a saviour who combines an appeal to order and progress’. 18

Presidential participation aside, however, the extent of the French state’s involvement in the 2021 bicentenary was significantly reduced in comparison to the state’s much more central role in the commemorative programme for 1969—global pandemic notwithstanding. In 1969—in line with other historical anniversaries before and since, such as the centenary of the revolution of 1848 in 1948 and the bicentenary of the French Revolution in 1989—a state commemorative committee oversaw the schedule of events, with culture minister André Malraux announcing a programme of no fewer than fifty Napoleon-themed television shows to begin in April 1969. 19 In 2021, in contrast, the Fondation Napoléon took it upon itself to lead the planning for the bicentenary in the absence of a state-organized central bicentenary committee. In the summer of 1969, three major, intersecting exhibitions organized in Paris—at the Grand Palais, the Archives Nationales and the Bibliothèque nationale—examined Napoleon’s life, legend and personality, and were organized under the auspices of Malraux’s office for Cultural Affairs and the Réunion des Musées nationaux. 20 As the Année Napoléon shows, in the succeeding five decades the commemorative initiative (saved for events of major importance, such as the centenary of the First World War) and the bulk of the commemorative labour has shifted firmly towards interest groups and specialist societies as well as cultural institutions, some of which are, of course, in receipt of state funding.

In the time between Malraux’s unveiling of the programme of commemorative events in April and the anniversary of Napoleon’s birth in August 1969, France had witnessed the abdication of yet another providential leader with the resignation of Charles de Gaulle in late April. As a result, de Gaulle avoided having to directly ‘confront the Napoleonic legend’ in Ajaccio, which may have come as somewhat of a relief. 21 It fell to Georges Pompidou to outline a vision of Napoleon for the troubled Fifth Republic as the 1960s drew to a close. The emphasis was firmly on gloire : Napoleon’s individual glory, but more importantly ‘ nos gloires ’, those achieved by France as a whole. ‘There is no name more glorious than that of Napoleon’, Pompidou proclaimed. 22 While this glory was uniquely French, Pompidou also sought to frame Bonaparte as a great European, the federal visionary, and to harness the Napoleonic legend to endorse the European Community. 23 For Pompidou, though, Napoleon’s legacy could also provide a unifying message in other ways. With the tumult of 1968 and 1969 still looming large, he described how Napoleon had enabled the French people ‘not to forget their divisions, but to overcome them in the name of rebuilding national unity’. 24

What Napoleon, then, would emerge from Macron’s speech under the Dôme of the Institut de France? As 5 May neared, the Élysée was keen to remind the event’s critics that the intention was not to celebrate but to commemorate. With one eye firmly on May 2022, the bicentennial ceremonies were presented as another instalment in Macron’s stated plan to ‘confront the past en face et en bloc ’ and to offer a ‘balanced’ vision of French history. 25 Early in the speech, the president contrasted what he described as the ‘exalted celebration’ of the retour des cendres of December 1840, when Napoleon’s body was returned to France, with the ‘enlightened commemoration’ of 2021. 26 Here Macron echoed a common trope in debates around the bicentenary, both among Napoleon’s critics and his most vocal supporters: that he had been a figure of universal admiration for previous generations. Those familiar with the history of mid-nineteenth-century France would certainly have been bemused at the president’s image of Frenchmen and women united in feverish adulation for the petit caporal . Though the retour des cendres of 1840 was greeted broadly enthusiastically, it also provoked considerable political anxieties and criticism—as Napoleonic commemorations so often do. 27

As expected, Macron’s speech did not ignore the darker elements of the Napoleonic regime—the reimposition of slavery in 1802, but also the enormous loss of life caused by the Napoleonic Wars. Yet this explicit recognition of Napoleon’s problematic actions and legacies was couched by Macron in terms that reiterated the triumph of republican values. Napoleon may have reimposed slavery but, as Macron put it, ‘the Second Republic repaired this mistake, the betrayal of the spirit of the Enlightenment’, 28 adding that the Republic honoured Toussaint Louverture and the Abbé Grégoire within the Panthéon. While Napoleon ‘was never really concerned with loss of life’, the French Republic had, since then, ‘emphasised the value of human life above all else, whether in war or in pandemics’. Bonaparte could not repress the revolutionary, republican spirit: ‘1789 was stronger than Napoleon.’ 29

