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Comment by perl4ever | Hacker News Reader

I'm curious about how the French celebrate Napoleon, and if anyone has been calling for reinterpretation of him.

We don't "celebrate" Napoleon or any other historical figure at all. They are mentioned in history books and promptly forgotten after graduation, they have statues that are just part of the scenery, they have streets and high schools named after them that no one give a second thought about, they are talked about for a couple of days when the media figure it is the Nth anniversary of this or that, etc.

They are just part of a background the layman doesn't cares about.

So titles like "Why don't the French celebrate Lafayette?" tell more about the author/editor of the article than about its subject.

> We don't "celebrate" Napoleon

Huh, I must have visited a different country then. It seems there isn't a single Bridge, Column or otherwise important building in Paris that hasn't a pompous "N" mounted onto it.

As parent comment said, it's part of the background. I've probably seen these bridges a hundred times, yet I don't remember the Ns.

So it's a technicality? Technically every bridge bears his symbol, but no, "celebrating" him we are not.

I mean you have to willfully interprete the word "celebrating" as people dancing in the streets out of joy to read the parent's parent comment that way.

In other words: "It's in the background" rather means it's the foundation upon which (as other comments have pointed out) the French Revolution's winning side's narrative rests.

"It's in the background" means exactly that. They are just bridges that we cross to get from A to B, without a care in the world for their alleged symbolism. We just don't care.

This is like saying that the continued existence of cathedrals is a celebration of Christianity. The République celebrates the Napoléons as much as it celebrates Roman Catholicism or kings: not at all.

Also, those are old bridges/columns/whatever. The French are not erecting any new structure bearing his name or symbol.

I interpret "celebrating" as remembering something in a positive way. We're just indifferent, he's one of a few dozen important guys we heard about in history lessons, and that's it.

The bridge was not built to celebrate Napoléon, it was built by a Napoléon. Not erasing history does not mean condoning it.

Those monuments were built by Napoleon, what do you suggest, that they demolish them ?

Those monuments are not celebrations of Napoleon..

In Rome you can still find Mussolini’s obelisk and some fascist inscriptions here and there. Italians definitely don’t celebrate Mussolini these days (well, some do, but you get the point).

> "some fascist inscriptions"

are hardly comparable to thousands of streets named after him, thousands of bridges wearing his enblem, and statues still standing.

Again "celebrating Napoleon" as in "in the background" as in "a foundation of the winning side's narrative"

Napoleon had a tremendous impact on many western nations long after his defeat. The most notable and positive example in my opinion is the base of the modern civil law system still in effect today in many of the conquered countries. The same codes based on the Napoleonic code were also exported to the colonies of those countries and many others which then retained it after their independence. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Code. And IMHO the civil law is a much better legal system than the common law used in most of the US, the UK and Australia among others. This goes to show that it's never binary and even the worst tyrants and dictators also sometimes achieve good positive things. This is probably valid for all of them.

Two of the worst characteristics of Napoleon were

a) his discontempt for Germany (which he successfully embarked on, considering him dissolving the German Empire)

b) his utilization of enlightenment policies to subdue countries, creating a narrative in which Napleonese France IS the enlightenemnt (which is of course BS)

In the case of Germany, apart from forcibly recruting citizens into his army where they mainly served as cannon fodder, apart from the pillaging of french troops, apart from massive increases in taxations for the poor that were already hit due to unemployment caused by his continental system, apart from churches being repurposed as horsestalls as a form of practical joke, the worst thing he did, was that he utilized things like the code-civil and other enlightenment reforms to turn a new tiny middle-class into loyalists, stirring up division Germany still hasn't really freed itself from.

His policy was the equivalent of when today's West is forcibly bringing "democracy" to Iraq/Afghanistan/..., instead of letting it arise organically, which in turn taints the whole franchise, the whole idea, as un-Arabic, un-Muslim etc.

Reforming the law to enable anyone to work in any job would have happened likely anyways, but Napoleon propagandizing it into his idea, into a french idea, he effectivly laid the groundwork for the discontempt in Germany for enlightenment ideas till this day. And yes, this includes post-napoleonese German anti-semitism.

> his discontempt for Germany

Germany didn't even exist during the Napoleonic campaigns so I doubt he had much contempt for it. The Napoleonic wars are actually a catalyst in the formation of modern Germany as a political entity by definitely ending the Holy Roman Empire and cementing Prussia as a major power in the region.

> His policy was the equivalent of when today's West is forcibly bringing "democracy" to Iraq/Afghanistan/..., instead of letting it arise organically

But this is it arising organically. For all intent and purpose France and Germany share globally the same political area. They are direct neighbor and their histories constantly intermingle. The French Revolution is not an exogenous event catapulted on Europe from outside. It is a product of the time and is directly linked to France position in what was already a very connected Europe.

In France, you mostly see him as a caricature nowadays. In general, the urge to see people as war heroes, regardless of their abilities or achievements or who they thought against, is almost absent in continental Europe, especially compared to the US and England.

I guess the reason being WW1 + WW2 are being considered as absolutely horrifying wars, and Napoleon's invasions are seen as ruthless acts that created the imbalanced situation that led to two world wars.

"In France, you mostly see him as a caricature nowadays." Certainly not, not for 60% of French people at least, if you check the polling regarding the last ceremony.

"Napoleon's invasions […] created the imbalanced situation that led to two world wars." what? That's quite a stretch you're proposing here.

Tho, in my biased sample, French I talked with were not shocked at that that Napoleon is remember negatively where I am from. They took it as understandable that parts of world he came through will see him destruction from abroad.

