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Does France have a Napoleon complex? There's a reason Ridley Scott's film was so hated

Macron as Napoleon (Photo by Fabian Sommer/dpa/AFP/Getty)

Macron as Napoleon (Photo by Fabian Sommer/dpa/AFP/Getty)


November 27, 2023   5 mins

L’Année Napoléon in Emmanuel Macron’s commemoration-hungry France, was a bit of a damp squib. In 2021, two centuries after the death of l’Empereur on St Helena’s Island, there was enough noise from the anti-colonialist crowd on his reintroduction of slavery in the West Indies in 1802-1804 (under pressure from local landowners) that a number of grandiose projected events were quietly cancelled or indefinitely postponed. Post-Covid and a year before Macron’s re-election campaign, it was felt that any unnecessary controversy should be prudently shelved.

It took Ridley Scott and his bloated Napoléon to rouse the serried ranks of French historians, politicians, journalists, museographers, military brass and amateur re-enacters against what is largely seen here as an attack against France’s best-known ruler and military genius. We’re getting L’Année Napoléon two years late ­— ­and enjoying every moment of it.

“Napoléon”, c’est le film d’un Anglais très antifrançais (“Napoleon is a movie made by an arch-anti-French Englishman”) sniffed the historian Patrice Gueniffey in Le Point, before engaging in a meticulous fact-checking exercise. (The entire Institut Napoléon has been producing a detachment of painstaking little French Hugo Vickers to protest, with a thousand details, that the superannuated, gloomy, inarticulate brute portrayed by Joaquin Phoenix is wrong, wrong, wrong). “This is worse than a just a bad film: Ridley Scott desecrates Napoleon”, the Sciences Po professor of media studies, Romain Marsily, thunders in Le Figaro.

For a country supposedly in the throes of existential gloom and masochistic self-doubt, there’s nothing like a perceived attack by bloody foreigners on a national legend to bring a lot of us together. A recent poll shows only 3% of the French mention the West Indies slavery reinstatement in their rating of Napoléon’s “worse decisions”.

Putting aside the police state that France inherited from the Revolution’s Committee of Public Safety, the first Napoléonic accomplishments the French praise are Napoleon’s legislative and administrative reforms, which pretty much baked Roman law, Louis XIV’s centralism and command economy, the philosophy of the Enlightenment, and the Revolution’s nation-building achievements into a consistent framework. It took four years ­— 1800 to 1804 — to write and collate the 2281 articles of the Civil Code, largely under the stewardship of the First Consul, as he was known at the time, himself (Bonaparte presided over 55 of the 107 writing sessions of the final version).

This, as much as his conquests, left an indelible mark in the law of places from Louisiana and Bolivia to Bavaria and Poland. You find the (translated) hand of Napoleon in the Japanese Civil Code of 1898, in Egyptian Law, in Mustafa Kemal Atatürk new Turkish Code. Half a century before Bismarck, the birth of modern Germany was facilitated by the breaking up of medieval laws and regulations and the power of guilds, as well as the expropriation, à la révolutionnaire, of the churches and the aristocratic landowners.

For a notion of the awe in which of Napoleon was held by his contemporaries, listen to his enemies. “Bonaparte was a poet in action, an immense genius in war, a tireless, skilful and sensible administrator, a hard-working and reasonable legislator. This is why he has such a hold on people’s imagination,” from Chateaubriand, a lifelong royalist whose regular diatribes in Le Mercure de France left no one in doubt of the contempt he held him in.

Or take the opening lines of Stendhal’s Charterhouse of Parma, written from the point of view of the Italian States invaded by the French: “On May 15, 1796, General Bonaparte entered Milan at the head of that young army which had lately crossed the Lodi bridge and taught the world that after so many centuries Caesar and Alexander had a successor. The miracles of valour and genius Italy had witnessed in a few months wakened a slumbering nation.”

The notion of gloire, which has disappeared from our modern world, belongs here to the Roman general’s triumph, the retelling of the Iliad, the tales of the Crusaders, which were part of a regular education. And so the French will talk of Napoleon’s victories — but crucially, his defeats became equally part of his myth. From the Retreat from Russia to that lone figure marooned on an island in the South Atlantic, they combine to create epic and tragedy. What, indeed, would posterity would have made of a Napoleon meekly ending his days as the ruler of Elba, a Mediterranean Ruritania without a Rassendyl, instead of escaping for a hundred days until he meets his, well, Waterloo.