Despite his insistence on the triumph of the progressive republic over the errors of the Napoleonic era, the general tone of Macron’s speech was (as Hazareesingh observed) ‘unapologetically celebratory’. 30 Napoleon’s life was, in Macron’s view, a vital, final break with the ancien régime and the transition to a new age, an ‘epiphany of liberty’. In a striking turn of phrase for a president criticized for his rightward drift and efforts to assume greater control over presidential powers, Napoleon represented ‘an ode to political will’. For all Macron’s attempts to draw a distinction between the unthinking hero-worship of the nineteenth century and the rational commemorations of the present, at times his descriptions of Napoleon’s achievements and his continued appeal came close in spirit to some of the nineteenth-century novels he has cited elsewhere as a personal influence. 31 Here was Napoleon as the ‘first of the Romantics’, the inspiration to artists and writers, and a figure who continued to inspire as an example of the importance of ‘taking risks, having confidence in the imagination, and being completely oneself.’ 32 Warning against ‘anachronistic’ attempts to ‘judge the past with the laws of the present’, Macron stated plainly: ‘Napoleon Bonaparte is a part of us [ une part de nous ].’ 33 This statement can be read as a reiteration of Macron’s all-encompassing vision of French history—‘nous assumons tout’, as he put it, adapting Napoleon’s own words. But it also raises questions of inclusion and exclusion in the modern republic, particularly in the context of greater efforts to promote awareness and understanding of colonial history in France and the ongoing marginalization of particular communities— especially French Muslims. 34 If Napoleon is a part of ‘us’, then who are ‘we’—and who gets to determine who ‘we’ are in 2021?

The average French citizen (or visitor to France) was most likely to encounter the Année Napoléon via one of the many exhibitions, cultural events or re-enactments held across France, or perhaps through the press or a television documentary. Although COVID-19 restrictions in France undoubtedly impacted some of these events, with museums not allowed to reopen until 19 May, the widespread prevalence of Napoleonic-themed exhibitions suggests that—despite the controversies surrounding the bicentenary—Bonaparte remains potentially big business. The Napoleon packaged and presented for audiences in 2021 is perhaps more complex and multi-faceted than he may have appeared in previous contexts—the ‘man of a thousand and one faces’, as the Château de Malmaison’s exhibition of representations of Napoleon put it. 35 The major shows of 2021 blended a re-treading of familiar ground with some important new departures, integrating new research and approaches to Napoleonic history and biography, while reflecting a persistent desire for a degree of intimacy with this most familiar, but ultimately unknowable, historical figure.

At Les Invalides, the Musée de l’Armée’s Napoléon n’est plus traced Napoleon’s death and the eventual fate of his remains. Opening with François Rude’s plaster model for his work Napoléon s’éveillant à l’immortalité (1846), the show brought visitors face to face with some of the most intimate of the Napoleonic ‘relics’: the surgical tools used to carry out his autopsy, blood-stained sheets from that event and some of the various death-masks created on Saint-Helena. Napoléon n’est plus directly explored the blurred lines between political, personal and religious devotion in Napoleonic ‘fandom’, presenting some of the reliquaries created by Napoleon’s admirers and acolytes alongside images including a mosaic of Horace Vernet’s depiction of a resurrected Napoleon striding purposefully out of his tomb. 36 Towards the end of the exhibition, a 1936 letter from Charles de Gaulle to his children, describing childhood visits to Napoleon’s tomb, served to reinforce the lineage of French providential leadership from Napoleon to the general. ‘My childhood was cradled in the legend of the Eagle,’ de Gaulle wrote, ‘at the foot of the Emperor’s tomb, I was told many times of his actions and exploits…’ 37 An interpretative text accompanying de Gaulle’s letter implied that Napoleon could still provide inspiration for present generations. Referring to the ‘courage and inspiration’ drawn from the tomb by French soldiers during the First World War and de Gaulle in the Second, it asked the visitor in 2021: ‘And what about you? What are you seeking from it?’

The biggest of all the bicentenary shows is Napoléon , staged at the Grande Halle de La Villette, the former abattoir and meat market turned exhibition and concert venue on the north-eastern fringes of Paris. Organized primarily by the Réunion des Musées nationaux and costing €4m, it was hoped that Napoléon would be a blockbuster to surpass the record-breaking Tutankhamun exhibition held at the same venue in 2019. 38 Ticket sales, however, have been less than spectacular, with only around 135,000 sold by September. 39 Besides the subject matter, the combination of continued public health restrictions, far fewer international visitors (who, Le Figaro suggested, may be more likely to visit a Napoleon exhibition) and the rather steep €20 admission price has clearly not helped matters. 40 Despite his smaller-than-expected audience numbers, at La Villette Bonaparte is a kind of rock star: Jacques-Louis David’s dynamic hero crossing the Saint Bernard pass stares imperiously at Parisians from the exhibition posters, echoing visions of Napoleon as celebrity and enigmatic enfant terrible . 41 Indeed, in recent years the gift shop at Les Invalides has sold a line of t-shirts depicting Napoleon alongside classic rock lyrics. 42 Arriving at the Grande Halle, it is difficult to shake the sense of arriving for an audience with a historical superstar. NAPOLÉON is emblazoned across the entrance in huge letters, like a headline act. Inside, visitors enter the show to the strains of an indie pop guitar riff: ‘Napoleon Says’ by the French band Phoenix. The exhibition’s scenography is highly theatrical, and deliberately so. The show’s curators conceived of it not so much as a traditional exhibition but rather—in the words of Jean-Baptiste Clais, a Louvre conservator closely involved in its design—as a ‘biopic’ of someone who ‘created his own times’. 43

