Emperor Napoleon I (1769-1821) and Wives (Empress Josephine and Empress Marie-Louise)


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Duc_et_Pair said:
While Napoléon may have had merits: in essence he was an army general whom commited a coup d'état, blew up the Republic to establish a brand new Empire, raged war against dozens of countries, occupied or even annexed these and replaced royal families with Bonapartes. A man who has enforced millions to conscript into obligatory military service and led them in hellish military campaigns with millions of deaths on battlefields in Europe, in deep Russia and the Orient as well at sea. A man whose policy inflicted a continental wide boycott with as result the Continent being in deep recession and crisis, with starving people, malnutrition, diseases and misery. A man who looted in occupied countries to fill France's museums, public buildings and spaces with stolen art.

Also that is Napoléon. So I would be careful with the claim that his legacy "demands respect".
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I am always saddened that Napoleon is so frequently classified as a warmonger and dictator because it shows that people still fall for the political spin made 200 years ago. Napoleon was elected Emperor of the French; although this election would not meet modern standards it is significantly more democratic than the route to power of the monarchs who opposed him. Most of the Napoleonic Wars involved France defending democracy against the coalitions of absolutist monarchs, Napoleon was the peacemaker not the warmonger. The continental blockade against Britain was a reaction to the British blockade against France; it was a damaging trade war, but it was not started by France. Ironically, Napoleon’s victories spread the system of constitutional monarchy, which would save many of the monarchies that had previously been absolutist. It can be argued that without Napoleon fewer monarchies would exist today.
 
Martin9eme said:
I am always saddened that Napoleon is so frequently classified as a warmonger and dictator because it shows that people still fall for the political spin made 200 years ago.
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Although it is difficult to have an accurate estimate, as many as 6 million people may have died or gone missing in the Napoleonic wars, which is a huge number by early 19th century standards and by no means "political spin". That in itself would justify Nopoleon's reputation as a warmonger.

Of course, you can subscribe to Napoleon's own version of history in his St Helena diaries that "the British" were the actual culprits for "the war without end", but that would be analogous to the opinion for example that, in the 20th century, the British were also responsible for World War I. I disagree with both opinions and think it was correct for the UK to oppose both the Napoleonic Empire and, in the early 20th century, the Second German Empire.
 
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Mbruno said:
Although it is difficult to have an accurate estimate, as many as 6 million people may have died or gone missing in the Napoleonic wars, which is a huge number by early 19th century standards and by no means "political spin". That in itself would justify Nopoleon's reputation as a warmonger.
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Surely the people responsible for these deaths are those who started the wars; the Allies were the warmongers. Was Napoleon wrong to defend his country?
 
Martin9eme said:
Surely the people responsible for these deaths are those who started the wars; the Allies were the warmongers. Was Napoleon wrong to defend his country?
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Napoleon invaded the Low Countries (today's Benelux), invaded Portugal, invaded Spain, invaded today's Austria, invaded today's Germany, invaded today's Italy, invaded Poland, invaded Greece, invaded Egypt, what did he not invade? How to file this as "had to defend his country"?

He looted and pillaged all what he could use, he enforced conscription for his always man-hungry army, causing millions of casualties, famine, diseases, demographic disbalance, blocked trade and business which was not in the interest of his Empire. All countries were totally broken and impoverished after Napoleon's rule.
 
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Martin9eme said:
Surely the people responsible for these deaths are those who started the wars; the Allies were the warmongers. Was Napoleon wrong to defend his country?
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It's true that France was under severe threat during the revolutionary wars and like the Swedish King Karl XII he ended up feeling that big campaigns was necessary to pacify the enemies of his countries. This doesn't deflect from the crimes the French armies committed against the civil population during the Peninsular wars in Spain. Another aspect that people tend to overlook is the suffering Napoleon inflicted on his troops in Egypt whom he abandoned when better opportunities presented themselves in Paris or those tens of thousands of men that he left to die in Russia as he left them to try and get home themselves.
Napoleon was a great man, who's influence on modern Europe can't be overestimated, but his sun definitely had many spots.
 
