“To celebrate the great glory of the French emperor or to reflect on the conqueror’s slaughter of life?” This year marks the 200th anniversary of the death of the famous French historical hero – Napoleon – and French officials are not only preparing a grand commemoration of the “Emperor of the French” who brought historical glory to France; French President Emmanuel Macron, who has been thinking about Napoleon’s greatness, has been looking forward to making a major speech on this day. The French President Macron, who has been thinking about Napoleon’s great work, has been looking forward to making an important speech on this day to re-promote “republican values” through the story of Napoleon.
But the French government is so generous to the memory of Napoleon, for many years there are different public opinion controversy, after all, in the praise of Napoleon’s “military god greatness” at the same time, but how to look at and explain those who died because of the Napoleonic wars of the 6.5 million people? If the government openly chooses the historical memory of Napoleon, why does it not care about the events of the Paris Commune, which continues to this day and is also celebrating its 150th anniversary this year? How does the French government stand in a modern era where the worship of historical heroes is no longer a matter of course? What kind of “political symbolic” contradiction is smuggled into the subtle difference between “commemoration” and “glorification”?
Napoleon’s commemorative activities are not uncommon in France, but in the past, they were mostly special battle events, and the government rarely took a high-profile role. The reason why the ceremony of the bicentennial of his death has raised the topic is that the Macron government has rarely bet a lot of effort and resources to prepare the ceremony with great fanfare, but on the other hand, it has also taken into account public opinion and stressed that it will “present both merits and demerits”. “Napoleon’s Great Debate”.
Napoléon Bonaparte is a well-known historical figure, as the “Emperor of the French”, and is still regarded as one of the heroic representatives of France until the present day. For example, the current President Macron has been referred to by the media as “the youngest French head of state since Napoleon… Strong politicians such as former President Nicolas Sarkozy and the famous General President Charles de Gaulle have been associated with the image of Napoleon; even Marine Le Pen, a far-right political figure, has been called The influence of the “Napoleonic symbol” in the French national context is evident in the fact that even Marine Le Pen, a far-right political figure, was called “Napoleon in a short skirt”.
Napoleon was born in Corsica in 1769, his family can be traced back to the Italian nobility, and in 1768, when France bought Corsica, the Napoleon family also acquired French nationality. In 1784, when Napoleon was 15 years old, he entered the École des officers in Paris, and from then on he embarked on a military career.
The military was the most important and crucial choice in Napoleon’s life. Napoleon was the first Corsican to receive a degree from the Paris Officer’s School. After graduation, he began to move around with the troops and stationed in various places, and became prominent during the turbulent period of the French Revolution, solving France’s internal and external problems with his military talents, and also becoming an important general in the fight against the anti-French allies. After his rise to power, Napoleon won great prestige in France through one war after another against the anti-French allies. However, in 1799, when Napoleon was 30 years old, the “son of the revolution” staged a coup d’état to seize power, and in 1802, he amended the constitution to rule for life, officially calling himself “Napoleon I” and establishing the The “First French Empire” was established.
After Napoleon came to power, he launched a series of wars, the military and the scale of the war was rare in history, Napoleon swept through Europe and made France’s prestige and territory as high as the sky, not only military aggression and suppression, but also impacted the political system and economic structure of Europe and America, the spirit of the French Revolution also took this opportunity to spread, Napoleon’s majestic empire did bring far-reaching historical impact. Despite Napoleon’s extraordinary military genius and record of constant victory, the final defeat at Waterloo in 1815 was the greatest failure of his military life and doomed the First French Empire.
Napoleon was then exiled to the island of St. Helena, where he spent the rest of his life in isolation overseas under British surveillance.
“He was the son of a revolution that opened a new era in Europe, but he was also the war-monger who killed millions of people…” Napoleon’s dramatic life from soldier to European domination has been a popular subject of historical and cultural study ever since. In particular, Napoleon’s Code of Laws, institutional reforms, and military achievements, which set the standard for European law, have been most celebrated by future generations. But at the same time, Napoleon’s actions are also considered to have betrayed the spirit of “liberty, equality, and fraternity” of the Revolution, and he was a dictator who built hegemony by force, waged wars that led to the destruction of millions of people, and restored slavery, which had been abolished. All these acts can hardly be regarded as the “perfect hero”.
A great man or a devil? Should France commemorate Napoleon?