In the midst of this theatrical bombast, the most significant part of Napoléon , particularly in the context of the debates surrounding this bicentenary, is a small area devoted to Bonaparte and slavery created in partnership with the Fondation pour la mémoire de l’esclavage. 44 For the first time, the 1802 decrees maintaining slavery in certain French Caribbean territories and re-establishing it in Guadeloupe have been put on public display. Napoleon’s colonial policies, events in the Antilles and their consequences are narrated for visitors through filmed interviews with historians and writers, including the late Marcel Dorigny and Marlene Daut, whose March 2021 opinion piece in the New York Times became a lightning rod for criticisms of the bicentenary. 45 Curators of previous Napoleon shows have not completely ignored these themes. In his introduction to the catalogue for the 2013 exhibition Napoléon et l’Europe , the then-director of the Musée de l’Armée, General Christian Baptiste, noted the importance of slavery in the Napoleonic story (as well as the growing interest in the topic), but argued (perhaps as a way of fudging the issue) that the Caribbean deserved greater, more specialized attention than an explicitly Eurocentric exhibition could offer. 46 The inclusion, however limited, of these events in the narrative of Napoleon’s life at La Villette in 2021 therefore marks a major departure in the history of Napoleonic exhibitions in France, and in the public acknowledgment of French colonial legacies in the Caribbean. This is a testament to the work over many years of scholars and activists in France and elsewhere, as well as of organizations such as the Fondation pour la mémoire de l’esclavage. In the Antilles, meanwhile, local politicians and historical groups creatively expressed their rejection of the official state commemorations. Josette Borel-Lincertin, then-president of the Guadeloupe departmental council, told Le Monde in April 2021 that the only fitting response was to send ‘the echo of our sorrow’ back across the Atlantic to France. 47 Each night from 5 May to 28 May, the anniversary of the defeat of the Guadeloupean resistance in 1802, buildings at Pointe-à-Pitre and Basse-Terre were illuminated in blood red. 48

For all its breadth and detail, one leaves Napoléon at La Villette thinking of the quotation from Balzac’s Autre étude de femme , reproduced on the cover of the exhibition catalogue: ‘Who could ever explain, portray, or understand Napoleon!’ The scale of the exhibition makes it difficult to pin its subject down as multiple Napoleons emerge: the military leader, the patron of the arts, the authoritarian ruler and the isolated exile. Then again, perhaps this is an accurate reflection of Napoleon’s essence. Here is a man who created a persona of power, who gradually disappeared ‘Bonaparte’ into ‘Napoleon’ and who therefore made it very difficult—despite the best efforts of his many biographers—to discover the ‘real’ person behind the performance. Napoléon does not engage very much with representations of Napoleon, or the emergence of the Napoleonic legend. Other bicentenary exhibitions examine this in more detail. The Château de Malmaison’s Napoléon aux 1001 visages drew primarily on the museum’s own rich collections to examine the many visions of Napoleon, from the Canova bust that greets visitors in the entrance hall to the monstrous ogre of British and German caricature. But it is the Musée de l’Armée’s Napoléon? Encore! that really speaks to the making and remaking of Napoleon’s image over the last two centuries, its meaning in the twenty-first century and its centrality to the Napoleonic story in all its myriad forms. The criticism of Convert’s Memento Marengo has perhaps overshadowed the richness of the show, which brings together thirty contemporary artists from around the world, including from Algeria, China and Russia, to interpret the Napoleonic image and legacy ‘without succumbing to the facile symmetry of hagiography or demonisation’. 49 With the artworks displayed throughout the Musée de l’Armée, including in spaces usually closed to visitors and alongside thematically appropriate historical objects, Napoléon? Encore! encourages visitors to reflect on Napoleon’s transformation into a malleable, adaptable image, and the persistence of that image two centuries after his death.

The show explicitly seeks to make more visible those whose lives, though interwoven with the Napoleonic story, have been marginalized: to shine a light on those ‘left in the shadows in mainstream historiography and by the iconography of a lone hero.’ 50 Hervé Ingrand’s ‘Der schwarze Teufel’ (‘The Black Devil’), a tribute to General Alexandre Dumas whose title evokes the nickname given to him by Austrian troops, shows Dumas fighting the Austrians almost single-handedly at Clausen Bridge in 1797, simultaneously appearing in every part of the scene. The Franco-Canadian artist Kapwani Kiwanga’s Nations , an installation of banners representing the battle for emancipation by enslaved people and free people of colour, adapts contemporary European prints of events in Haiti in order to decentre the master narrative from ‘great man’ figures (whether Napoleon or Toussaint Louverture) to the ‘anonymous fighters’ Kiwanga is drawn to: ‘I don’t think it’s very relevant today to want to write the kind of history that focuses on powerful men.’ 51 For the duration of the exhibition Kiwanga’s hand-embroidered banners hang alongside those of French regiments and captured enemy flags in the church of Saint-Louis-des-Invalides. Here, as Éric de Chassey explains, these stories can ‘find their place – admittedly, temporarily – in the national narrative’. 52

