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HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

I post today, admittedly a day late, in honor of the birthday of a special guy.

And to honor him, I’m posting some trees showing the family of that wily and reviled world leader, that studious and admired military commander, that loved and hated man—hateful of mobs, though also mindful of how to quiet them (i.e., by killing or by churching), the hero of Toulon, the one-time seething mortal enemy of the Habsburgs then later husband of Marie-Antoinette’s own niece, that’s right, the one, the only Napoleon Bonaparte.

Napoleon & his brothers – the dashed lines indicate those kids as illegitimate; the multi-dashed line to “Napoleon III” indicates that he wasn’t even Louis’ son at all. But if he or Louis knew that is unknown as DNA proved it only recently.

I’ve been boning up on ole Bonaparte the last year and discovered some amazing, not widely known tidbits that are fascinating (like the bit about him marrying the beheaded Queen of France’s niece). I’ve also encountered just what it was that made—and continues to make—him so damn compelling that it takes effort not to fall into hero-worship. But the general view I had before embarking on this learning journey holds firm—if more nuanced and informed now.

Namely that, in the words of British journalist Andrew Marr in his TV series History of the World, on Napoleon crowning himself “Emperor of the French” there in Notre Dame December 2, 1802: “Absolute power was back.”

No outlier, this

And that act was absolutely not isolated, was absolutely indicative of his view of Statecraft and did indeed represent absolutely all of the very reasons the French Revolution had ignited into action and dethroned its thousand-year-monarchy just nine years earlier in the first place. For, the good that can be credited to Napoleon shows, not as his too-numerous-to-count-in-spite-of-it-all admirers would have it his native concern for people, rights, so-called liberty, republics or democratic ideas. The good that he wrought demonstrates, on the contrary, precisely how absolute power is wrong in that it depends on the luck of the dice, the whims, personalities etc of the lucky chucky who winds up on top.

What’s more, the good he did was mostly not his. They were things the people of the actual Revolution had enacted, legislated, put in place, created and otherwise brought about.

Isaiah say: therefore, you will know my name

Somewhat interestingly, the man’s destiny is all in his name. “Napoleon” as it is in English & various languages, comes from the Italian name “Napoleone”, which turns out to be pretty straightforwardly a basic compound of “Napoli” (the city in Italy, aka in English: Naples) and “Lion”. So, the Lion of Naples. And Naples is from the Greek: “Nea” + “Polis” or: New City.

The surname “Bonaparte” was, at his birth and before his rise to international man of hysteria “Buounaparte”. Which is Italian for “Bonus” and “Part” or “Portion”.

And so, a Critical Reading qua Allegory of the Special Birthday Boy’s name informs the diligent and lovely reader that this Lion of the New City, the New Polis, the New Polity perceived and took for granted as his whole vast tracts of lands-peoples-nations as simple and deserved Bonus Portions. Ye Olde: “I’ll take my half from the middle” syndrome, as my late mother used to be fond of saying, to describe those who took what was not theirs without asking those whose it was.

There’ll be a part 2. For now, I picked today to post not only because it’s his birthday, but also because it’s a nexus of Napoleonic anniversaries which all bear great relevance to the themes these family trees evince.

AUGUST in the life of Napoleon & the French Revolution

Aug 3 (1802) — Napoleon makes himself “Consul for Life”
Aug 4 (1789) — Abolition of feudal system (nobility)–notably not by Napoleon, who did, at least, later see fit to re-enact the rise by merit system the Revolution itself had brought forth to Europe.
Aug 9 (1792) — Paris Commune
Aug 10 (1792) — Napoleon watches mob storm the palace; freaks him out; he later turns cannon on similar mob, winning the hearts of the oligarchs who held power at that time
Aug 12 (1793) — Mass conscription into the army instituted
Aug 15 (1769) — Napoleon’s birthday …AND, in (1802) — Napoleon helps make his uncle a Cardinal (who later pressures Vatican into basically fabricating a supposed 4th Century Egyptian & Christian Roman soldier brutally martyred named “Napoleon/Napolus”, who, thus sanctified, gave a pretense for a “St. Napoleon” Day…whose feast was, u-hem, August 15th.

More on these families next time.