Cultural depictions of Napoleon

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Napoleon is often represented in his green colonel uniform of the Chasseur à Cheval, with a large bicorne and a hand-in-waistcoat gesture.

Template:Napoleon series

The Napoleon Bonaparte Monument in Warsaw, Poland
A French Empire mantel clock representing Mars and Venus, an allegory of the wedding of Napoleon I and Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria. By the famous bronzier Pierre-Philippe Thomire, ca. 1810
Celebration of the anniversary of the birth of Napoleon Bonaparte involving historical reenactment groups in uniforms from the Napoleonic period on Napoleon Hill in Szczecin, Poland, 2008
Monument Napoleon
Cosplay of Napoleon

Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, has become a worldwide cultural icon generally associated with tactical brilliance, ambition, and political power. His distinctive features and costume have made him a very recognisable figure in popular culture.

Few men in human history have elicited both as much hatred and admiration, and have divided opinion so much. From the beginnings of his military and political career, by seizing power through the coup of 18 Brumaire (1799), Napoleon inscribed himself in the grand historical narrative of modernity and in the memory of men through a tumultuous and exceptional destiny. His meteoric rise, initially achieved through victorious military conquests, the unprecedented scale of his final defeats, as well as his two exiles, have made this major figure in the history of France and Europe a legendary character.

He has been portrayed in many works of fiction, his depiction varying greatly with the author's perception of the historical character. On the one hand, Napoleon has become a worldwide cultural icon who symbolises military genius and political power. For example, in the 1927 film Napoléon, young general Bonaparte is portrayed as a heroic visionary. On the other hand, he has often been reduced to a stock character and has frequently been depicted as a short and "petty tyrant", sometimes comically so.

Origin and construction of the Napoleonic myth

Napoleon Bonaparte is the primary architect of his own legend. In his work "Napoléon journaliste," Template:Ill writes: "Bonaparte, and later Napoleon, directed all the publicity at his disposal solely towards himself and for his exclusive benefit".<ref>Antonin Périvier, "Napoléon journaliste", 1918, p. 37.</ref> From the First Italian Campaign in 1797, he established propaganda in his favor by publishing bulletins in Italy intended to glorify his military actions and influence public opinion. On July 20, the "Courier of the Army of Italy" appeared, followed on August 10 by "France as Seen by the Army of Italy," and in Paris, the "Journal of Bonaparte and Virtuous Men," which was published under the initiative of his brothers Joseph and Lucien on February 19, 1797. In these publications, he highlighted his actions and commented on the political situation in France. They included dithyrambic epigraphs such as: in the Courier, "Bonaparte flies like lightning and strikes like thunder. He is everywhere and sees everything; he is the envoy of the great nation," and in the Journal of Bonaparte: "Hannibal slept in Capua, but the active Bonaparte does not sleep in Mantua".<ref>Jean Tulard, "Le mythe de Napoléon", Paris, Armand Colin, coll. « Mythes » (no 2), 1971 Template:ISSN, pp. 32–33.</ref> These newspapers and the propaganda they spread in France helped distinguish Bonaparte from other generals of the Republic and contributed to the rise of his popularity in public opinion.

Maurice Duverger emphasizes the importance of the propaganda orchestrated by Napoleon, the parades, and celebrations surrounding his victories in the functioning of his regime: the people and courtiers repeated that the rain would stop and the sun would appear when he showed himself. "Napoleon continues to fascinate all theorists of political power; is it not because his dictatorship appears singularly modern? His authority takes on a charismatic character that aligns with our modern cult of personality<ref>Maurice Duverger, Dictatures et légitimité, PUF, 1982, https://www.google.fr/books/edition/Dictatures_et_l%C3%A9gitimit%C3%A9/9q92DwAAQBAJ?hl=fr&gbpv=1&dq=culte+de+la+personnalit%C3%A9,+napol%C3%A9on&pg=PT300&printsec=frontcover</ref>." This cult is widely propagated by the soldiers of the Grande Armée, who rely on the emperor in the most difficult moments, but also by the clergy, who, from the Concordat of 1801, present Napoleon as the envoy of providence.<ref>Maurice Choury, Les grognards et Napoléon, Perrin, 1968https://www.google.fr/books/edition/Les_grognards_et_Napol%C3%A9on/l8dXDwAAQBAJ?hl=fr&gbpv=1&dq=culte+de+la+personnalit%C3%A9,+napol%C3%A9on&pg=PT39&printsec=frontcover</ref>