The furore around Memento Marengo suggests that such challenges to the national narrative are not always readily accepted. At times, the Année Napoléon has felt less about interpretations of a man who died 200 years ago and more like a new front in what some consider a culture war. The subsuming of the bicentenary into this context, alongside wider debates around perceived efforts to ‘cancel’ the past, has implications not just for commemoration and public history but for the future of Napoleonic history and studies (and here I include work in art history, literature, theatre studies and other related disciplines). What, then, are the opportunities that emerge from the bicentenary—and what are the problems that the Année Napoléon leaves in its wake?

The groaning tables of books covering every aspect of Napoleon’s life and regime that were a feature of French bookshops and the gift shop at La Villette this summer (including, importantly, a selection of works on the Haitian Revolution) are testament to the continuing scale and power of the Napoleonic publishing industry. At first glance, then, the field appears in good health and the appetite for new work on Napoleon remains strong. The preparation and publication by the Fondation Napoléon of a new, complete series of Napoleon’s correspondence has revitalized the work of scholars and helped to reinvigorate Napoleonic biography. 53 In recent years there has been a clear move towards new directions in writing Napoleonic history, echoing a broader turn away from ‘great man’ history to considering Napoleon, the empire and the Napoleonic world in terms of structures, culture and transnational perspectives. 54 This is also borne out in recent work on the Napoleonic Wars, which has shifted focus towards the lived experience of soldiers and how memories of the conflict were forged, while integrating vital new approaches from cultural and gender history. 55 Napoleon remains a popular subject for biographers—though recent years have seen efforts to move away from the perennial quest for the ‘real’ Napoleon to exploring his life from different perspectives and in comparative context. 56 Work in cultural and social history, as well as in art history, literature and theatre studies, has played with the very idea of a ‘real’ Napoleon, considering him within the context of image, representation and cultural legacies. 57 Rather than trying to reach a singular truth about Napoleon the man, this work—including my own on Napoleonic performance in theatre and cinema—understands him as an imagined, constructed, cultural figure and a cipher onto whom the hopes or fears of entire nations could be projected. 58

Some of the debates around the bicentenary, however, have raised troubling questions about the future of Napoleonic studies: in particular, the extent to which the field (especially in a public-facing context and in France) has made space for new historical approaches and perspectives. In a Le Monde article on the current state of historical research on Napoleon, Natalie Petiteau argued that the emphasis on biography, on ‘histoire événementielle’, and on Napoleon the man has limited the scope for truly innovative scholarship. 59 In the same piece, Sudhir Hazareesingh suggested that mainstream Napoleonic history, particularly in France, does not reflect the diversity of approaches that drive work in other areas. ‘History, now, is more global, more spatial, more cultural’, he noted, adding that ‘You don’t really see that with Napoleon.’ 60 In some ways this is a fair assessment but, as the ambitious, important recent work described above suggests, it does not reflect the whole picture. The problem, then, is not that innovative work is not being done on Napoleon but rather that it has not always been given sufficient room in a field that remains rather political and military in its outlook. Work on material culture and Napoleon as patron of the arts aside, the diversity of Napoleonic history has not been very visible during the bicentenary, particularly in its public-facing elements. The hors-série special issue produced by Le Figaro encapsulates the problem, with an overwhelmingly biographical focus on Napoleon and his role as ‘the conqueror of the centuries’. 61 With only one female contributor, Gwenaële Robert, among the assembled ranks of the French Napoleonic establishment, this commemorative magazine also reflects the gender problem in Napoleonic history: it is a field dominated (and not just in France) by white men. 62

Some have sought to explain the persistent traditionalism of the Napoleonic historical establishment by pointing to the disconnection between Napoleonic scholarship in France and academic history as practiced in universities. 63 With a few notable exceptions, the historians and scholars who have dominated the bicentenary—in publications, contributions to exhibitions, media appearances and commentary—overwhelmingly work outside of academia. 64 The currents that shape academic debates and approaches to the past may therefore feel at odds with a form of Napoleonic history that, while still rigorous, increasingly rooted in original sources and important archival work, is often more ‘traditional’ in its approach. These different perspectives on Napoleonic history can, and should be able to, co-exist. Yet in the heated context of the bicentenary, it appears that some of Napoleon’s contemporary supporters have come to see the concerns of twenty-first century academic historians—including gender, identity, representation and global connections—in explicitly hostile terms. These approaches are seen not as opportunities to diversify and enhance the field but rather as existential threats to ‘history’ itself.