Having frozen the political consequences of the Révolution during his 16-year rule, Napoleon’s shadow looms over most of the 19th century as his successors try, and mostly fail, to cope with the world after him. The after-effects of Bonapartisme, long after the Emperor’s death, fuelled every single uprising of the 19th century: the short years of the First Empire, with its mammoth legislative achievements, administrative restructuring of France and glorification of science, becoming a hallowed Vingt Glorieuses in French minds from Balzac, La Fayette, Victor Hugo, to Berlioz.

You can even argue that Napoleon himself was in many ways replicating, in the neoclassical vernacular, an age-old tradition in which French kings, claiming a mystical direct connection to their peoples, set themselves as autocratic popular defenders against a hidebound aristocracy. From Philippe II Auguste to Louis XIV, this meant strengthening a centralised, technocratic domination over the country, and the appropriation of the fiefdoms and provinces of anyone trying to rebel. Every Noble Revolt was lost in France over the centuries, possibly resulting in a largely irrelevant upper middle class often deserving of Karl Marx’s strictures.

The Bonapartiste blueprint, which would influence French politics to this day was published in 1823, when Count Emmanuel de Las Cases produced the eight-volume Memoirs the dying Napeoleon largely dictated to him. Le Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène enshrines the principles of an authoritarian regime based on democratic institutions, with elections, and a centralised State. It is recognisable today: De Gaulle was reading it when writing his Memoirs, and its influence is strong in the Constitution of the Fifth Republic.

But from Balzac to Victor Hugo, it’s the non-accommodating memory of the Napoleonic years that gets burnished: the last of the Bourbons muddle through in their Ancien Régime style while more practical than usually acknowledged, as France starts dreaming of an enlightened strongman. Then, as today, the longing for a ruler who will cut through the perceived mediocrity of the times makes compromise look unattractive: Bonapartisme is foremost an illusion that the best solutions are the simplest ones.

The French have a muscular memory for the man of destiny — or woman: when Michelet, the great 19th century historian, published his massive Histoire de France between 1825 and 1874, intent on encompassing 20 centuries of national legend, his volume on Joan of Arc, which was a best-seller, had obvious parallels with the Napoleonic saga, including the final martyrdom. But modernity, and a very French belief in strong institutions, have mostly meant that we exported Bonapartisme more than truly practicing it ourselves.

Emmanuel Macron is the closest we have come to a Bonapartiste recently. In his conquest of power, his betrayal of his early allies, his refusal to be indebted to anyone, and his destruction of the old political parties, he had the manner, if not the spirit, of Napoleon. Elected seven years ago as the unknown who would make politics as usual obsolete, that young man of destiny who snatched power after a brilliant campaign now faces more of a humiliating dethroning a la Napoleon III than a St Helena ending.

Mistaking micromanagement for command of detail, and picking pale clones of himself as ministers (there are no plain-spoken, capable Maréchaux d’Empire at the Elysée) he tried to compensate for domestic unpopularity with grandiose international initiatives that fell flat from Kyiv to Jerusalem, and has managed to be despised by the diplomatic corps and the police as well as French military. He is done, a three-year lame duck. While we argue historical accuracy, he has already met his Waterloo.


Anne-Elisabeth Moutet is a Paris-based journalist and political commentator.

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Peter Principle
Peter Principle
11 months ago

Thanks, as always, to Anne-Elisabeth Moutet. No other Unherd writer can compete with Mme Moutet’s panache when it comes to twisting the knife.
When Napoléon Bonaparte’s nephew became Napoleon III, Marx wrote of history repeating itself the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Now, with Macron, we might add a third time as marionettes, followed, I fear, by a grand guignol.

Last edited 11 months ago by Peter Principle
Pat Davers
Pat Davers
11 months ago

Comparing Macron to Napoleon romantically suggests that his sudden emergence from nowhere and his “brilliant campaign” came about through sheer force of personality. Another more mundane explanation is that, faced with a resurgence of the populist left and right in the persons of Marine Le Pen and Jean-Luc Melenchon respectively, the “centrist” establishment and their well-oiled machine went to work, thrust the man they had been grooming into the limelight, and hastily assembled a party machine around him. 
I know which explanation I’d plump for.

Steve Jolly
Steve Jolly
11 months ago
Reply to  Pat Davers

Indeed, and they managed to muck it up so badly that Macron’s job at this point is basically to sit on the lid of the pot so it doesn’t boil over and hope somebody comes to rescue him and his ilk from the revolution. If we’re determined to make a historical comparison for Macron out of French history, I think Louis XVI is nearer the mark.