Fine art

Art contributes to the Napoleonic legend during the emperor's lifetime through propaganda paintings, sculptures, engravings, or prints by artists such as David or Antoine-Jean Gros, among others. Paintings created after Napoleon's life, or even long after his death, mostly express a nostalgia for France under Napoleon. For example, Édouard Detaille's "The Dream" (which is now in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris) depicted in a highly patriotic allegory French soldiers from 1870 sleeping, with the distant memory of the victorious Grande Armée in the clouds. This type of painting, showing nostalgia for a victorious and united France, is one of the foundations of the Napoleonic legend, as they all visually represent the increasingly distant memory of a mythical France.

Literature, theatre, and film

'The Memorial of Saint Helena,' a masterpiece of propaganda first published in 1823 (after Napoleon's death in 1821) by Emmanuel de Las Cases, revives the golden legend and lays the foundations of Bonapartism.<ref>Frédéric Bluche, Le bonapartisme, coll. « Que sais-je ? », éd. Presses universitaires de France (PUF), 1981, p. 48.</ref>

Famous novelist Honoré de Balzac illustrates the admiration of the French and many Europeans by writing in "A Conversation Between Eleven O'Clock and Midnight," an excerpt from "Contes Bruns": "Who will ever explain, depict, or understand Napoleon? A man represented with his arms folded, and who did everything, who was the greatest force ever known, the most concentrated, the most mordant, the most acid of all forces; a singular genius who carried armed civilization in every direction without fixing it anywhere; a man who could do everything because he willed everything; a prodigious phenomenon of will, conquering an illness by a battle, and yet doomed to die of disease in bed after living in the midst of ball and bullets; a man with a code and a sword in his brain, word and deed; a clear-sighted spirit that foresaw everything but his own fall; a capricious politician who risked men by handfuls out of economy, and who spared three heads—those of Talleyrand, of Pozzo de Borgo, and of Metternich, diplomatists whose death would have saved the French Empire, and who seemed to him of greater weight than thousands of soldiers; a man to whom nature, as a rare privilege, had given a heart in a frame of bronze; mirthful and kind at midnight amid women, and next morning manipulating Europe as a young girl might amuse herself by splashing water in her bath! Hypocritical and generous; loving tawdriness and simplicity; devoid of taste, but protecting the arts; and in spite of these antitheses, really great in everything by instinct or by temperament; Caesar at five-and-twenty, Cromwell at thirty; and then, like my grocer buried in Père Lachaise, a good husband and a good father. In short, he improvised public works, empires, kings, codes, verses, a romance—and all with more range than precision. Did he not aim at making all Europe France? And after making us weigh on the earth in such a way as to change the laws of gravitation, he left us poorer than on the day when he first laid hands on us; while he, who had taken an empire by his name, lost his name on the frontier of his empire in a sea of blood and soldiers. A man all thought and all action, who comprehended Desaix and Fouché."<ref>https:// Another study of woman, Honoré De Balzac. Translated by Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell, Project Gutenberg, www.gutenberg.org/files/1714/1714-h/1714-h.htm</ref>