In some cases, it is as if the theoretical, ethical and political dimensions of contemporary academic history are anathema to the study of Napoleon. Much of the early chapters of Thierry Lentz’s Pour Napoléon , published as a defence of Napoleon for the bicentenary, focus on criticizing those who Lentz calls the ‘do-gooder ayatollahs [ ayatollahs du bien ]’, the ‘deconstructing-globalisers [ déconstructeurs-globalisateurs ]’ who promote a multiculturalism that ‘seeks to deconstruct national histories’. 65 Lentz is correct when he notes that Napoleonic history is not as stale as some critics (or, as he calls them, ‘militants’) might suggest. 66 But in framing his polemic as a ‘plea for history’ and for ‘historical facts’, to be contrasted with the presumed errors of others, Lentz situates his defence of Napoleon within the context of a so-called war on history, a form of culture war that has become increasingly prominent in conservative politics on both sides of the Channel and beyond. 67 Echoing Branda’s commentary on Memento Marengo , Lentz goes so far as to argue that perceived criticism of Napoleon—even the established interpretation of the Code Civil as patriarchal—is part of a plot to ‘make the French people disgusted by their history’ in order to ‘throw aside knowledge and reason to benefit minority passions with a media presence’. 68

The adoption of this position by the head of one of the central and most powerful organizations for Napoleonic history—in Aurélien Lignereux’s phrase, the ‘keepers of the flame [ gardiens du temple ]’—is concerning when considering the future of the field and the legacies of the bicentenary. 69 While motivated by a desire to defend Napoleonic history, Lentz’s criticism of vital contemporary approaches and concerns only serves to alienate scholars who, like myself, have come to the field engaged with the theoretical frameworks and contexts he appears to denounce. The heightened tensions surrounding the bicentenary have, in some quarters, manifested themselves in a rather binary attitude to what it means to write Napoleonic history, broadly understood: on one side, denunciations of criticism as a threat to national history; on the other, a perception that anyone working on Napoleon or related topics must be an apologist or a fan. Rather than encouraging new work, these binaries might well serve to exclude or discourage scholars from exploring fresh perspectives in Napoleonic studies. Indeed, even established scholars in the field, such as Natalie Petiteau, have moved on to pastures new, citing the ‘harsh and closed-off attitude of the Napoleonic milieu’. 70

Instead of resigning ourselves to the status quo, however, perhaps the most worthwhile response to the Année Napoléon might be to consider it a provocation: an indication that the field needs to become more open and more inclusive. For all the debates and controversies, the experience of the bicentenary has shown that there is still interest in, and considerable scope for, reinterpreting and reassessing Napoleon, particularly in terms of his legacies and image. The explicit integration of race, slavery and colonial violence into the narrative of Napoleonic history told via the major exhibitions, both at La Villette and in Napoléon? Encore! , is a significant step forward—though there is much more work still to do in this area. I am inclined to agree with Natalie Petiteau when she suggests that more innovative work may emerge once the bicentenary year is over and the frenzy of commemorative activity dies down. 71 It remains to be seen whether, as Sudhir Hazareesingh mused this summer, Emmanuel Macron’s decision to publicly commemorate Napoleon might lead him to ‘a sticky end’ at the ballot box in May 2022. 72 As scholars, though, we can only hope that one major outcome of 2021 is an approach to Napoleonic history that is more diverse, more engaged with contemporary concerns and more willing to make room for a broader range of voices and perspectives.

The author would like to thank the editors of French History for their encouragement during the preparation of this article, and especially to Joseph Clarke for his guidance and editorial input on drafts. She is also grateful to Katherine Astbury, Nicole Cochrane, Ultán Gillen, Melissa Gustin and Clare Siviter for their discussions about the bicentenary.

The exhibition will run until February 2022. See < https://www.musee-armee.fr/en/programme/exhibitions/detail/napoleon-encore.html >.

Whether this horse was, in fact, Napoleon’s at all remains somewhat of a mystery: J. Hamilton, Marengo: the Myth of Napoleon’s Horse (London, 2000). In the case of Convert’s artwork, however, what matters is less whether this is the ‘real’ horse and more its symbolic value.

‘Mont-Valérien’, Pascal Convert ,

< http://www.pascalconvert.fr/histoire/mont_valerien/monument.html >

P. Convert, [interview] in Napoléon? Encore! [exhibition catalogue] (Paris, 2021), 62.

As I have noted elsewhere, the work can also be read as a nod to the ‘long tradition of Napoleonic kitsch’ and public display. L. O’Brien, ‘The celebrity horse that’s putting Napoleon in the shade’, Apollo [online], 6 May 2021, < https://www.apollo-magazine.com/horse-napoleon-tomb-bicentenary/ >.