Chris Hayes
Chris Hayes
11 months ago

I was looking forward to seeing it and saw the film on Wednesday last week, but found Joachim Phoenix unconvincing – especially as a 20-something General.
Surely a project of this scope didn’t need a name like Phoenix to attract the crowds… it would have been a fine opportunity for a younger actor.
Overall I thought the film disappointing. It was always going to be a sketch of his life and achievements whichever aspect of Napoleon’s life it tackled, but to cover two of Europe’s most tumultuous decades in a couple of hours….nope.
A series would have been a better medium.

Last edited 11 months ago by Chris Hayes
James Jenkin
James Jenkin
11 months ago
Reply to  Chris Hayes

I’ve only seen the trailer, but it looks so lame. Phoenix just stands there looking grumpy.
Portraying a powerful figure needs energy, mystery, fear. Dr Zhivago did it well it bits:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsjzY0lGLdw
Half of it is just editing and sound

Andrew F
Andrew F
11 months ago

Problem with Napoleon is similar to what Russia is facing today.
He won many battles but he left France depopulated.
So France from great military power became subservient to Prussia and then united Germany.
Yes, his administrative and legislative achievements are great if you believe in statist, bureaucratic arrangements.
Reality is though, that more market driven approach of Anglo-Saxon world proved to be more successful in creating wealth and new industries.
Which in turn saved France in two world wars.
I love French wine, food and art.
Reality is though, that without uk and USA there would be no France.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
5 months ago
Reply to  Andrew F

Without the US there would be no Britain. Well perhaps a Vichy style one……

John Solomon
John Solomon
11 months ago

un Anglais très antifrançais”
Isn’t that somewhat of an oxymoron?

Vesselina Zaitzeva
Vesselina Zaitzeva
11 months ago
Reply to  John Solomon

I’d rather say it’s a tautology 😉

John Solomon
John Solomon
11 months ago

You would be right : I would be an idiot.

Vesselina Zaitzeva
Vesselina Zaitzeva
11 months ago
Reply to  John Solomon

You are definitely not (and I am right on this count, too )

Last edited 11 months ago by Vesselina Zaitzeva
John Solomon
John Solomon
11 months ago

You are very generous.

Ray Andrews
Ray Andrews
11 months ago
Reply to  John Solomon

And you have style.

Vesselina Zaitzeva
Vesselina Zaitzeva
11 months ago
Reply to  John Solomon

Thank you It’s very kind of you

Last edited 11 months ago by Vesselina Zaitzeva
Geoff Cooper
Geoff Cooper
11 months ago
Reply to  John Solomon

Anyway, isn’t Ridley Scott a Scot?

JOHN KANEFSKY
JOHN KANEFSKY
11 months ago
Reply to  Geoff Cooper

No He’s from South Shields on Tyneside

Richard C
Richard C
11 months ago

Yes, Macron is “….is done, a three-year lame duck”; and deservedly so as a pale imitation of the real Napoleon.
However, it is also the case that Napoleon was a very disappointing movie and Scott and Phoenix failed as much as the screenwriter failed.

michael harris
michael harris
11 months ago

The first paragraph of ‘The Charterhouse of Parma’ drips with the elegant sarcasm of which Stendhal was a master. The fashionable performative enthusiasm of the Milanese is expertly filleted. How can Moutet have missed this?

Charles Stanhope
Charles Stanhope
11 months ago

“Emmanuel Macron is the closest we have come to a Bonapartiste recently.”

What about Charles de Gaulle and his ‘running away’ to Kaiserslautern in 1968 or is that now ancient history?

Andrew F
Andrew F
11 months ago

Yes, French running away?
Is it a pattern or an exception?
At least Italians have a pattern.
Never finishing war on the same side they started it.

Christopher Barclay
Christopher Barclay
11 months ago

Centralising the state and introducing a civil code aren’t the subject of films. Inevitably any dramatic representation of Napoleon will focus on his military victories and defeats. Not mentioned is how the other great powers with the exception of Prussia/Germany worked so hard to avoid another war in Europe for the century after Napoleon, so great had been the price Europe paid for Napoleon’s violence.

SIMON WOLF
SIMON WOLF
11 months ago

Found the film very poorly edited and the script was mediocre.The actress who plays Josephine is the main highlight but Phoenix is average not least if compared to Rod Steiger who played Napoleon in Waterloo,

Barrie EMMETT
Barrie EMMETT
11 months ago

However one should watch Napoleon and see Ridley Scott at his very best.

Nicholas Taylor
Nicholas Taylor
11 months ago

So, should I see the movie, or stay away to avoid having my mind contaminated – and stick to War and Peace?

TERRY JESSOP
TERRY JESSOP
11 months ago

Crap movie. Stay away!