JR76 said:
It's true that France was under severe threat during the revolutionary wars and like the Swedish King Karl XII he ended up feeling that big campaigns was necessary to pacify the enemies of his countries. This doesn't deflect from the crimes the French armies committed against the civil population during the Peninsular wars in Spain. Another aspect that people tend to overlook is the suffering Napoleon inflicted on his troops in Egypt whom he abandoned when better opportunities presented themselves in Paris or those tens of thousands of men that he left to die in Russia as he left them to try and get home themselves.
Napoleon was a great man, who's influence on modern Europe can't be overestimated, but his sun definitely had many spots.
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Agreed. A lot of people seem to forget that the monarchies of true royal blue blood did not look kindly on Napoleon ascending to an imperial throne and the French Revolution as a whole. Napoleon should've stayed at home and fortified France, taking care of his people, but it's easy for us to say such things when we live in the modern age and not during a time when war was used to settle matters between cousins.
Was he egotistical? Yes. Should he have taken far better care of his soldiers? Yes! A million times over yes! He should never have driven them towards campaigns such as the Penisula, Russia, Egypt. Or any.
Many of his solders went insane; those that survived that malnutrition, cold, diseases, battles, etc. If France is to give up the artifacts it took from other countries than so should all others. Belgium would lose a lot of wealth to the Congo, the UK would lose many objects and the crown jewels which were taken from India and Africa, and so on.
 
We shouldn't judge people with ours current moral views. It doesn't make any sense. Was Napoleon warmongering conqueror? Yes but other powers weren't any better. Russia was already expanding to Central Asia and it conquered during early stages of Napolenic Wars Georgia. United Kingdom was already conquering India. You sholdn't judge Napoleon and close yours eyes from atrocities done by other nations. And Napoleon treated people lived in France much better than tsar of Russia or government of United Kingdom. France wasn't nice place to live but neithere were UK, Russia, German states or United States.
 
Today in Royal History is the 250th birthday of Napoleon I, Emperor of the French of the House of Bonaparte of which he founded in 1804.
 
An Ard Ri said:
It seems activists had warned a week ago that the statue of Empress Joséphine would be targeted.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1571563
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But why? I dont know of any evidence that Josephine had any political influence on Napoleon.. She grew up in a slave owning society but i don't know of her trying to persuade N to re introduce it.. He would have done so for economic reasons...
 
Denville said:
But why? I dont know of any evidence that Josephine had any political influence on Napoleon.. She grew up in a slave owning society but i don't know of her trying to persuade N to re introduce it.. He would have done so for economic reasons...
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The fact is Joséphine owned several slaves in her Martinique properties inherited from a father. If it's, indeed, doubtful she had any influence on Napoleon about the unfamous 1802 decree on slave trade, at least it' didn't bother her that much as it allowed her to maintain her juicy sugar trade.

But the problem was not Joséphine per se but the statue itself. It was built during the Second Empire by rich and white owners as an obvious sycophantic act toward Napoléon III. From day one it didn't go well with the locals, who saw it as a symbol of oppression.
The statue was moved several times, especially after the fall on the Empire. It was even decapitated back in 1991 and never restored. So yesterday's last act of pure vandalism (understandable at some point in this case but vandalism nevertheless) was the last straw of a long and painful story.
 
The hat Napoleon wore at the Battle of Waterloo
 
In Napoleon His Wives and Women, Christopher Hibbert wrote about Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria:
Perhaps marriage to the French Emperor might not be so bad after all. She asked about the museums in Paris, and would she be allowed to have a botanical garden, and was Napoleon musical?
 
On October 23, 1812 a failed coup against Emperor Napoleon I of the French occurred.
 
The civil wedding of Napoleon and Josephine occurred on March 9, 1796.
 
Napoleon I and Josephine love story reminds me a lot of Augustus, the first Roman emperor and his wife Livia. Except that Livia made sure her son from the first marriage became the successor and she outlived the emperor. Had Empress Josephine been more like the TV version of Livia below, history in the 19th century would have been very different!

 
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CyrilVladisla said:
Empress Josephine was told by Emperor Napoleon I that he is compelled to annul their marriage.
http://www.maryevans.com/history/Josephine-has-bad-news-10151026
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The divorce Ceremony took place on the 10th of January 1810
640px-Le_divorce_de_l%27Imp%C3%A9ratrice_Jos%C3%A9phine_15_d%C3%A9cembre_1809_%28Henri-Frederic_Schopin%29.jpg
 
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