See < https://twitter.com/thierrylentz/status/1385849210218680322?s=21> (24 April 2021). The Dôme church is also the resting place of Vauban, Foch, Lyautey and other French military leaders.

P. Branda, ‘Un squelette de cheval en plastique sur le tombeau de Napoléon: “une idée grotesque et irrespectueuse”’, Le Figaro , 6 May 2021, < https://www.lefigaro.fr/vox/histoire/un-squelette-de-cheval-en-plastique-sur-le-tombeau-de-napoleon-une-idee-grotesque-et-irrespectueuse-20210506 >.

C. de Saint-Sauveur, ‘Napoléon, le bicentenaire de la discorde’, Le Parisien , 7 Feb. 2021.

‘Année Napoléon 2021’, Fondation Napoléon , < https://fondationnapoleon.org/en/activities-and-services/telling-history/napoleon-year-2021/ >. The ‘Villes impériales’ form a network of towns with connections to Napoleonic history and heritage, including places such as Fontainebleau, Rueil-Malmaison and Brienne-le-Château, which use the branding as a way of boosting heritage tourism.

As Thierry Lentz notes, the lack of reaction in 1821 was in part a consequence of censorship. The circulation of pamphlets about Napoleon throughout the summer of 1821 suggests a continued interest in him and his fate. T. Lentz, Bonaparte n’est plus! Le monde apprend la mort de Napoléon: juillet-septembre 1821 (Paris, 2019), 115–24.

T. Stovall, ‘Happy Anniversary? Historians and the commemoration of the past’, Perspectives on History (April 2017), < https://www.historians.org/publications-and-directories/perspectives-on-history/april-2017/happy-anniversary-historians-and-the-commemoration-of-the-past >.

‘Macron Commémora Le Bicentenaire de la Mort de Napoléon, Dit Attal’, Reuters , 10 March 2021, < https://www.reuters.com/article/france-napoleon-idFRKBN2B21R6 >.

de Saint-Sauveur, ‘Napoléon, le bicentenaire de la discorde’.

Fondation Napoléon, ‘Retour en images et vidéos sur les cérémonies du 5 mai’, 13 May 2021, < https://www.napoleon.org/histoire-des-2-empires/articles/2021-annee-napoleon-retour-en-images-et-videos-sur-les-ceremonies-du-5-mai-2021-a-paris-et-a-sainte-helene/ >.

‘“Napoléon Bonaparte est une part de nous”: Emmanuel Macron célèbre le bicentenaire de la mort d’une figure controversée’, Le Monde , 5 May 2021, < https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2021/05/05/emmanuel-macron-celebre-les-200-ans-de-la-mort-de-napoleon-figure-toujours-contestee_6079228_823448.html >.

The lack of interest in the 2002 anniversary is particularly striking, given that the 150th anniversary of the definitive abolition of slavery in 1848 had been marked only four years previously in 1998.

S. Hazareesingh, ‘Une part de nous’, Times Literary Supplement , 8 July 2021, 7.

O. Hahn, ‘Napoléon jusqu’à l’indigestion’, L’Express , 24 June 1969, reproduced on < https://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/politique/1969-commemoration-napoleon-jusqu-a-l-indigestion_2079252.html >.

See the catalogue for the Grand Palais exhibition: Napoléon: Grand Palais, juin-décembre 1969 (Paris, 1969).

R. Gildea, The Past in French History (New Haven, 1994), 110.

G. Pompidou, ‘Discours du 15 août 1969 à l’occasion du bicentenaire de la naissance de Napoléon’, Institut Georges Pompidou , < http://www.georges-pompidou.org/georges-pompidou/portail-archives/discours-du-15-aout-1969-loccasion-du-bicentenaire-naissance >.

Gildea, The Past , 110.

G. Pompidou, ‘Discours du 15 août 1969’

Macron has referred to his desire to ‘regarder l’histoire en face’ in previous contexts, most notably in response to the completion in January 2021 of a report authored by Benjamin Stora on the memory of colonialism and the Algerian War: B. König, ‘Rapport Stora: Emmanuel Macron entend sortir du déni et construire une mémoire’, L’Humanité , 21 Jan. 2021, < https://www.humanite.fr/rapport-stora-emmanuel-macron-entend-sortir-du-deni-et-construire-une-memoire-699056 >.

E. Macron, ‘5 mai 2021. Discours du président de la République à l’occasion du bicentenaire de la mort de Napoléon Ier’, Palais de l’Élysée , < https://www.elysee.fr/front/pdf/elysee-module-17623-fr.pdf >

On the retour des cendres and the debates surrounding it: S. Hazareesingh, The Legend of Napoleon (London, 2004), chapter 6, and P. Dwyer, Napoleon: Passion, Death and Resurrection, 1815–1840 (London, 2018), chapters 9 and 10.

E. Macron, ‘Discours du président de la République à l’occasion du bicentenaire de la mort de Napoléon Ier’.

Hazareesingh, ‘Une part de nous’, 7.

