Skip to main content

Napoleon 31 St. Helena

Even after Waterloo, Napoleon thought (for a time) that he could pull together an army from the fleeing mass and fight again. . . . Lafayette takes power, a coup d'etat in fact if not name . . . the bones of Frenchmen are in Africa, Russia, Europe--all following N.  . . . N. abdicates for the second time . . . He wanted to go to USA . . . N. is not (for the first time in his life) decisive . . . he does not escape France quickly enough ("If I had gone to America, we might have founded a State there.") . . . He surrenders to British . . . They determine to send him to St. Helena off the coast of Africa, arguably the most remote place on earth . . . figuring they could keep him there! . . . British captain who takes him to St. Helena ends up (to his shock) liking him . . . Jamestown, 600 foot cliffs, one entrance to the harbor . . . He ends up at Longwood, roaches, rats, termites, wet, miserable place . . . Napoleon befriends Betsy, 14 year old British girl, and is great as a companion with her . . . kind, humorous, fun-loving, unpretentious . . . . First governor of the island was kind to N.  . . . 2nd governor was not--Hudson Lowe  . . . petty . . . . but Lowe had fought against N. and had seen friends die in those battles, so understandable . . . 5.5 years on St. Helena . . . Sick 4.5 years before he died, refuses medicine -- but the medicine offered was ludicrous, so his refusal did him no harm and may have done him good. . . . Death is sleep without dreams . . . stomach cancer . . .  Chateaubriand:  "the mightiest breath of life that ever animated human clay."  Died May 5, 1821

Reburied in France in 1840:  One million French, on a freezing day, line the streets . . .

N's reading at St. Helena's included:  Northanger Abbey, Paradise Lost, Robinson Crusoe, a history of Egypt,, 20 books on religion, Shakespeare, Decline and Fall of Roman Empire , Wealth of Nations, Reflections on Revolution in France--widely read man . . .

"He had transformed the art of leadership, built and empire, handed down laws for the ages, and joined the ancients."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Puppy, Story by George Saunders

PUPPY  Dysfunctional family has puppy that they need to get rid of.  Mom places ad; family is coming over. Description of family.   Mom:  husband changed from long-haired attractive to stooped old man. Husband: talks constantly of living on a farm and doing what needs to be done, though he never lived on a farm.   Conversations together:   Sell and move to Arizona, get hooked on phonics for kids, buying a car wash. . . wonderful randomness. Straight-laced suburbanite comes to look at puppy.  Seems like she will buy it, even though she is repelled by house.  (Dog turds on carpet, filthy.) She is proud of how accepting she is until she looks out window and sees white trash's son tied by harness to a tree.  Reader knows he is a menace to himself, darting across I-90, for example.  Suburban mother beats hasty retreat, leaving dog to be (probably) drowned by dad who does what has to be done.   Suburbanite remembers her own pathetic ch...
Post a Comment
Read more

Napoleon, Ch 18 Blockades

"The first qualification of a soldier is fortitude. . . . Courage is only the second." Conquers cities of present day Germany. Spandau, Berlin, etc. Shortage of men in France . . . Russians next, but his mind is on Britain. He wants to use trade sanctions to force Britain to its knees, but this doesn't work either. French (and others in empire) need to trade with Brits. Smuggling results.  Also, unintended consequences crop up. Example is shoes:  Napoleon requires 200,000 pairs of shoes from Hamburg.  Hamburg can't supply these to Napoleon, so they buy what they can't produce from Brits. So much for the sanctions!  British are supplying uniforms and shoes for Napoleon, and making $$$. . . . Continues after the Russians in December 1806. . . has to withdraw, 40% of his army out of commission.  Horrible battle with Russians, thousands killed. Napoleon in tears . . . dire moment, Napoleon orders full out cavalry attack . . . Eylau a massacre without any result . ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Napoleon, mainly Egyptian campaign.

Napoleon genuinely enjoyed being with his soldiers. He was modern in that he used praise to motivate. "Severe to officers, kindly to men" was his mantra. Tremendous memory--story of asking a minor minister how his two children were doing . . . he had met the minister once, ten years earlier.  . . Admiration for Andrea Doria even though his star had fallen . . . Josephine "psychotic extravagence."   Bona fide intellectual . . . the attack on Egypt included scientists, geologists, poets.  It resulted in a 20 volume scholarly work on all things Egypt "Denon's Description l'Egypte (last remaining handwritten copy burned in the the Arab Spring uprising in December of 2011, along with 192,000 other books in a Cairo library) . . . In Malta, Napoleon immediately reformed the government, freed political prisoners, installed street lights, postal service, hospitals . . . generally well received by intellectuals as a liberator, hated by religious conservatives and...
Post a Comment
Read more