Napoleon: A Life

by Andrew Roberts

Far more often, of course, he lavished praise: ‘Your three battalions could be as six in my eyes,’ he called to the 44th Line in the Eylau campaign. ‘And we shall prove it!’ they shouted back.

Lavish praise, occasional barb

‘Severe to the officers,’ was his stated mantra, ‘kindly to the men.’

Severe To the officers, kind to the soldiers

‘Everything leads me to believe that the time for peace is now upon us and we must make it when we have the chance to dictate the conditions, provided they are reasonable,’ Napoleon wrote to Paris on April 8, 1797.

Strategy involves some sense of dynamics; what leads to what? dynamics involve many models . thr best i knkw are cynefin

Secret clauses

Why secret clauses?

He was surely imagining himself as the ancient hero Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, who returned to his farm and plough after saving the Roman Republic, and

Laudable in certain circumstances

the Duke of Modena tried to bribe Napoleon with 4 million francs not to depose him.

What goes on behind closed doors!

Lavalette found plots for the return of the Bourbons, one of which involved General Charles Pichegru, a former military instructor at Brienne and the conqueror of Holland, but also conspiracies on the extreme left, the uncovering of one of which led to the guillotining in late May of the journalist and agitator François-Noël Babeuf, whose ideas were essentially communist (although neither the term nor the concept had yet been

Extremists from either side inspire each other. the result is instability

Napoleon had decided that he would support a Barras-led purge of the French government and legislature, ridding it of the royalists and moderates whom he thought were endangering

Elimination Of moderates and conservatives

Napoleon understood the power that spectacle held over the public imagination, and wanted the new French Republic to make the same visual impact that the old European monarchies enjoyed.

Importancec of spectacle

‘If the concept of Germany didn’t exist, we would need to invent it for our own purposes.’52

Like bundling to explain our forays out of auto insurance

(Freemasons tended to be supporters of his modernization programme, especially in Italy.)

Interesting!

He feared this might get him poisoned, as many people thought (wrongly) had happened to Hoche.

Its not what you dont know that gets you into trouble, its what you "know" that just aint so

Placing oneself in the limelight while seeming modestly to edge away from it is one of the most skilful of all political moves,

Maybe a genuine sense of mission or puroseness maybe no sense of self?

and the behaviour of both the Directory and Josephine threatened the ideal.

Sense of self Gd alone is good, per Jesus

(except imams, muftis and sheikhs),

Let them feel special ?

yet another example of the luck that he was starting to mistake for Fate.

Dangerous Mistake?

No people are bad under a good government, just as no troops are bad under good generals

Interesting thought process

‘There’s no-one more pusillanimous than me when I make a military plan,’ Napoleon told Roederer on the 27th. ‘I exaggerate all the possible dangers and all the possible harms in the circumstances. I get in a very tiresome agitation. This doesn’t prevent me looking very serene in front of those surrounding me.

Worry about everything but lead too integrity is in seeing your role as a leader

Cambacérès sought influence rather than power and never the limelight, and he was later allowed to express private opposition to what Napoleon did because his loyalty was unquestionable.

Influence vs power

After a decade of Revolution, many Frenchmen were desperate for leadership and recognized that the parliamentary process inhibited that, as did a constitution that was next to impossible to amend.

Desperate for leadership

Army officers prize order, discipline and efficiency, each of which Napoleon considered by then to be more important than liberty, equality and fraternity,

Many ideals which people aspire to

‘These Directors know how to do nothing for the imagination of the nation.’

Do for the iagination of the nation? what does that mean?

‘He was not a man of action: knowing little of men’s natures, he did not know how to make them act. His studies having always led him down the path of metaphysics.’2

Man of letters vs man of action need BOTH!

‘completing the Revolution’.

Spin

‘A newly born government must dazzle and astonish,’

Dazzle if new

When he spoke of equality, he meant equality before the law and not of economic situation.

Equality in front of law

‘the despotism of the Ancien Régime nor the tyranny of 1793’.

Despotism vs tyranny

‘The simple title of French citizen is worth far more than that of Royalist, Chouan, Jacobin, Feuillant, or any of those thousand-and-one denominations which have sprung, during these past ten years, from the spirit of faction, and which are hurling the nation into an abyss from which the time has at last come to rescue it, once and for all.’

Unity vs factions

Frenchmen were no longer guillotined for their political views.

Yay

‘The art of appointing men’, Napoleon told Mollien, ‘is not nearly so difficult as the art of allowing those appointed to attain their full worth.’

Great poi nt

falsification of the results by Lucien in his own handwriting. On February 4 he ordered the interior ministry to stop counting the votes as he wanted to announce the total three days later.

Voter fraud

The military vote of 556,021 in favour and precisely nil against was simply invented.

Invented

Even the figures that Lucien falsified had themselves already been manipulated by local officials, who knew that an important part of their

Fraud at multiple levels

Napoleon and his propagandists simply went one unnecessary step too far, and as a result invited ridicule and criticism of what were genuinely extraordinary achievements.

Interesting csnt cheat in moderation

it was safe to travel around France again, and trade could be resumed. Not even his Italian victories brought Napoleon more popularity.

People Hate lawlessness

as between two and six arrondissements

Only in areas in which Napoleon wasn’t interested, such as the relief of the poor and primary education, was much power left with the departments.

Why not care about relief of the poor?

When he discovered they were one-third cheaper than billed he simply struck one-third off the charges made by all the tradesmen.73

Trump

‘Caesar was right to cite his good fortune and to appear to believe in it. That is a means of acting on the imagination of others without offending anyone’s self-love.’

Healthy underdtanding of human egotism

Society is impossible without inequality; inequality intolerable without a code of morality, and a code of morality

Important line

‘The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosopher as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful.’

Men already differ enough in their inclinations, their characters and everything that education does not give and cannot reform … Let us have a body of doctrine that doesn’t vary and a body of teachers that doesn’t die.61 Napoleon

E. D. Hirsch

Ever since Napoleon had replied to the would-be Louis XVIII explaining the impossibility of a Bourbon restoration there had been plots of differing degrees of seriousness against his life.

Action leads to reaction. hard to see if you are the actor

So, emotionally at least, Napoleon left behind his revolutionary past.

Notable how quickly politicians can change their tune

He was treading the thin dividing line between the grand and the grandiose

Nice line

The human heart is an abyss that is impossible to predict; the most piercing looks cannot gauge

You canmot tell a person's intent easily

He then added that public opinion ‘has caprices which we ought to learn to despise’.

Sometimes group emotions are hard to deduce or predict

it is with such baubles that men are led.

It is with baubles that people are led

nine of them subsequently accepted either the cross or the title of count.125

Give awards to naysayers?

Each corps needed to be large enough to fix an entire enemy army into position on the battlefield, while the others could descend to reinforce and relieve it within twenty-four hours, or, more usefully, outflank or possibly even envelop the enemy. Individual corps commanders – who tended to be marshals – would be given a place to go to and a date

Expect entrepreneurship incentives?