E. Macron, Revolution , trans. J. Goldberg and J. Scott (Melbourne and London, 2017), 12–13, where the then-presidential candidate describes his move to Paris and excitement at living ‘in places that existed only in novels’ by Flaubert, Hugo and Balzac.

Hazareesingh, ‘Une part de nous’, 8.

Napoléon aux 1001 visages (Chateau de Malmaison, 5 May–6 September 2021).

As Alison Hafera notes, Vernet’s painting (now lost, but surviving via the aquatints and prints produced of it) was part of a genre of images that sought ‘to sacralize Napoleon by conflating his image and body with Christian iconography’: A. Hafera, ‘Visual mediations of mourning and melancholia in France, 1790–1830’ (PhD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2015), 142–3.

Letter from Charles de Gaulle to his children (around 1936), reproduced in Napoléon n’est plus [exhibition catalogue] (Paris, 2021), 294–5.

de Saint Sauveur, ‘Napoléon: le bicentenaire de la discorde’.

B. de Rochebouët, ‘Bicentenaire de Napoléon: chapeau aux enchères pour la fin des festivités’, Le Figaro , 24 Sept. 2021, < https://www.lefigaro.fr/culture/encheres/bicentenaire-de-napoleon-chapeau-aux-encheres-pour-la-fin-des-festivites-20210924 >. The show’s run has been extended until December 2022.

On Napoleon and celebrity: among others, L. Braudy, The Frenzy of Renown: Fame and its History (London, 1997), esp. part V, ‘The democratization of fame’; A. Lilti, Figures publiques: l’invention de la célébrité (1750–1850) (Paris, 2014).

A particular highlight of this clothing line is a t-shirt showing a silhouette of Napoleon with an electric guitar slung across his back (based on a Born to Run -era portrait of Bruce Springsteen) with the slogan (in English) ‘Born in Ajaccio – On Tour’. At the time of writing, these shirts were still available for purchase from the Musée de l’Armée gift shop online.

B. de Rochebouët and É. Biétry-Rivierre, ‘A La Villette, Napoléon à l’heure du sacré’, Le Figaro , 30 May 2021. < https://www.lefigaro.fr/arts-expositions/a-la-villette-napoleon-a-l-heure-du-sacre-20210530 >.

‘Exposition Napoléon: Bonaparte et l’esclavage’, Fondation pour la mémoire de l’esclavage, 12 March 2021, < https://memoire-esclavage.org/exposition-napoleon-bonaparte-et-lesclavage >. The FME also had a ‘carte blanche’ day at La Villette in July 2021, with roundtables and performances featuring Black French and Antillais scholars, writers and artists.

M. Daut, ‘Napoleon isn’t a hero to celebrate’, New York Times , 18 March 2021.

C. Baptiste, ‘Introduction’, Napoléon et l’Europe [exhibition catalogue] (Paris, 2013), 12.

J.-M. Hauteville, ‘Bicentenaire de la mort de Napoléon: aux Antilles, une commémoration qui se passe mal’, Le Monde , 24 April 2021. < https://www.lemonde.fr/politique/article/2021/04/24/bicentenaire-de-la-mort-de-napoleon-aux-antilles-une-commemoration-qui-passe-mal_6077928_823448.html >.

É. de Chassey, ‘Quelques questions’, Napoléon? Encore! , 16.

K. Kiwanga [interview], Napoléon? Encore! , 92–3.

De Chassey, ‘Quelques questions’, 22.

The Fondation also oversaw the publication in 2017 of the original (and much shorter) edition of the Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène , which has encouraged renewed interest in Napoleon’s efforts to forge his own legend in exile: E. de las Cases, Le Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène: texte établi, présenté et commenté par Thierry Lentz, Peter Hicks, François Houdecek et Chantal Prévot (Paris, 2017); N. Bonaparte, Correspondance générale , vol. XV : les chutes, 1814–1821. Supplément, 1788–1813 (Paris, 2018).

Including, but certainly not limited to: A. Lignereux, Les Impériaux: administrer et habiter l’Europe de Napoléon (Paris, 2019); V. Haegele, Révolution impériale: l’Europe des Bonaparte, 1789-1815 (Paris, 2021); A. Mikaberidze, The Napoleonic Wars: a Global History (Oxford, 2020); S. McCain, The Language Question Under Napoleon (London, 2018).

See the work of Jennifer Heuer on gender, race and family in Napoleonic France in transnational context; chapters on the revolutionary and Napoleonic Mediterranean and German experiences in 1812 in J. Clarke and J. Horne (eds.), Militarized Cultural Encounters in the Long Nineteenth Century: Making War, Mapping Europe (Cham, 2018); and Matilda Grieg’s study of military memoirs, Dead Men Telling Tales: Napoleonic War Veterans and the Military Memoir Industry, 1809–1914 (Oxford, 2021).

