The Betrayal and Execution of the French Revolution’s Ideals as Performed by the Sole Inmate of the Longwood House Under the Direction of Himself in His Guise as the Emperor de France
More than a little ironic, indeed.
In addition to taking care of his family—by marrying them fruitfully into various royal European families & thus locking in extreme wealth and privilege for hundreds, if not thousands of years—as was outlined in the previous post—Napoleon also created and bestowed about 2,200 new titles of aristocratically ranked and privileged nobility. Thousands of new Dukes and Counts and Barons and Knights out of people who had not been before. Some of these new Nobilities were rewards for good performance, for ability. (If Bonapartism is seen through a critical Buddhist lens, then he bestowed these titles to people for Napoleonically Right Action; i.e., display of strength, aptitude, talent or skill that contributed toward Napoleon’s upward mobility.) But the key feature of those rewards is that they weren’t just for the people receiving them. They were heritable. They, by definition, were intended to last “forever”, to be passed on to the people’s kids based on no acts or merits of their own.
Maybe it’s just me, but doesn’t that just sound an awful lot like the, uhhh, same exact thing that was going on for more than a thousand years before his time that dictated what would or wouldn’t be possible for everyone in French society? That was swept away by the French Revolution in 1789?!
It would appear to be very close to the exact thing that had been going on for more than a thousand years and dictated what would or wouldn’t be possible for everyone in their society which had indeed been swept away by the French Revolution.
Specifically, between decrees issued August 4, 1789—just about 3 weeks after the storming of the Bastille—and legislation in 1790 enacting the intent of the decrees, the French government abolished nobility and the extra perks, privileges, allowances on behavior and absence of accountability it entailed. (Ya wanna talk about “White Privilege”? That was a good part of its venal, and not-yet-agreed-on origin story). But, quite interestingly, on the history-heavy August 4th of 1789, it was two aristocrats, members of the nobility itself, who broached the subject and introduced the idea of ridding France of the nobility (the First Estate) and its privileges (taxation being the biggie): Armand de Vignerot du Plessis-Richelieu, Duke d’Aiguillon, and Louis-Marie, Viscount de Noailles. The National Assembly then voted on and passed the decree, and a little less than a year later did more toward that end with new laws. And really, this was further enacted when they abolished the monarchy in 1792.
To merely recapitulate the same sort of protection racket for the ultra wealthy, the same system of institutionalized oppression and unjust mechanisms of control that had engendered the revolution which allowed Napoleon the chance to be on top was essentially, I’d posit, just as ugly as the “Terror” phase. It was just as undesirable an outcome of that set of circumstances, of the Revolution, that offered nothing toward the more equitable societies that revolutions in general so commonly coalesce around—and that one in France in particular erupted in pursuit of.
Such posturing antics by Napoleon—arrogant in the extreme, gasp-inducing in how matter-of-factly did he simply plop onto the heart-broken wreckage of French society a nearly identical system of controlling wealth and power and protection using inheritance exclusively from one’s biological parents et al reveal quite plainly how far his heart and mind were from the core ideals of the Revolution. His re-establishment of an inherited aristocracy and royalty—while tellingly NOT restoring the rights and privileges of the nobility that the Revolution had abolished aimed at a permanent change—that all undercut, from an intellectually honest position, all the “good”, supposedly charitable, rational and civic minded acts Napoleon undertook.
If he had believed in, or even at least agreed with the various premises behind the Revolution’s legal negation of the power and privileges of nobility, his actions once in power would show consistency with them. But instead, the clarity with which they bring into focus his fundamental disregard for them is a grievous, bleeding gut wound. Because normal thinking would go something like this: “well, yes, clearly he was a dictator and abused power…” etc etc, and then continue: “but his enthusiasm for ensuring soldiers’ abilities to ascend the ranks based on their merits, his bestowing of legal codes and bequeaths aimed at widespread education show that he had good intentions and was just using the headship of state as a means to those good and just ends, surely in accordance with the French Revolution”.
And yet no, not at all.
The purity of the viewpoint he obviously had instead—and his intentions—showed themselves years before he created the new dukedoms, etc. Generally, where Napoleon was coming from is in plain, even garish view in his making some of his brothers suddenly into Kings: of Spain, Italy, Holland and a collection of some Holy Roman Empire principalities dubbed “Westphalia”.
But here’s a specific example where all his cards were right there on the table. The youngest in the family, Jérôme (Giralamo) happened to sail to the new U.S. of A. aboard a French Navy vessel in 1803, when he was 19. Their port of call was New York City, but he visited a friend, as well, down the coast a bit in Baltimore, then the third biggest city in the young nation. He met a vivacious, sexy girl about his age not long after arriving in town. She was the daughter of a rich businessman in Baltimore. She was also keenly aware that he was the brother of the most powerful man in Europe. They hit it off. But apparently she insisted they marry before any teenage hijinks would ensue. Comically, Jérôme used his status as brother of the head of France to officially borrow money from the official French mission office in the USA to pay for the wedding to this sweet Baltimore treat.