The Count of Monte Cristo

Napoleon plays an indirect yet utterly important part in Alexandre Dumas' novel The Count of Monte Cristo. The novel starts in 1815 with Napoleon exiled on the island of Elba. Here we learn that he hands a letter to the protagonist Edmond Dantès to give to one of his chief (fictional) supporters in Paris - Noirtier De Villefort, the president of a Bonapartist club. Dantès is unaware that Villefort is an agent of the exiled Emperor and that the letter Napoleon handed him contained instructions and plans about Napoleon's planned return to Paris. Dantès' rivals include Mr. Danglars, his long-time unspoken rival and shipmate, who first reports Dantès to the authorities as a Bonapartist, and Gérard De Villefort, the opportunistic son of Noirtier and staunch royalist, who, in order to protect his father from being outed as a Bonapartist, burns the letter and uses its former existence to frame Dantès and have him imprisoned in the Château d'If until his escape after 14 years and seeks vengeance upon those who wronged him.

Doctor Who

Napoleon features prominently in the BBC Doctor Who Past Doctor Adventure World Game, in which the Second Doctor must avert a plot to change history so that Napoleon is victorious. In an alternate timeline created by the assassination of the Duke of Wellington prior to Waterloo, Napoleon is persuaded to march on to Russia after the victory at Waterloo, but he dies shortly afterwards, his empire having become so overextended that the various countries collapse back into the separate nations they were before, thus degenerating into a state of perpetual warfare. (This situation is made worse due to the intervention of the Doctor's old enemies the Players).

In 2013, Applied Mechanics produced Vainglorious, an epic, 26-actor immersive performance with Mary Tuomanen portraying Napoleon.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Depictions of Napoleon in literature include:

In film:

  • The Furies: T.C. likens himself to Napoleon and keeps a bust of him in his office.
  • The Swan: Beatrix is mortified to find Napoleon's name on Nicolas's blackboard; he later proposes a toast to Napoleon.

Computer and video games

  • The campaigns of Napoleon have been depicted in the sixth installment of the Total War series, Napoleon: Total War. Players have a chance to follow Napoleon's Italian, Egyptian, or Russian campaigns.
  • Napoleon is featured in Assassin's Creed Unity as a supporting character. He also appears as the main antagonist in its downloadable content mission, Dead Kings.
  • Napoleon is a frequently used leader representing the French civilisation in the Civilization series.
  • Napoleon appears in Scribblenauts and its sequels as someone the player can summon.
  • The first expansion pack to Europa Universalis III, Napoleon's Ambition, bears his name and expands the game to cover his whole reign.
  • The game Mount & Blade: Warband features an expansion pack called Napoleonic Wars where the player can compete online as a soldier from one of many countries involved in the Napoleonic Wars.
  • Napoleon appears in the mobile game Fate/Grand Order as an Archer-class servant.
  • Napoleon is a real-time strategy game that was released in 2001 for the Game Boy Advance. It was one of the console's launch titles in Japan and only saw international release in France under the title L'Aigle de Guerre.
  • Napoleon appears in the mobile visual novel game Ikemen Vampire by Cybird as one of the dateable characters.
  • Napoleon appears in Psychonauts. In the game, he is portrayed as a figment of his descendant Fred's mind. He manifests within Fred's mind annoyed that Fred is a Bonaparte yet can't win a simple war game, and forces Fred to play until Raz helps him win.
  • Napoleon is featured in the 2018 role-playing game The Council as a supporting character.
  • Napoleon appears in the 2012 3DS game Rhythm Thief & the Emperor's Treasure as the overarching antagonist of the story.
  • Empoleon, a Pokémon introduced in the 2006 Nintendo DS game Pokémon Diamond and Pearl, is named after Napoleon in multiple languages.
  • The Spy from Team Fortress 2 has a cosmetic item based on Napoleon's bicorne called Napoleon Complex.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Culinary

Mille-feuille
  • Beef Napoleon
  • Bigarreau Napoleon cherry
  • Bonaparte's Ribs, an early 19th-century English lollipop
  • Eggplant Napoleon
  • Napoléons
  • Seattle-based food brokerage and import firm The Napoleon Company [1]

