Who killed Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte? Was it the British Goverment, or Montholon’s jealousy? Or was it personally Sir Hudson Lowe. Or did
the french government have him killed, so they wouldn’t have to worry
about him escaping again. Maybe it was just natural causes. Although,
Lowe did refuse him adequate medical care. Offering him doctor’s he knew he wouldn’t accept.
Hello Malibu,
It’s possible that he died of stomach cancer. Although more certain is the fact that he was a cancer on Europe. And in the light of the times and his crimes, the British were extraordinarily lenient in their treatment of him (not out of mercy, mind you, but political expediency).
By a conservative count, some two and a half million soldiers, and over one million civilians died in the Napoleonic Wars; in part, as the result of his megalomania. During this same period the English punishment for defacing the London Bridge, or for stealing a pair of gloves, was death by hanging. But rather than hang him, they wined and dined him most graciously. For example, he and his posse were provided with 17 bottles of wine per day (excluding champagne and harder liquors, of course). It cost the Brits the equivalent of eight million U.S. dollars (converted to 2005 currency) to keep Napoleon exiled on St. Helena for a single year.
Napoleon’s more fortunate victims received a bullet through their brow.
Michael
If Napoleon was a cancer in Europe then what are the Rothschilds?
youtube.com/watch?v=ptLZXh9Cdjk
youtube.com/watch?v=vECt0jXKlNs
Given that Napoleon spread many of the ideals people hold sacred in the modern world (ideas, I believe I have seen you call ‘good’ in the past), I am unsure that ‘cancer’ is the best word for him.
Certainly a primitive form a medicine, one that greatly harms the patient, but the results of his actions has been the collapse of monarchic power across Europe. Granted, he also set the stage for Nastiness Number One and, by extension, Nastiness Number Two.
Perspective.
And I thought it has been pretty conclusively demonstrated that it was cyanide poisoning that did him in.
Thank you for your reply, Xunzian,
Hitler and his NSDAP instituted child labor laws, more generous worker holidays (Kraft Durch Freude), new wildlife preservations, improved highways, etc… “Perspective” notwithstanding, I would, likewise, not hesitate to indict his regime for having commited barbarous crimes.
To suppose that we presently have more efficient tax collection systems, codified law, etc., on account of Napoleon’s reign, is somewhat akin to thinking that our trains run on time thanks to Mussolini; or that we have an interstate highway system because of Hitler’s Autobahn. Such thinking borders upon the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
Some 200 inmates at the Dachau concentration camp were killed in a series of horrific experiements that went by the name, “Trials for Saving Persons at High Altitude.” The data obtained from these gruesome experiments advanced medical science, and quite possibly, saved more than 200 human lives since the war.
The point I wish to make is that the data could have been obtained without commiting torture and murder; just as improved legal systems would have evolved quite handily without Napoleon’s butchery.
“The idea that Hitler may be treated with honour one hundred years after his death shouldn’t be surprising. Napoleon, who suffered equally ignominious defeat followed by exile, was returned to Paris in a coffin with Ceasarean pomp only twenty-five years after being deposed. The two men were responsible for approximately* the same number of deaths. And the Napoleonic dream – that of combining efficient administration with the brute force required to ensure that it is properly applied – lies today beneath the pillow of every ambitious colonel who drops off to sleep at night in the hope that the tooth fairy of power will slip in before he awakes. In a few more years all the witnesses capable of imagining what the Hitlerian regime actually did will be dead. Then mythology will be free to do whatever it wishes. And what will mythology do with the murder of six million Jews? In the absence of witnesses, that abomination will become a tragic abstract flaw proper to the Heroes’ tragic destiny, rather in the way that Napoleon’s invasion of Russia is referred to as the single great error in his career.” John Ralston Saul, Voltaire’s Bastards
- Both in the millions, but not approximately the same
The jury may still be out on the actual cause of his death. FYI, here is a recent finding.
Regards,
Michael
At that point, why bother attributing anything to anyone? After all, anybody else could have discovered penicillin, discovered Radium, walked on the Moon, ect.
While we can talk about ‘could haves’ I would much rather talk about ‘did occurs’. I think that democracy in Europe would be in much worse shape today were it not for old Nappy. After all, France was in pretty rough shape before he stepped up and helped to make that 800-pound Gorilla do something besides beat the crap out of itself.
Between that and a rather nasty civil war in the American experiment, it’s a wonder Republicanism was an attractive idea at all. But Napoleon did spread those notions of the French Revolution, even if he wasn’t necessarily practicing them and he demonstrated that Republics could be quite effective.
The whole point of the Restoration was to undo the damaging ideologies he had spread.
