Not since Julius Caesar and his expansive Roman Empire had there been a leader so pervasive or impressing as Napoleon Bonaparte. Born on the previously Italian, then French island of Corsica in 1769 and raised by the middling yet technically noble Buonaparté family, Napoleon would, by the end of his life, come to rule France as its First Consul and, later, constitutional emperor for a total of fifteen war-filled years. By age 20, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in France’s 1st Artillery Regiment. By age 24, he was promoted to the rank of brigadier general. By age 30, he had bloodlessly overthrown the struggling post-Revolutionary French government to sit as its Consulate’s head. And by 34, he became France’s constitutional emperor
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Napoleon was therefore seen as a progressive and thusly favored by a sizable portion of the British public. Even though the two nations were at war, ideologies were able to travel across the English Channel in both directions, fueling a progressivist fervor in the British Radical party which was most definitely vocal and thusly heard. The Loyalist party, however, attacked Napoleon’s character on the basis of illegitimacy. He was certainly an emperor in terms of power and influence, but Loyalists, whose rhetoric has since become hegemonic and embedded in Western prisms, claimed that his rule was undeserved—that he was not born into his position as was expected of a king. The common argument against Napoleon’s character in my anecdotal environment has been that of a monster who took his emperorship by bloody force during the 18 Brumaire coup. This argument is notably reminiscent of the Loyalist “legitimacy” criticisms. Although Napoleon was named First Consul and later constitutional emperor by a popular vote of 3,572,329 to 2,579 (Kafker and Laux 65), the common assumption of his rise to power is that he had taken his positions unjustly. Whether this interpretation is due to lingering Loyalist rhetoric or, more likely, common ignorance towards Revolutionary and Napoleonic …show more content…
Although Loyalist rhetoric outlasted the Radical party’s short-lived Francophilia, there was nevertheless a period of French consideration and rivalry. Emmy Vincent Macleod’s “British Attitudes to the French Revolution” focuses on this period by way of the leading, non-governmental writers during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods of France. In her essay, Macleod touches on the same Loyalist-Radical disagreements as Semmel, but she further critiques them to show that there was no simple delineation between the two parties in regards to Napoleon’s character. “[F]or all the enormous volume and poison of British anti-Napoleon propaganda,” she writes, “in the end it failed to extinguish a sneaking admiration in Britain for the French emperor” (696). Loyalist propaganda was more pervasive than Radical writings and was inherently safer to read during a time of conflict when “only opponents of the [Napoleonic] war itself voiced criticisms of the management of the British war effort, because for anyone else to have done so would have raised doubts about their commitment to the pursuit of the conflict” (Macleod 696). Essentially, Britain was at odds with its political identity but nevertheless kept a stiff upper lip in the face of war. Its citizens were moved by Napoleon’s successes, both military and reformative, but continued to resent him because he was
Napoleon was therefore seen as a progressive and thusly favored by a sizable portion of the British public. Even though the two nations were at war, ideologies were able to travel across the English Channel in both directions, fueling a progressivist fervor in the British Radical party which was most definitely vocal and thusly heard. The Loyalist party, however, attacked Napoleon’s character on the basis of illegitimacy. He was certainly an emperor in terms of power and influence, but Loyalists, whose rhetoric has since become hegemonic and embedded in Western prisms, claimed that his rule was undeserved—that he was not born into his position as was expected of a king. The common argument against Napoleon’s character in my anecdotal environment has been that of a monster who took his emperorship by bloody force during the 18 Brumaire coup. This argument is notably reminiscent of the Loyalist “legitimacy” criticisms. Although Napoleon was named First Consul and later constitutional emperor by a popular vote of 3,572,329 to 2,579 (Kafker and Laux 65), the common assumption of his rise to power is that he had taken his positions unjustly. Whether this interpretation is due to lingering Loyalist rhetoric or, more likely, common ignorance towards Revolutionary and Napoleonic …show more content…
Although Loyalist rhetoric outlasted the Radical party’s short-lived Francophilia, there was nevertheless a period of French consideration and rivalry. Emmy Vincent Macleod’s “British Attitudes to the French Revolution” focuses on this period by way of the leading, non-governmental writers during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods of France. In her essay, Macleod touches on the same Loyalist-Radical disagreements as Semmel, but she further critiques them to show that there was no simple delineation between the two parties in regards to Napoleon’s character. “[F]or all the enormous volume and poison of British anti-Napoleon propaganda,” she writes, “in the end it failed to extinguish a sneaking admiration in Britain for the French emperor” (696). Loyalist propaganda was more pervasive than Radical writings and was inherently safer to read during a time of conflict when “only opponents of the [Napoleonic] war itself voiced criticisms of the management of the British war effort, because for anyone else to have done so would have raised doubts about their commitment to the pursuit of the conflict” (Macleod 696). Essentially, Britain was at odds with its political identity but nevertheless kept a stiff upper lip in the face of war. Its citizens were moved by Napoleon’s successes, both military and reformative, but continued to resent him because he was