Do the French see Napoleon as a villain?

Factual Questions
1

No German who counts himself a civilized man laments Hitler’s defeat or death (with the caveat that some, I suppose, would have liked to have seen him tried and executed rather than die by his own hand.) He was a monster, and everyone sees him as such.

Before Hitler, though, and before the First World War, there was Napoleon - the revolutionary turned tyrant who came close to putting all Europe beneath his yoke, and only met defeat through the concerted efforts of every other European power. Napoleon was the bogeyman, the geopolitical monster hiding in the closet - the motto of the Concert of Europe could have been “be good, or another Napoleon will get you.” (Hitler was far worse, of course - Napoleon had no taste for mass murder on a genocidal scale. But he’s as close as the 19th century had.)

Thus my question: How do the French view Napoleon? Is he a national disgrace, an honored leader, or something in between?

2

For whatever failings Napoleon might have had, no one (to the best of my knowledge) has attributed genocide to his list of wrongs. Thus, he’ll always be viewed better in the light of history than Hitler.

3

Sure, but repeated pokes in the eye with a sharp stick would be preferable to Hitler - there’s still plenty of space for Napoleon to be seen as a very bad guy. Do the French see him that way?

4

WAG: since neither the contemporary French Right or Left try to exploit his memory, he’s seen as a historical relic, like the British see Henry VIII. And how one day Hitler will be seen.

5

I’d be surprised if the French see him merely as a historical charactor, albeit an important one.

In the UK we still have modern day politics influenced by the activities of Cromwell, and indeed he is veiwed with plenty of passion - heck, even William the Conquerer is despised in some circles.

I just cannot imagine how the the French would be so detached, his influence and the loss of various colonial struggles to the British also have a huge influence on todays world.

That he was a megolamaniac is a given, and France being at the heart of the EU, it would not be too diplomatic for them to big him up, especially since he did have a disastrous effect on so many millions.

I would view him as a villain, just as I view some British charactors as villains, maybe it just isn’t ‘the done thing’ to mention him too much in polite company.

6

There are monuments celebrating Napoleon’s greatness all over France, Most famously the Arc de Triomphe. Plus the odd columnor two. In their introduction to Asterix In Britain the creators Goscinny & Underzo apologised for the caricature of the British, saying (paraphrase) “We really like you British, in spite of your strange habit of putting Nelson on top of your columns, instead of Napoleon.” Oh, yeah, there’s Napoleon brandy, and so on.

So, no, he’s not considered a villain by the French.

7

Napoleon was a war leader, in a time when the rest of the world was attacking France. He helped prevent the French Revolution from failing and did much to gain glory for the country. He’s no more a villain to the French than Wellington was to the English.

We hear about how bad he was because his biggest enemy, the English, wrote so much vitriol against him. We could read the attacks in our own language, while we had to have them translated from the French. This mean the US got just one side.

8

And don’t forget the Invalides, which contains Napoleon’s Tomb. Definitely indicating he is to be honored, not vilified.

9

Check out Napoleon’s final resting place. I went there as an exchange student in high school. I had a very awkward conversation with my host family about why I was surprised that Napoleon’s sarcophagus was treated so reverentially. I think they would have been pretty darn upset if I’d even mentioned Hitler in the same conversation.

10

Are you kidding ? To some, he’s a godlike figure. A French teacher of mine in high school not only collected memorabilia from the Grande Armée, he took the class to the Invalides to edumacate us on the man. Twice in one year. Teach also had the Napoleonic N within a wreath of laurels engraved on his briefcases. Bit of a nut, that man.

Napoleon’s also pretty much at the heart of our entire legal system. He turned Paris from a dungheap into a modern city full of classy monuments. His rule was in many ways quite progressive, and his wars not always without cause - after all, the rest of Europe hounded him as much as he threatened it. France becoming a Republic didn’t endear it to the other kingdoms.

Fast forward to the modern day : his name is still given to children. He’s not invoked as a patriotic figure or symbol*, in fact he’s rarely invoked at all and we don’t ask ourselves WWND? like, say, Americans inquire about the Founding Fathers. But he’s very far from reviled. We may recognize him as a crazy ambitious egomaniac, but he’s *our *crazy ambitious egomaniac.
The fact that Victor Hugo was extremely fond of the man (and absolutely loathed his nephew Napoléon III in comparison) could be part of it - he wrote many beautiful poems about the Napoleonic era, many of which still see much airtime in classrooms.

  • that would be poor Joan of Arc, darling of the Far Right. Also De Gaulle, and Pétain is still lauded in some circles. We don’t like to talk about or *to *those circles :).
11

it is also of note that Napoleon 3 made much of his being a relative of Napoleon in order to get political power around 1850, within 35 years after the overthrow of Napoleon. Come to think of it, at that time there must have been an entire generation of people alive who have seen the casualties of the Napoleonic wars in their own families.

Well, other national leaders who got their country into bloody wars have been well remembered as well. It’s all about the propaganda, not the body counts.

Also, the damage Napoleon did to France is incomparably less than what Hitler did to Germany. There were no massive civilian casualties, no devastation of the economy through enemy action and looting, no permanent loss of territory. The guy just fought the war longer than common sense would warrant for war aims that he had no business of having and as a result lost a few more hundred thousand lives than he should have had if he were to have made permanent peace around 1804.

