It's for my history project!. I have to write about his personality and why he fell from power so anything about that would be helpful!. Star
xDWww@QuestionHome@Com
Question Home |
Position:Home>History> What was Napoleon Bonaparte's personality like?Question: What was Napoleon Bonaparte's personality like!? It's for my history project!. I have to write about his personality and why he fell from power so anything about that would be helpful!. Star
xDWww@QuestionHome@Com Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: He was quite ruthless and indifferent to human life!. 'The loss of a hundred thousand men means nothing to me', and when shown the carnage of the battlefield, said, 'Bah! One night in Paris will put all this to rights!' But he inspired all sorts of heroism!. I think Napoleon was a supreme actor and took the whole of Europe as his stage!.Www@QuestionHome@Com I never met the man pesonally, but he must have had a certain charisma, because other people were attracted to him!. He also had a strong sense of family - it you look at the appointments he made, they were mostly his relatives!. Why he fell from power had more to do with the temper of the times and the people discovering that they had a voice and could be heard, than anything Napoleon did, although he had certainly grown from the 'Little General' to somewhat of a clone of the royal family he had ousted!.Www@QuestionHome@Com He is a great man: http://en!.wikipedia!.org/wiki/Napoleon and here is the Rise and Fall of his Empire: http://www!.marxist!.com/History/napoleon1!.!.!. by the way, it's a lot to read!.!.!.!.!.!.!.Www@QuestionHome@Com A jumped up corporal from Corsica and not all that keen on sex - hence the quote, 'Not tonight, Josephine,' - Josephine being his wife!. At least he didn't say, 'I've got a headache!.'Www@QuestionHome@Com Arrogant - which is why he overstretched his army and eventually lost it all!.Www@QuestionHome@Com short temperedWww@QuestionHome@Com Maybe this will help you!? NAPOLEON AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION "We have finished the romance of the Revolution, we must now begin its history, only seeking for what is real and practicable in the application of its principles, and not what is speculative and hypothetical!." After Brumaire (9-10 Nov!. 1799) --the coup d'etat which first set Napoleon on the path to becoming the supreme executive of a French empire-- Napoleon declared, "The Revolution is made fast on the principles on which it began; the Revolution is finished!." Since this famous utterance came so soon after he gained power, it is clear that Napoleon was saying something significant about what the role of his new-born regime would be to those which had preceded it!. Like the man himself, this quote and the one at the head of this page are both highly complex and ambiguous!. He is declaring that the new regime was both a break from the immediate past and part of a continuity with that past!. What was Napoleon's relationship to the Revolution!? To what extent was he its heir or its betrayer!? Did he save the Revolution or liquidate it!? To begin it is necessary to determine what one means by "the Revolution"!. There was not one Revolution, but really a series of them which occurred as the French struggled to create a new political and social system!. By the "Revolution" do we mean that of Barnave, or of Mirabeau, or Lafayette, or Brissot, or Danton, or Robespierre, or Hebert, or Tallien, of Babeuf, or Barras!? All of these were men of the Revolution, yet they all held differing conceptions of what that "Revolution" was!. I will be considering many of those fundamental principles which guided most of these revolutionaries!. In general, these principles include equal treatment under the law, one degree or another of centralization of the government, elimination of feudal rights, religious tolerance and careers open to talent not birth!. Georges Lefebvre wrote that the Emperor was "!.!.!.a pupil of the philosophes, he detested feudalism, civil inequality, and religious intolerance!. Seeing in enlightened despotism a reconciliation of authority with political and social reform, he became its last and most illustrious representative!. In this sense he was the man of the Revolution!." R!. R!. Palmer has observed that Napoleon considered the Jacobin government of Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety the only serious government of the Revolutionary period!. During the "Reign of Terror" Napoleon was strongly identified with the Jacobins!. His dialogue published in 1793, LE SOUPER DE BEAUCAIRE, championed the Jacobins over the federalist Girondins!. What Napoleon admired were the Jacobins' strong centralized government, their commitment to deal decisively with the problems facing the fledgling republic, and their attempt to forge a stron stable France while winning the war against its enemies!. Napoleon clearly felt, like the Jacobins, that an energetic centralized state was essential to consolidate the advances achieved by the Revolution and, at the same time, he wished to bring about the stability many French longed for after the upheavals of the past decade!. In his eyes this meant the need for a strong executive!. From 1799 until his death on the South Atlantic island of St!. Helena, Napoleon spoke of himself as the man who had completed the Revolution!. By this he meant that the basic goals of the Revolution enumerated above had been obtained and that now it was time to consolidate and instituionalize those gains!. France, after ten years of revolution, had still lacked the proper foundation upon which to institutionalize the revolutionary achievements until Napoleon provided it with his administrative framework!. "Bonaparte came, as he said, 'to close the Romance of the