Quoting Napoleon

Napoleon Bonaparte’s long career gave rise, over the past quarter century, to a long series of bicentennials. It started in 1996-97 with commemorations of his Italian campaign of 1796-97, and ended in 2021 with books, exhibitions and ceremonies marking his death. Along the way, there appeared at least three dozen biographies in French, English, and other languages. There was also a great deal of controversy about the legacy of a man who did as much as anyone to create modern France, but who reestablished slavery in French colonies, ruled as a dictator, and sacrificed millions of people in his wars. By the time the final bicentennial exhibitions closed in 2021, everyone seemed a bit exhausted by him.

But the biopic by Ridley Scott, planned for release next month, is sparking new interest. Since I wrote one of the above-mentioned biographies (Napoleon: A Concise Biography), I’ve been getting quite a few invitations to opine about the Emperor of the French. I’ll have a review of the film itself coming out at some point in the New York Review of Books, and also a short piece about Napoleon’s posthumous reputation in the weekend culture section of The Wall Street Journal.

I haven’t seen the film yet, but a brief clip has been released, showing Napoleon’s coronation, and it highlights the problem of separating the facts of his life from legend. If you watch it, at one point you will see Joaquin Phoenix, as Napoleon, in a hoarse, almost Brandoesque voice, declare: “I found the crown of France in the gutter. I picked it up with the tip of my sword, and cleaned it, and placed it atop my own head.” This is a version of one of the most famous quotations attributed to Napoleon. But as often is the case with immensely famous and immensely quotable historical figures, it’s not clear that he ever said it—and he certainly didn’t say it at the coronation. If you search on the internet for “Napoleon quotations,” you are likely to land on a site like this, which is full of unsourced quotations, most of which Napoleon never uttered.

For historians, it can be depressing to confront the sheer degree of legend that has built up around the man. His life is probably the single best documented of the period. There is a book that tracks his movements and activities for literally every day of his life. One of the scholarly highlights of the bicentennials was the publication of a massive, meticulous new edition of his correspondence. Scores of his associates published memoirs of their time with him. The verified facts of his life are already incredibly dramatic. But none of this stops facts and quotations from being invented, or twisted about, and then repeated so many times, often including in scholarly works, that they are taken as true. And it’s generally impossible for scholars to check every single quotation that they find in a reputable source—to follow that source’s footnotes to its own source, and so down a rabbit hole of citations.

The quote in the film clip is an interesting example. In 1816, a British surgeon named William Warden, who was on board the British ship that took Napoleon into exile in Saint Helena, published an account of the voyage. In it, writing in English, he quoted Napoleon as follows: “I found a crown in the kennel; I cleansed it from its filth, and placed it on my head." The line subsequently found its way into many biographies of Napoleon.

In Warden’s telling, the line was not uttered in a boastful way, but a defensive one. Napoleon was explaining to the surgeon why he had ordered the abduction and execution of the Duc d’Enghien, a member of the Bourbon family who had conspired against him. This act was often considered, at the time, as one of Napoleon’s worst crimes. According to Warden, Napoleon insisted he had no choice in the matter. In “a kingdom torn apart by faction, and deluged in blood,” the people had turned to him: “That nation had placed me at their head. I came not as your Cromwell did, or your Third Richard [sic].” In other words, he was no usurper, but the people’s choice. But he feared for his safety, and so he decided on a preemptive strike against the most prominent plotter.

I doubt that Davis Scarpa, Ridley Scott’s screenwriter, knew this whole story. He probably found the embellished version of the quote in a biography, where it had probably been provided without context. He then decided to make the most dramatic possible use of it, by having Napoleon proclaim it to the crowds assembled in Notre Dame for the coronation. Without the context, though, it seems far more boastful than it did in Warden’s book. Napoleon’s defensive insistence on the democratic legitimacy of his rule and his action in killing d’Enghien becomes a proclamation that he is taking the crown simply because he can do so—because he is great enough. That seems to fit with what I have read so far about the film, which apparently presents Napoleon as a megalomaniac and narcissist, pure and simple.

It may well make for great cinema. Ridley Scott is a terrific director and has every right to use artistic license. But the film will do more than a hundred biographies to shape most people’s understanding of Napoleon, and that’s too bad, because his story is much more complicated—and, actually, more interesting—than just one of a megalomaniac who receives his comeuppance.