12

Er, no. France was busy either attacking the rest of the world, or bullying nations into joining into collations or be annexed. Russia didn’t just march itself to the French border. As for having “prevent[ed] the French Revolution from failing,” this is only true in the same sense that Milo Minderbinder was helping his fellow airmen by accepting a contract to bomb their own airfields. On 9 November 1799 Napoleon Bonaparte effected the Coup of 18 Brumaire, in which he dissolved the Directoire exécutif and declared an end to the Revolution. The policies and actions of his French Consulate were autonomic and authoritarian–precisely opposite of the goals espoused by the Revolution, although Napoleon was hardly unique in this sense, the revolutionaires and in particular the Comité de salut public was arguably more oppressive that Napoleon I’s reign.

Napoleon Bonaparte cannot have been too hated in France, as there are not only monuments dedicated him to be found all over France, but his nephew Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte was later elected the president of the Second French Republic and later appointed himself emperor of the Second French Empire. (Louis-Napoléon, although less famous, could legitimately be said to have more materially influenced the development of modern France than Napoleon Bonaparte.)

Stranger

13

The Sherlock Holmes story " The Six Napoleons" has busts of Napoleon openly sold and displayed in England at the end of the 19th century. This suggests that he was not considered entirely as a villain, even outside France.

14

when everyone else was attacking him, is pretty disengenuous to say the very least.

The mere slight detail that he was the aggressor, he was the one that led his nation into conflict, its not like Russia invaded France, or Poland for that matter.This excursions led to millions of deaths. At the very best all one can say is that he pre-empted possible attacks, but that is a very charitable outlook.

The British were never really interested in a war in Europe, preferring to maintain its empire, and its only when Napoleon put himself in a position the threaten that empire that the British reacted, they were poorly prepared and it took quite some time to equip itself.

What excuse did he have to occupying Spain? He wanted to stop Iberian peninsular from trading with Britain - hardly a blameless action, and ultimately it lost him a potential ally. Pretty poor statesmanship.

Its as if this comment is made in support of a falsely maligned leader, when in fact he was nothing of the sort, he was too full of his own importance, over reaching, grasping and hardly concerned about the lives of his own army.

As for losing a ‘few hundred thousand lives’, this underestimates the scale of his warfare, it would be far better and much more acurrate to decribe the Napoleonic wars as a world war, and the deaths of those affected by his adventures numbers far more and ‘a few hundred thousand’ - as if that were such a trivial number that it hardly matters at all.

The differance between, say Wellington and Napoleon is that the former did not tend to overreach, learned from his mistakes, whilst the latter showed himself in his true colours when he declared himself as ‘Emperor’

One could put a good case that the economic damage to France was absolutely immense, his incompetance in his overseas operations, particularly Egypt was astonishing, his lack of strategic awareness of maritime power is mind boggling for such a leader.

His loss of his colonies, and his failure to prioritise their defence is largely what led to the decline of France in the rivalry for world dominance with Britain, France has never recovered from this, and since colonialism is rightly regarded as highly undesirable, it will never ever regain such a position.

If you think it did not cost France much economicaly speaking, then you should consider what its position would have been had it used trade instead of war, how much more powerful could France have been had it taken up industrialisation earlier than it did?

Its not a stretch to say that France before Napoleon was much wealthier that Britain, but after him it was far poorer and a much less important world player. His ‘conitnental system’ attempt to damage the economy of Britain probably caused more harm to France, even if it did bring a recession to Britain, which soon recovered.

We have our leaders in Britain that are not at all admirable, yet somehow invoke national pride, Napoleon is Frances’ equivalent, only on an even larger scale.

15

There was a strong school of thought in late 19th c England which admired Napoleon, once personal memory of the ‘Great War’ had faded away.
On the other hand, Macauley’s writings contain long diatribes against him as the vile monster who enslaved half Europe.

16

But it is fair to say Napoleon’s era blended in with the French Revolutionary era and Great Britain did join the First Coalition against France after the execution of Louis XVI in 1792. France justifiably felt themselves under threat well before Napoleon seized power ( see for example the Siege of Toulon ) and he played upon that tension.

17

No, I was pointing out the earlier parts of his career, when he was marching against countries who were trying to ensure the destruction of France. It was later that he started attacking, but the case can be made that the wars were necessary to subdue France’s enemies, or at least put them into a position where they could not threaten France.

All Europe hated the French Revolution (and Napoleon, even before he did anything). He fought fighting first to protect the revolution and later to protect France. That did entail invading other countries, but those other countries were perfectly willing to invade France.

18

So, lemme get this straight. He attacks a third party to damage the UK, he’s a bad leader. The British attack third parties to damage France, he’s a bad leader.

The guy can’t catch a break with you, can he ? :stuck_out_tongue:

19

I don’t see any reason why Napoleon should be villfied any more than any other military leader. Napoleon wasn’t like Hitler or Stalin who killed millions of defenseless people. He met his enemies on battlefields where they presumedly had a fair chance of defeating him if they were able to.

And Napoleon was a dictator but it was two hundred years ago. Most political leaders in history up to that point had been dictators. The age of democratically elected leadership was still pretty young.

20

As a dictator, he wasn’t even that dictatorial. He didn’t even execute a whole lot of people, and refused to crack down on the conspiracies that lead to his removal even when given the chance.

While the circumstances would have certainly only lead to his eventual ouster anyway, since they were in the midst of military defeat, many other dictators have chosen the path of futile bloodshed anyway at the cost of tens of thousands of lives killed through political crackdowns.