Film, radio and television

Albert Dieudonné as Napoleon in Napoléon

Film

Radio

Television

Places

Geography

Hospitality

Military

Music

  • During the Napoleonic Wars, a nursery rhyme warned children that Napoleon ravenously ate naughty people.<ref>"Bogeyman Template:Webarchive", "Period glossary", Napoleon.org. Retrieved 07-03-2007.</ref>
  • Ludwig van Beethoven had originally conceived of dedicating his Third Symphony to Consul Napoleon Bonaparte. Beethoven admired the ideals of the French Revolution, and Napoleon as their embodiment. According to Beethoven's pupil, F. Ries, when Napoleon proclaimed himself Emperor in May 1804, Beethoven became disgusted and went to the table where the completed score lay. He took hold of the title-page and tore it up in rage.
  • Napoleon was the topic of many sea shanties following his death, most notably the song "Boney was a Warrior."
  • A poem by the German poet Heinrich Heine, published in 1822 and titled "Die Grenadiere," or "Die beiden Grenadiere" ("The Two Grenadiers"), evokes the fascination exerted by the French Emperor on his men.
  • Hector Berlioz composed his "Te Deum" in his honor in 1849.
  • The Ani DiFranco song "Napoleon" satirises the desire to continuously "conquer"; more specifically musicians who sign with big labels, thus employing "an army of suits" in order to "make a killing" rather than just "make a living".
  • The Bob Dylan song "On the Road Again" from his 1965 album Bringing It All Back Home references Napoleon: "Your mama she's hidin' inside the icebox/Your daddy walks in wearin' a Napoleon Bonaparte mask".
  • Another Bob Dylan song, "Like a Rolling Stone", from his seminal album Highway 61 Revisited references Napoleon: "You used to be so amused/At Napoleon in rags and the language that he used".
  • The Kinks song "Powerman" from their 1970 album Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One references Napoleon: "People tried to conquer the world; Napoleon and Genghis Khan, Hitler tried and Mussolini too".
  • The Bee Gees song "Walking Back to Waterloo" from their 1971 album Trafalgar references Napoleon: "I wish there was another year, another time/When people sang and poems rhymed/My name could be Napoleon".
  • Swedish Pop group ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest 1974 with the song "Waterloo", which uses the battle as a metaphor for a person surrendering to love similar to how Napoleon "surrendered" [sic] at Waterloo.
  • The Al Stewart song "The Palace of Versailles", from his 1978 album Time Passages, is filled with references and allusions to the French Revolution. One line specifically references Napoleon: "Bonaparte is coming/With his army from the south".
  • The Charlie Sexton song "Impressed" references Napoleon and Joséphine (from Pictures for Pleasure).
  • The Mark Knopfler song "Done with Bonaparte" from his 1996 album Golden Heart is sung from the viewpoint of a soldier in Napoleon's army. The song recalls the soldier's many battles serving in Napoleon's Grande Armée.
  • The Tori Amos song "Josephine" from her 1999 album To Venus and Back is sung from the viewpoint of Napoleon during his unsuccessful invasion of Russia.
  • Iced Earth released the song "Waterloo" on their album The Glorious Burden, which details Napoleon's defeat at the Battle Of Waterloo.
  • Bright Eyes recorded a song called "Napoleon's Hat" for Lagniappe, an album released by Saddle Creek Records to raise funds for the Red Cross' Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.
  • The song "Viva la Vida" by Coldplay is loosely based on Napoleon's reign.
  • An episode of Epic Rap Battles of History is a rap battle between Napoleon Bonaparte and Napoleon Dynamite. Six seasons later, Napoleon would come back for a battle against Charlemagne.
  • Bonaparte is the stage name of German-Swiss singer/producer Tobias Jundt.