But because of the complexity of his life trajectory, and the scope and depth of the influence of the First French Empire, whenever we talk about the evaluation of Napoleon, it is always difficult to say in a few words to be complete and thoughtful. The discussion of Napoleon’s merits and demerits has long been the subject of numerous research studies in the field of history; however, when evaluating historical figures, it is actually difficult to have only a simplified dichotomy of “merits” and “demerits”, but a more complex, multi-faceted discussion that combines the context of the times and society. –This is the dilemma that today, in contemporary France, when commemorating the French emperor Napoleon, one must consider his contemporary significance and historical interpretation.
“How should Napoleon be perceived in present-day France – as a great historical hero to be celebrated? Or to reflect on his dark legacy?”
For many years, the preservation and historical commemoration of Napoleon has been carried out mostly by heritage and historical research institutions, such as the famous French “Fondation Napoléon”, which is a key player in all matters related to the management and educational promotion of Napoleon’s heritage. Although the government also has historical commemorative ceremonies, such as birth anniversaries or special battle reviews, in recent years the controversy over Napoleon has become more and more controversial, even triggering arguments for and against him.
In recent years, there is no one who is more interested in commemorating Napoleon than French President Macron. According to the French media, Macron was “extremely annoyed” because he could not commemorate the 250th anniversary of Napoleon’s birth in 2019; and the 200th anniversary of his death in 2021, Macron stressed the importance of commemorating French history and promoting national values on the one hand, but on the other hand, he also noticed the voices of doubt and therefore expressed his government’s position before the anniversary of his death. The government’s position was expressed to the outside world before the death anniversary.
“We will not deliberately glorify Napoleon, we will recognize that he was also a figure in the restoration of slavery. But there is no intention to ‘vilify’ him, and it would be unfair to judge Napoleon by modern standards that are not the same as those of the past.”
Outsiders pointed out that Macron’s enthusiasm for national history commemorative ceremonies, partly also out of a political need to coalesce national identity, especially the emphasis on nationalist conservatives and the right wing, for such collective historical memory is particularly easy to resonate, so the 200th anniversary of Napoleon’s death ceremony, may become Macron’s image assets to help.
The ceremony will be held on May 5, local time at Les Invalides (also known as the Hospital of the Wounded Soldiers) in Paris, where Macron will appear to deliver a commemorative speech and lay flowers at Napoleon’s tomb. The question for the outside world is how will Macron’s speech express the significance of this history? How to interpret Napoleon thoughtfully and satisfactorily with words and phrases? The content of the commemorative speech may affect Macron’s own public opinion between the contradiction of glorification or vilification.
Napoleon’s evil: a war tyrant who betrayed the revolution?
Before the unveiling of the commemoration of Napoleon’s death, the French academia and media had been debating this issue for a long time. Those who opposed or questioned the legitimacy of commemorating Napoleon pointed out that although Napoleon claimed to be the son of the revolution and supported the spirit of the Revolution, he eventually seized power by coup d’état and, with the people suffering from the previous reign of terror and tired of the civil war, Napoleon instead became the new imperial hegemon and launched aggression abroad.
The Napoleonic Code, which is regarded as a major historical asset, was indeed epoch-making, laying the foundation for the later European legal system and advocating such progressive concepts as equality before the law, religious freedom and abolition of hereditary privileges. But in reality, Napoleon’s code was a reversal of the women’s rights and the advancement of women that were promoted during the Revolutionary period – such as the “mandatory” obedience of wives to their husbands, the prohibition of women owning property other than in business, and the prohibition of legal representation in cases where a wife killed her husband. No legal defender was allowed …. This was one of the reasons why Napoleon was later criticized for his “betrayal of the revolution”.
Reflecting on the Napoleonic era, there is also the issue of war and slavery. Although the long years of conquest waged by Napoleon in Europe made a significant contribution to military technology and strategic research in the history of warfare, historians have pointed out that more than 6.5 million people died as a result of Napoleonic wars, and millions of people died. At the same time, the international order in Europe was also disrupted by the war, and the complex effects were difficult to easily pass over.
After Napoleon became emperor, he also restored the abolished slavery system; in the past, France relied on the Atlantic slave trade to seize huge profits, especially in the West Indies, through sugar cane and other cash crops to earn money and human resources, and Haiti, which was colonized by France, was one of the most typical tragic cases.