Revolution'," H!.A!.L!. Fisher wrote, " to heal the wounds, to correct the extravagances, to secure the conquests!. It was his boast that he did not belong to the race of the 'ideologues', that he saw facts through plain glass, and that he came to substitute and age of work for and age of talk!.!.!.he would create a methodical government based upon popular consent, and concieved in the interests not of any particular faction but of France as a whole!." As Napoleon himself explained to the Council of State in 1802: "I govern not as a general but because the nation believes that I have the civilian qualities necessary to govern!. If I did not have this opinion, the government could not stand!." Napoleon is generally credited with having consolidated the gains of the Revolution ("With the exception of fathering the Civil Code, Napoleon perhaps gloried more in his reputation as consolidator of the Revolution than in any other one title," Robert B!. Holtman observed)!. In this sense he can be credited with having 'saved' the Revolution by ending it!. Had the Bourbons come back to power in 1799 instead of Napoleon, they would at that time had less trouble "turning back the clock" to the ancient regime than they had in 1814!. As Francois Furet has put it, "Revolutionary France was indeed under the spell of the new sovereign, who was its son and had saved it from the danger of a restoration!.!.!.France had finally found the republican monarchy toward which it had been groping since 1789!." The Code Napoleon, one of the Emperor's most enduring achievements, embodied many of the principles of the Revolution and made them permanent!. To Prince Eugene, his viceroy in Italy, Napoleon wrote, "I am seeking nothing less than a social revolution!." Feaudalism was suppressed and careers were open to all those with ability regardless of birth ("Wherever I found talent and courage I rewarded it!." Napoleon, 1816) Napoleon became the personification of the revolutionary aims of the bourgeoisie!. He reformed and modernized French institutions (historian Jacues Godechot has said that with Napoleon the medieval era ended and modern history began)!. He brought much longed for order and stability to France and forged a sense of unity!. He attempted to unite under his wing both the revolutionaries and the emigres --nobles, clergy and others who chose or were forced to live in exile under the Revolution ("I became the arch of the alliance between the old and the new, the natural mediator between the old and the new orders!.!.!.I belonged to them both!." Napoleon!. 1816)!. The sales of the lands taken from the nobles who had emigrated or been declared enemies of the state, from the Church, or from the Crown (the "biens nationaux") --an important benefit for the middle classes and the peasants of the Revolution-- were recognized not only in Napoleon's coronation oath, but also in the signing of the Concordat with the Pope!. Robert B!. Holtman observed, "This task of consolidation made Napoleon a conservative in France, desirous of keeping the gains of the Revolution, but a revolutionary in acien regime areas abroad!." It has been said that many of Napoleon's reforms were just continuations of reforms begun under the Revolution (just as it has been said that many of the reforms of the Revolution were continuations of those begun during the ancien regime)!. It is important to keep in mind that Napoleon also brought these reforms to the countries with the Empire, where they were truly revolutionary!. Owen Connelly has said that "Napoleon!.!.!.was a conscious promoter of Revolution all over Europe!. In fact, I firmly believe that this was the reason for his demise!. He was, to the legitimate powers of Europe a crowned Jacobin!.!.!.[These powers] were able to mobilize against him in the end the very people who stood to gain the most from the governments which Napoleon installed!." The principles which Napoleon inherited from the Revolution and consolidated in France, he exported to the countries which fell under the French imperium!. If Napoleon's reforms in France were no longer revolutionary, outside of France these same reforms were profoundly revolutionary (Goethe described Napoleon as "the Revolution crowned!.")!. It had been the goal of many of the Revolution's leaders to "revolutionize" the rest of Europe!. Napoleon accomplished this!. The principle of equality was recognized in the destruction of feudal rights and privileges in the Empire and in the submission of all members of socirty to a common sceme of justice, the Napoleonic Code!. The Legion of Honor was also intended to foster equality, as well as reward talent!. "!.!.!.The establishment of the Legion of Honor, which was the reward for military, civil, and judicial service, united side by side the soldier, the scholar, the artist, the prelate, and the magistrate; it was the symbol of the reunion of all the estates, of all the parties!." (LE MEMORIAL DE SAINTE-HELENE, 1821) The Emperor, as the supreme executive, was deemed the representative of the general will!. This powerful executive was a feature also of the relationship between the Convention and the Committee of Public Safety, as well as the Legislature and the Directory!. The Revolution, like Napoleon, bore a strong authoritarian streak!. "It was Napoleon's fuction in history to fuse the old France with the new," H!.A!.L!. Fisher observed!. Napoleon declared that he wanted "to cement peace at home by anything that could bring the French together and provide tranquility within families!." Like Mirabeau, Napoleon didn't see an incompatibility between the Revolution and monarchy!. Napoleon did what the Bourbon King could not --reconcile the elements of the monarchy with elements of the Revolution-- which was the failed goal of MirWww@QuestionHome@Com |