Comics

Although no masterpieces have emerged from the Napoleonic adventure in the realm of comics or bandes dessinées, unlike painting or cinema, the comic book remains an art form quite inspired by the character of Napoleon. Notable works dedicated to the Emperor include those by Roger Lécureux and Guido Buzzelli, which recount Napoleon's entire life in a realistic drawing style and with great sobriety in the storyline. Other comics of the same genre narrate the life or periods of Napoleon's life, such as "Napoléon Bonaparte" by Guy Hempey (script) and Pierre Brochard (artwork), as well as the three albums in the series "Napoléon" by Belgians Liliane Funcken and Fred Funcken: "The Sultan of Fire," "The Fall of the Eagle," and "Waterloo (Battle) (1815)."

However, the myth of Napoleon is often caricatured, featuring megalomaniacs who believe themselves to be the Emperor. This is the case with Jean-Marc Rochette, who achieved certain commercial and critical success (winning awards at the Angoulême International Comics Festival) with "Napoléon et Bonaparte," which tells the burlesque adventures of two madmen, both believing themselves to be the famous military leader. Also worth mentioning, in the realm of comedy, is the work of Gotlib, who featured Napoleon Bonaparte in his "Rubrique-à-brac," as well as the series "Godaille et Godasse," which depicts his family stories.

Other

Napoleon's hat is a cultural icon.

Napoleon's height

A British political cartoon depicting Napoleon as short

British political cartoons of the period depicted Napoleon as a short man and the image of him as being short continues to be widespread today.<ref>Napoleon's height was put at just over 5 pieds 2 pouces by three French sources (his valet Constant, General Gourgaud, and Francesco Antommarchi at Napoleon's autopsy) which, using the French measurements of the time, equals around 1.69m. (Template:Cite web) Two English sources (Andrew Darling and John Foster) put his height at around 5 ft 7 ins, equivalent, on the Imperial scale, to 1.70m. This would have made him around average height for a Frenchman of the time. (Template:Cite web Template:Cite web) Nonetheless, some historians have claimed Napoleon would have been measured with a British measure at his autopsy, since it took place in St Helena, implying the 5 ft 2 ins is an Imperial measure, equal to about 1.58 meters. On the other hand, Francesco Antommarchi, Napoleon's personal physician, due to his hostility to the British, may never have used their yardstick to measure his emperor. (Template:Cite book)</ref> Confusion has sometimes arisen because of different values for the French inch (pouce) of the time (2.7 cm) and for the Imperial inch (2.54 cm).;<ref name="www.historydata.com.897">Template:Cite web</ref> he has been cited as being from Template:Convert, which made him the height of the average French male at that time,<ref name="Owen Connelly 2006 7">Template:Cite book</ref> and up to Template:Convert tall, which is above average for the period.<ref group="note">Napoleon's height was 5 ft 2 French inches according to Antommarchi at Napoleon's autopsy and British sources put his height at 5 foot and 4 British inches: both equivalent to 1.4 m.<ref>Dunan 1963</ref> Napoleon surrounded himself with tall bodyguards and had a nickname of le petit caporal which was an affectionate term that reflected his reported camaraderie with his soldiers rather than his height.</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> British Rear-Admiral Frederick Lewis Maitland, who had daily contact with Napoleon on Maitland's ship for twenty-three days in 1815, states in his memoirs that he was about Template:Convert.<ref>Template:Gutenberg</ref> Some historians believe that the reason for the mistake about his size at death came from use of an obsolete French yardstick.<ref name="Owen Connelly 2006 7"/> Napoleon was a champion of the metric system (introduced in France in 1799) and had no use for the old yardsticks. It is more likely that he was Template:Convert, the height he was measured at on St. Helena, since he would have most likely been measured with an English yardstick rather than a yardstick of the Old French Regime.<ref name="Owen Connelly 2006 7"/>

Napoleon's nickname of le petit caporal has added to the confusion, as some non-Francophones have mistakenly interpreted petit by its literal meaning of "small". In fact, it is an affectionate term reflecting on his camaraderie with ordinary soldiers. Napoleon also surrounded himself with the soldiers of his elite guard, required to be 1.83 m (6 ft) or taller,Template:Citation needed making him look smaller in comparison.