After the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789, Haiti also took advantage of the momentum to get rid of colonial rule, and in 1794 the First Republic of France officially declared the abolition of slavery, but never thought that a few years later Napoleon seized power, everything resumed, and even sent troops to suppress the resistance against slavery. Many of the benefits gained from slavery and the colonies were also used in Napoleon’s foreign wars.
At the same time, Napoleon seized power and became emperor in a “popular vote”, and his enlightened and authoritarian style of rule was considered to be more or less a “model of dictatorship”. The French historian Jean Tulard notes that the strongman leadership symbolized by Napoleon has led to a debate in historiography: did it influence the dictators of the 20th century – Mao, Hitler, Stalin – to become models for future generations of power? the model for future generations of power? There is also left-wing opinion that the current international turmoil, the resurgence of extremism and the scourge of the epidemic may have touched off a popular desire for strong leadership. All this becomes a psychological contradiction that France can hardly avoid when commemorating Napoleon.
“Yes, we know that Napoleon is not perfect, but ….”
In the face of questions about historical evaluation, Pierre Branda, a historian at the Napoleon Foundation, explains that it is only fair to return to the historical context in which Napoleon lived, and Branda’s opinion points out that, historically speaking: “Napoleon was not a racist, nor did he have a ‘particular ‘fond’ of slavery, but rather a pragmatist who reacted to the decisions made in the social and economic circumstances of that historical era.” In other words, the negative questioning of Napoleon actually ignores the means of political reality in Napoleonic times.
But it is not as if there are no political figures who have doubts about the memory of Napoleon. In 2005, former President Jacques Chirac refused to attend the ceremony for the 200th anniversary of Napoleon’s famous battle – The Battle of Austerlitz – because of his negative opinion of Napoleon. -The 200th anniversary ceremony. The Battle of Austerlitz was the famous battle led by Napoleon in 1805, in which he defeated the allied Russian and Austrian forces with few victories and completely dismantled the Third Anti-French Alliance; former French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin also published a book, The Napoleonic Evil, in which he reflected and satirized on the fact that French society still cannot let go of its worship of Napoleon for centuries. The cult of God-making.
The delicate dilemma of commemoration or celebration
According to another opinion, 2021 also marks the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Paris Commune (la Commune de Paris) – a historical milestone for the international left-wing political movement that also had a profound impact on Europe. -Why does the government favor Napoleon and deliberately ignore the commemoration of the Paris Commune, which shares a different, but important, historical perspective with Napoleon?
For this year’s bicentennial of his death, Moreno (?lisabeth Moreno), France’s minister of foreign affairs for sexual equality and feminism, told Le Figaro in March that she could not agree, “Napoleon was a misogynist dictator, a man who restored slavery, so what exactly are we celebrating?” And Dimitri Casali, a historian specializing in Napoleon, expressed his confusion to French television station RTL: “I really don’t understand how people can have so much opposition to the Napoleonic theory. It’s not a problem in any other country?”
The subtlety also lies in the fact that the perception of Napoleon’s evaluation varies outside France. The Agence France-Presse discussed the Russian opinion along these lines and found that there is a strong interest in Napoleon, both among the Russian public and among the historians. –This is more or less the same mentality with which Russia views its former enemy, the Empire of Japan.
But in Haiti in the West Indies, the memory of Napoleon’s colonization and slavery is a dark memory that is still indelible. From the perspective of these French colonies, they are still the oppressed under the lust of imperialism, and Napoleon’s role for them has neither republican value nor glorious history, but is simply that of a cruel and greedy conqueror.
History itself is a complex multifaceted, one-size-fits-all evaluation would have been difficult to explain all the problems. Or, to paraphrase the famous saying commonly used in history – all history is contemporary history – reflecting contemporary interpretations and reflections, the very contradictions that France now faces. With the accumulation and deepening of historical knowledge, the traditional heroic view of history of emperors and generals is no longer applicable, and the dilemma of how to interpret complex and cross-cultural issues with new heights is what needs to be considered. The BBC interviewed French sculptor Emmanuel Michel to ask him what he thought of these debates and how he would sculpt a statue of Napoleon.
“For me, Napoleon was a man who suffered and suffered from guilt, who was never satisfied… I don’t want to portray him as a conqueror, he should be an extremely lonely man.”
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