Napoleon Buonaparte, Emperor of France by E.W.C. Junner

The Montréal Museum of Fine Arts is currently hosting an exhibition ‘Napoleon – art and court life

in the Imperial Palace’. The number of visitors has been such that the Museum has extended the

exhibition till 10th May, 2018.

Who was Napoleon Buonaparte, as he was named in my elementary school history books?  Why do

we continue to be fascinated by this man two hundred years later? He was an enigma of a sorts,

militant, an excellent strategist in battle, possessed of ruthless ambition, a lover of  the arts and at

ease in fashionable salons. 


Atlas publishing has issued a beautifully illustrated pictorial history. Napoleon Buonaparte was born 

Atlas book cover/

on the island of Corsica to a lawyer and his wife. Since

France had acquired Corsica from the Italians, he was

considered French, and later adopted the French spelling of

his name. He was sent to mainland France for his education

and to learn the language. He graduated from a French

military academy in 1785, and became a second lieutenant

in the French army four years before the start of the

revolution.

By 1792 the revolutionaries had overthrown the monarchy and declared France was now a republic. Napoleon spent most of the revolutionary years on leave at home in. When the Bonaparte family left Corsica for France, Napoleon returned to his army duties and was speedily promoted to major general. He married Josephine de Beauharnais, a glamorous widow, in 1796. She already had two teenage children.

The French Revolution was not welcomed by the rest of the European nations, and Bonaparte

soon found himself involved in military conflicts. He commanded the French army in Italy

where he defeated much bigger Austrian forces. However, he declined to invade Britain,

opting to invade Egypt in an effort to destroy Britain’s trade routes with India. Instead, the

British navy destroyed Napoleon’s army.

In the end he abandoned his army in Egypt and returned to France, where he became the country’s First Consul and leading political figure. At first he did work hard to restore political stability to France. He brought about reforms in education and banking, centralised the government and supported the arts and science. He also tried to improve relations between his regime and the Pope. He introduced the Napoleonic Code, which streamlined the French legal system and continues to form the foundation of French civil law. Indeed, in Québec the current legal system is based on the Napoleonic law.

  

At the Battle of Marengo 1800 his forces defeated the Austrians and drove them out of Italy.

This undoubtedly served to stoke Bonaparte’s enormous ego, as did his increasing military

successes. By the early 19^th century Napoleon dominated continental Europe. In 1804 he had

himself crowned Emperor in a lavish ceremony at Notre Dame Cathedral, with Josephine  as his Empress.

Napoleon's talents were not confined to the battlefield; he loved the arts and culture, and was much at home in the various salons and social gatherings. According to the Englishwoman Mary Berry, he was short – a little over five feet in height – with enormously broad shoulders. He had grey eyes, good teeth, and a very sweet smile and gave one his whole attention in conversation. However, at home as elsewhere, Napoleon was a dictator. At one of his dinners in 1802 Lady Jane Maxwell, Duchess of Gordon, attempted to arrange a marriage between her youngest daughter and Eugene, Josephine’s son. The young couple really liked each other, it seemed a happy match.  It did not suit Napoleon who wanted his stepson to marry royalty, and he ruthlessly nipped the blossoming romance in the bud.

His own marriage to Josephine produced no children, therefore Napoleon had the marriage annulled and in 1810 he married Princess Marie Louise of Austria. She gave birth to a son, Napoleon François Joseph Charles, who was given the title King of Rome.   

In the end, Bonaparte’s megalomania led to his downfall. His disastrous Russian invasion resulted in the loss of 450,000 men. He was forced to abdicate and exiled to Elba. A year later, he escaped and once more raised an army. He invaded Belgium, won the Battle of Ligny but was defeated at the Battle of  Waterloo. Again he was forced to abdicate and exiled, this time on the British island of St. Helena. As befitting an emperor, the British housed him in style in Linwood House, where he lived with all the trappings to which he was accustomed.

He died at Linwood, probably from stomach cancer, aged only 51.

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Our History, Our Nation, Our Voices

Discovering a personal story in my family history inspired me to begin my current work in progress, set in New England in the 1660s. The same people who fled the religious divisions and wars in England came to North America only to set up churches and governments with little tolerance for religious differences. My book is framed by that era of religious persecution in Massachusetts and I'm writing it for today's teens so they might understand that certain problems persist.  My family also includes Dutch traders and French trappers from the same era, and Danish immigrants who arrived following conflicts between Denmark and Prussia. Then there are my Scotch Irish folks, who having been subjected to English oppression, populated the Appalachian Region in the late 1700s.

 All of these people displaced native people with their settlement and many of them enslaved and profited from the labor of African people. Among my ancestors I find much to be proud of, and much that needs atonement for. But the institution they established and fought for that we all share is our democratic government and the value that our nation is "of the people, and by the people."

This democracy is messy and often unjust. We struggle to include all people with equal rights and privileges - but so far, we have endured.

Last night I helped organize a neighborhood meeting where we introduced candidates for our Congressional District. It was well attended and I was reminded again, of the power of our democracy. But I'm also reminded that with the free press under attack, the twisting of information in our digital-virtual age, and the questioning and restriction of voter rights, that our democracy is fragile. It is a living entity that must be nurtured and fed. This is the responsibility we've inherited.

My ancestors include men who were executed at the Tower of London, veterans of the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, immigrants who risked hurricanes, disease, and starvation to settle here. I find translators of Ojibwe and Kansa, slave holders and members of the Underground Railway. There is a man who went insane from his experiences in World War II and another who served in the cavalry in World War I. This road is not an easy one.

So what about today? In my state, Nevada, almost 80% of the registered voters voted in the 2016 election. But in the 2014 non-presidential year, that number dropped below 50%. In the 2014 PRIMARY election, we had 19% of registered voters turn out. Yikes! One in five registered voters determined who might represent our state in the federal, state, and local governments. We are starving our democracy.

Our ancestors, no matter who they are, didn't endure hardships, fight for themselves and their children, stand up to oppression, only to see us sleep in on Tuesday morning and fritter away their legacy. They'd expect us to demand good clear information and the right to vote for all. I read and write about history because it gives our children an understanding and a foundation on which to build their future. It elucidates the human condition. And our condition right now is precarious.

No matter what your political bent, I urge you to stand up for our Republic, our press, and our right to vote. Learn about your candidates and vote in your primary. Take your kids with you to the polls (or the mail box).  If the Democracy fails, we've lost more than an election. We've lost a long held dream.

I'll end by quoting Abraham Lincoln at another turning point in our history. Please share it with your students and your children:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863