Napoleon's name has been lent to the Napoleon complex, a colloquial term describing an alleged type of inferiority complex which is said to affect some people who are physically short. The term is used more generally to describe people who are driven by a perceived handicap to overcompensate in other aspects of their lives.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

The Napoleon Delusion

Napoleon Bonaparte is one of the most famous individuals in the Western world. As delusional patients sometimes believe themselves to be an important or grandiose figure (see delusion), a patient claiming to be Napoleon has been a common stereotype in popular culture for delusions of this nature.

  • In the 1922 film Mixed Nuts, Stan Laurel plays a book salesman whose only volume for sale is a biography of Napoleon. When the character receives a blow to the head, he comes to believe that he is Napoleon and is subsequently admitted to a mental institution.<ref>Garza, Janiss, Allmovie. "Mixed Nuts (1925)", Review Summary, The New York Times. Retrieved 09-25-2006.</ref>
  • In the 1925 Fleischer movie "Ko-ko Nuts", Koko the Clown goes to an asylum, where there is a whole Napoleon department for people who think they're Napoleon.

This cliché has itself been parodied:

  • In the Bugs Bunny film Napoleon Bunny-Part, the actual Napoleon is dragged away by psychiatric attendants, who believe he is delusional.<ref>"Napoleon Bunny-part", Scripts, Delenea's Bugs Bunny Page. Retrieved 07-18-2007.</ref>
  • The song "They're Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!" was recorded by Jerry Samuels billed as Napoleon XIV. Some other versions of the song were made with lyrics referencing the Napoleon delusion (such as a Spanish version entitled "Soy Napoleon") or with the artist's name referencing a fictitious emperor.
  • In The Emperor's New Clothes, Ian Holm plays Napoleon who stumbles into the grounds of an asylum and finds himself surrounded by other "Napoleons" - he cannot reveal his identity for fear of being grouped with the deluded.<ref>French, Philip (The Observer). "The Emperor's New Clothes", The Guardian, 02-04-2004. Retrieved 07-19-2006.</ref> Holm also played a less-than-serious Napoleon in the 1981 film Time Bandits.
  • The Discworld novel Making Money features a character who believes himself to be Lord Vetinari, imitating Vetinari's mannerisms and entertaining delusions of grandeur. It is later revealed that the local hospital has an entire ward for people with the same delusion, where they engage in competitions to determine who is the "real" Vetinari.
  • In an episode of cult 1960s British TV sci-fi show The Prisoner called "The Girl Who Was Death", which unusually for the series was a light-hearted comedy tale parodying the spy thriller genre, the villain Dr. Schnipps (Kenneth Griffith) believed that he was Napoleon and acted accordingly, at one point asking the protagonist Number Six (Patrick McGoohan), "You're not the Duke of Wellington, are you?"
  • In the first episode of season 2 of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles titled "Return of the Shredder" (1988), Scientist and Inventor, Baxter Stockman is seen in a jail cell with a man in Napoleonic garb spouting off dialogue in a French accent.
  • In an episode of Night Court, Judge Harry Stone (Harry Anderson) is placed in a jail cell along with a number of 'mentally disturbed' inmates all dressed as Napoleon. His court defence attorney (played by Markie Post) sees him and exclaims "Oh sir. They put you in with the little generals".
  • The award-winning video game Psychonauts features a mental patient, Fred Bonaparte, locked in an obsessive mind-game with his distant ancestor Napoleon, who is fighting for his mind.
  • In the Futurama episode "Insane in the Mainframe", Bender pretends to be a banjo-playing Napoleon in order to stay in a robot asylum.

See also

Notes

Template:Reflist

References

Template:ReflistTemplate:Napoleon

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