Hi Xunzian,
Let’s suppose, for a moment, that Thomas Edison had axe-murdered his wife and family. And in response to overhearing me remark on his depraved act, suppose you had objected that we ought not malign his moral character on account of his having invented the incandescent electric lightbulb.
So I respond by pointing out that if Edison hadn’t invented the incandescent lightbulb we’d scarcely be pecking away today on our computer keyboards by the light of gas lamps. Moreover, I remind you that we aren’t constrained to give a moral pass to this particular axe-murdering, lightbulb-inventor in order to have electric lights; for there are many other forms of electric lights available to us today.
None of which conveys a view on my part that Edison did not invent an electric lightbulb, or did not (again, for the sake of discussion) axe-murder his family. Which is to say, nowhere have I attempted to replace the particulars of the story by what I think could have happened.
You just finished saying how you’d rather talk about what happened rather than what could have happened, and the very next sentence you present your opinion on how Europe would have been if not for Napoleon. What am I supposed to make of this, Xunzian?
Also, please explain what aspect of future European democracy was enhanced by Napoleon having crowned himself Emperor?
France was in the midst of overthrowing a long-standing monarchical tradition when Napoleon stepped into the breach. Napoleon bled from France - a predominately agrarian society - nearly two million of its most able bodied men. Upon viewing the human carnage following a battle, he famously, heartlessly, quipped
“Une nuit de Paris réparera cela.”
“One [busy] night in Paris will replace them all.”
In the end, he left France in a state of ruin and owing a massive debt of war indemnity to the Allied nations.
"The expansion of the empire…had nothing to do with altruism or enlightened modernity, nothing to do with any “grand design†for Europe whatsoever. The empire was about the extraction of material resources first and last…True, Napoleon created the Bank of France, stabilized the currency, solidified the revolutionary land settlement, and established more efficient tax collection, in every case building on the work of previous regimes… Yet these innovations were never enough. Napoleon always needed further conquests to make ends meet. Without tax receipts from Holland and northern Italy and without looting much of the rest of Europe, Napoleon would have lacked the resources to stay afloat and the booty he needed to bribe collaborators, who would otherwise have turned against him, as some eventually did when the empire receded and the opportunities for robbery ceased.
Napoleon was willing to break any agreement, any law, even his own Civil Code, whenever it suited him. In service of his boundless ambition, Napoleon restricted trade, taxed Europeans into a stupor, and hampered economic activity throughout the territories under his control because he could think of no better way to enrich France than through extra-economic exploitation. Napoleon allied himself with ancient noble families and created a new nobility and new fiefdoms. He even attempted to dismantle the nations of Portugal and Spain to create new feudal satrapies with which to reward family and friends." John Lawrence Tone, review of The Napoleonic Empire, by G. Ellis
Thank you for the enjoyable discussion, Xunzian.
Michael
I do not know whether we would have the lightbulb were it not for Edison, but I do know that because of Edison’s influence, DC power remained popular for a very long time despite the existence of AC technology and its superiority.
Morality aside, Napoleon spread the ideas (if not the practice) of the French Revolution. Many times in history we see instances where an inferior systems persists because people are either ignorant of a superior system or because of general conservativism.
Did he, functionally, just replace noble with nobles? Of course! But that is the normal pendulum of history. The ideas accompanying this new system, however, allowed for wide-scale change.
Xunxian, you are on target regarding Napoleon. He did bring stability out of chaos: "Emperor Napoleon proved to be an excellent civil administrator. One of his greatest achievements was his supervision of the revision and collection of French law into codes. The new law codes—seven in number—incorporated some of the freedoms gained by the people of France during the French revolution, including religious toleration and the abolition of serfdom. The most famous of the codes, the Code Napoleon or Code Civil, still forms the basis of French civil law. Napoleon also centralized France’s government by appointing prefects to administer regions called departments, into which France was divided.
While Napoleon believed in government “for” the people, he rejected government “by” the people. His France was a police state with a vast network of secret police and spies. The police shut down plays containing any hint of disagreement or criticism of the government. The press was controlled by the state. It was impossible to express an opinion without Napoleon’s approval.
Napoleon’s own opinion of his career is best stated in the following quotation:
I closed the gulf of anarchy and brought order out of chaos. I rewarded merit regardless of birth or wealth, wherever I found it. I abolished feudalism and restored equality to all regardless of religion and before the law. I fought the decrepit monarchies of the Old Regime because the alternative was the destruction of all this. I purified the Revolution."
However, I do view him as a power hungry, ego driven conqueror. If he only wanted the best for France, why did he expand his conquest.
I thought the Syphillis got to him?
Hey BlueChicken,
Are you sure you’re not thinking of Al Capone? 
Regards,
Michael