R. Scurr, Napoleon: a Life in Gardens and Shadows (London, 2021); J.-O. Boudon, Napoléon, le dernier Romain (Paris, 2021); A. Caiani, To Kidnap a Pope: Napoleon and Pius VII (New Haven and London, 2021). Alongside more trade-focused biographies, recent years have also seen the publication of the final volume in Philip Dwyer’s biographical trilogy, Napoleon: Passion, Death, and Resurrection, 1815–1840 (London, 2018) and the second volume in Michael Broers’ life of Napoleon, Napoleon: Spirit of the Age, 1805–1810 (London, 2018).

See, among others, N. Pigault, Les Faux Napoléon: histoires d’imposteurs impériaux, 1815–1823 (Paris, 2018); T. Crow, Restorations: the Fall of Napoleon in the Course of European Art (Princeton, 2018); K. Astbury and M. Philp (eds.), Napoleon’s Hundred Days and the Politics of Legitimacy (Cham, 2018); C. Siviter, Tragedy and Nation in the Age of Napoleon (Oxford, 2020).

L. O’Brien, ‘L’émergence de l’« acteur napoléonien» au XIXe siècle’, Revue italienne d’études françaises , 11 (2021) < https://journals.openedition.org/rief/8299 >. This special issue of the RIEF is based on the proceedings from the workshop on ‘Les masques de l’empereur’, organized by Paola Perazzolo and Katherine Astbury at the University of Warwick in April 2021: < https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/modernlanguages/research/french/currentprojects/reve/masques/ >.

F. Georgesco, ‘Bicentenaire de la mort de Napoléon: beaucoup de parutions, peu de regards neufs sur l’homme, son oeuvre, et son époque’, Le Monde , 5 May 2021, < https://www.lemonde.fr/livres/article/2021/04/29/bicentenaire-de-la-mort-de-napoleon-beaucoup-de-parutions-peu-de-regards-neufs-sur-l-homme-son-uvre-et-son-epoque_6078463_3260.html >

Napoléon. L’épopée - Le mythe - Le procès , Le Figaro hors-série (Paris, 2021).

To their credit, the Télérama and Le Monde hors-série issues offered more diverse perspectives, both in terms of the gender balance among the contributors (most of whom were journalists rather than historians) and the topics covered, with Le Monde foregrounding the global dimensions of Napoleon’s legacy.

See comments from Hazareesingh, Jean-Clément Martin and Patrice Gueniffey on the issue in Georgesco, ‘Bicentenaire de la mort de Napoléon’, and Aurélien Lignereux’s interview with André Loez on Paroles d’histoire , 5 April 2021, < https://parolesdhistoire.fr/index.php/2021/04/05/189-le-bicentenaire-de-napoleon-avec-aurelien-lignereux/ >.

There are notable exceptions, including Lignereux and Jacques-Olivier Boudon.

T. Lentz, Pour Napoléon (Paris, 2021), 22–8.

On the ‘war on history’ in a British context, P. Mitchell, Imperial Nostalgia: How the British Conquered Themselves (Manchester, 2021); A. Lester, ‘History reclaimed: but from what?’, Snapshots of Empire [blog], 15 Sept. 2021, < https://blogs.sussex.ac.uk/snapshotsofempire/2021/09/15/history-reclaimed-but-from-what/ >; S. Knight, ‘Britain’s idyllic country houses reveal a darker history’, New Yorker , 23 Aug. 2021.

Lentz, Pour Napoléon , 38.

Lignereux, Paroles d’histoire .

Georgesco, ‘Bicentenaire de la mort de Napoléon’.

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Introduction: Napoleon in Historiography

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• Geoffrey Ellis  

Part of the book series: Studies in European History ((SEURH))

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The best introduction to the changing images of Napoleon in historiography since 1815 remains Pieter Geyl’s classic, Napoleon: For and Against , first published in 1949 [22]. Ranging from the earliest apologists and critics of the emperor to the interwar writers of this century, it offered much the finest synthesis of earlier interpretations of Napoleon’s achievement. The author’s very personal experience of the Second World War and analogies with another conquest of western Europe and failed invasion of Russia gave his account a tendentious quality of unusual interest. If its comparison with Hitler’s Reich made Napoleon’s impact on Europe appear altogether less vile and destructive for the subjugated peoples, Geyl nevertheless admitted that his sympathies lay ‘with the against rather than with the for category’. All the major themes of Napoleonic historiography, of both the real and the legendary emperor, came into his focus. He set out skilfully whatever good or bad Napoleon had done, or had been thought to have done. He was thoroughly at home with the polemical as well as the scholarly literature on the subject, and his book not surprisingly found its way into subsequent paperback editions.

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© 1991 Geoffrey Ellis

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Ellis, G. (1991). Introduction: Napoleon in Historiography. In: The Napoleonic Empire. Studies in European History. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-08847-8_1

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