Napoleon must’ve been, let’s just say it, pissed off something fierce when he learned about the marriage from a London newspaper. He dashed off a letter to Jerome, received a few months later cuz: sea travel, telling him: “Bro: divorce her & get TF back here or else I will dismantle your life.” He was arranging marriages for his siblings with various noble Euro Houses so they could carry out his bidding throughout Europe and their children would be locked-in nobility. But Jérôme wanted to enjoy his new life with his bouncy and fun new American wife, so waited a year to return to Europe.
When they arrived, it turned out the wife—Betsy Patterson was her name—was with child, and His First Consulship refused to let them disembark from the ship in France at all. So they had to do so in England. As a result, their son, Jerome Jr was born near London. Napoleon succeeded in strong-arming his baby brother to let the baby-mama Betsy and the baby sail back to America and to marry a German princess he’d lined up for him instead.
It’s what Napoleon said to his brother Jerome on hearing about the baby, that is quite the tell as to his whole worldview being significantly detached from reality, and aimed at royally entrenched power.
"Your union with Miss Patterson is null and void in the eyes of both religion and the law."
In the words of comic actor Jordan Peele spoofing scientist Neill de Grasse-Tyson: “Well, actually…” not so much. Napoleon had put a direct request in to the Pope to annul the marriage. But as it was legally performed in the state of Maryland and by the laws of the USA, and had been administered by the ranking Catholic priest there at the time, the Pope in Rome was cool with it. No annulment. Fully valid, legally and under the authority of the religion involved, the Holy See of the Roman Catholic Church. Napoleon didn’t want it to be, so he pretended it was not.
But he was in charge of France. And threats to cut off his bro from any money or job or military post proved effective. Baby Mama & the tyke were sailed off back to Maryland. That son was cut out of the privileges etc of also being a Prince. He was totally barred from “carrying on” the inherited prestige, power, perks, etc.
And though the marriage Napoleon had arranged for Jerome with the daughter of the Duke of the German principality of Württemberg was technically bigamous, if you were Frederick the German Duke and Napoleon had just wiped his ass with various opposing armies, I venture that any of us would likewise have said, “Mmmm, oui, Herr, non! Monsieur! Je m’excuse pour mein Français approximatif!” U-hem.
Also, it seems since Napoleon was le’tat, then even though the religious authority under which the wedding was consecrated and the laws of the nation where it occurred rendered it legal, since France didn’t accept its legal status, somehow that held the day. (I wonder if it would stand up in today’s world; if the world would be forced to accept a dictator’s world-contradicting line in the sand. Maybe therein lies a measure of a dictator….)
Perhaps you’re wondering: is any of this more than mere historical curiosity? Ok, so this year is the 200th anniversary of his death—and sure, France can go all out in commemorating it (as certain people there are). But why give the guy so many column inches here?
Because the totally unlikely and the utterly inconceivable turned out to actually happen here, on our home turf in the immediately recent past. History can indeed offer lessons, but it needs to be known in order to impart that magic gift of “avoiding the same mistakes and tragedies”
Actions, Words–you know the drill…
And yet.
As I’ve been discovering more about the French Revolution and Napoleon researching this, and as new facts and details of his actions remain consistrent with an objectively defensible view that frames him in a basically negative light, I’ve been bugged by a hovering sense of something else at work.
It seemed clearly inadequate to write it off as “a paradox”! Or to settle for simplistic summaries like, he was a bad guy who was also sensible. I guess this was the thing fueling the engine of my obsessive curiousity about the Napoleon phenom: WHAT on earth (I wondered) can explain how all the facts of this guy’s nation seizing, other-nation marauding, free-speech-censoring heavy-handed politics so neatly line up in the “self-absorbed, meglamaniacal tyrant” column, but then so many people think so highly of him? On the face of it, it seemed so self-evident that he killed the French Revolution.
Then a couple weeks ago I discovered a book by a scholar’s scholar of the Revolution. And it brought some incredible clarity and helped me see what was going on. But before the big reveal, the nature of the thing that indeed resolves the seeming paradox received some foreshadowing in my hunt for answers. And like the best foreshadowing, I didn’t realize it at the time, but had an empty pocket plopped into my mental schema.
It was a fact that, honestly, blew my mind when I learned of it just a month or two ago. The over-simplified version of the French Revolution that gets served to most Americans spares us many of the developments of, in and around the governing bodies of France between 1789 and 1800. One of these is the fact that even after the Bastille was stormed and the “regular” folk of the third estate formed its National Assembly governance body, the King was still upheld as…worthy and taken to be in charge. It wasn’t until it was revelealed he’d tried to skeedaddle out of the country that people were like: the king, he got to go.
The way it’s told here, one gets the impression that after July 14, 1789, the King was in prison (or soemthing) until his head rolled.
It’s the fact that French society did not, in fact, do that at all, that’s also, I believe, at the heart of why Napoleon’s behavior is not, in the end, paradoxical or even potentially contradictory.
(Big Reveal of Unifying Theory of the Seeming Napoleon Paradox & concluding bits in Part 3)
Roots to Now 