Oddly, Americans got offended over idea of Napolean not being hero or worth praise. On HN there was even pearl clutching about "judging past by current standards", but he was disliked significantly more at his time (of course, for us it is past irrelevant history for them it was death of close ones, property destruction and hunger).

"Judging [the] past by current standards" sounds like the person you were talking to may not have cared so much about Napoleon, as much as they care about all the cheap statues of literal Confederate slave-owners and defenders of slavery that got reactionarily dotted over the American South. There's been a big movement over the past decade in America to tear them down (IMHO, rightfully so) and a lot of people consider that "rewriting history" (which is rich considering the history of the Lost Cause).

With the exception of Poland I think but we might be a bit biased due to the whole independence thing (however brief it was). People aren't disillusioned and the shit that happened isn't necessarily ignored but the overall sentiment is very positive I would say. He's even explicitly mentioned in the second verse of our anthem

While he certainly did invade and conquer, France was at war with the major powers of Europe before he came to power. The revolutionary government declared the Rhine as the natural border of France, laying claim to parts west of it. Also, the other powers didn't want the revolutionary ideals spreading. I find this ironic since Britain at that time had a more democratic system than others and still it opposed revolutionary ideals.

That is white washing the imperialist nature of Napoleon. A continent dominated by France was not in the best interest of England just as a continent dominated by Germany wasn't a hundred years later.

Napoleon is as much responsible for creating modern France as the French Revolution is.

He put a end to the Revolution's chaos, defeated European attempts to invade France and destroy the Revolution, rewrote French law from scratch, and reorganised the country.

There is a tendency for self-flagellation these days but it is right for him to be celebrated in France.

Ignoring this recent self-flagellation trend, I think the main division in France is political. Napoleon is of course The Empire, authoritarianism and militarism and he is often not liked especially on the left. The main conflict here is for the Republic to celebrate someone who ended the republican system, but IMHO it is perfectly possible to celebrate someone as a country for their achievements and overall impact even if they did not subscribe to the current political system, not least when they were instrumental in creating the modern country, as mentioned.

Perhaps what as also changed is that patriotism is being seen more and more suspiciously.

> He put a end to the Revolution's chaos, defeated European attempts to invade France and destroy the Revolution, rewrote French law from scratch, and reorganised the country.

That he certainly did not.

The uniformisation of French laws had been started two centuries before the Revolution but the French kings didn't have the power to modify civil laws. As soon as the revolutionaries took it, Cambacérès started petitioning for the promulgation of an unique code based on a merger of the Coutume de Paris and the written laws of the South. It took close to a decade to finalize the text and reach somewhat of a consensus but by the time Napoleon took power the whole thing was done. Apart from promulgating the code, he had very little to do with it.

He also didn't stop attempt to destroy the revolution. He did that by himself. Did you miss the part where he had himself crown emperor and how it's defeat was followed by the restauration.

I don't understand why some people keep crediting Bonaparte with what is mostly work done by the first constitutional assembly.

I think you show yourself that Napoleon was a continuation of the Revolution, which was under more serious threat from the European monarchies' coalition to invade France and restore monarchy as it was.

But that's exacly what happened as soon as the empire fell. Napoleon saved the revolution in the same way Caesar saved the republic.

A monarchy does not imply that things went back the way they were, be in France or even throughout Europe, or that he did not leave a huge legacy.

Napoleon deserves celebrating, at least in France.

That's not his legacy. That's the revolution legacy. Napoleon is the sad conclusion to it. His main achievement is showing through his conquests that the old great European powers were no more and by that setting the stage for the European modern states. As the man, there is nothing to celebrate in his legacy. He is very liked by some proto-fascists in France however who would much rather attribute to a providencial man the achievements which were actually made by the constitutional assembly and the republics that followed him.

It's ambivalent and fairly neutral. Analysis of his career is colder and mostly focussed on technical aspects rather than heroism. People are more excitable about Napoléon abroad.

During the reign of Napléon III France was celebrating Napoléon's birthday as a national holiday, “Saint Napoléon”. However, this was already in decline in the 1860s, as Napoléon's role was eventually re-evaluated, and the centenary in 1869 (which coincided with a severe crisis of the authority of Napoléon III) wasn't celebrated nationally any more. As this was also soon followed by the end of the Second Empire (as an effect of the Franco-Prussian war), this holiday inherently connected with the dynastic ambitions of Napoléon III wasn't any more.

Edit: If interested in the subject, there's a thesis (in French) by Émile Kern, “Représentations et images contrastées de Napoléon dans les commémorations : de 1869 à 2009”, Université de Montpellier 3, 2011; http://www.theses.fr/2011MON30093

There are remembrance ceremonies periodically. The last one occurred this year, with a speech from the president. The problem is that, as everywhere else, the extreme-left is generating controversies and trying to re-interpret History with today standards and pressuring everyone to not celebrate people like him.

It's not just the extreme left that doesn't like Napoleon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdM3ID4m38U

> relevant part starts at about 16 minutes, all lindy really does is point out how absolutely horrible Napoleon actually was.

Lindybeige is extremely dishonest, if not deluded. He's probably the worst history-adjacent content-creator I'm aware of that isn't outright known as an alt-right pundit.

That's a video by a British YouTuber, who has entertaining videos with quite often interesting perspectives, but who I think is quite biased in favor of a rosy British perspective.

I don't think he's a good example for attitudes of _French_ people towards their own history, which us what this thread is about.

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