Since it is a commonplace of psychoanalysis, confirmed in hundreds of
case studies of neurotics, that concern about the fatherland really
indicates concern about the mother, and we know in any case of
Napoleon's ambivalent feelings towards Letizia, it seems reasonable to
assume that Napoleon's antagonism towards Paoli was, at the uncon
scious level, something to do with his mother. And since Paoli was
consciously acknowledged by Napoleon as a father-figure, it is clear that
what needs further investigation is what depth psychologists would call
Napoleon's 'paternal image'. There seem to have been four paternal
images significant in the mind of the young Napoleon: of Paoli, of his
actual father Carlo, of Louis XVI and of the Comte de Marbeuf. At any
given moment, the association of 'father' could have been to any one of
the quartet.
The role of Marbeuf as protector of the Bonapartes needs no further
elucidation. Moreover, on returning from France on his first leave,
Napoleon bracketed Marbeuf with Carlo when he expressed sorrow that
he had lost the two significant older men in his life. We have also noted
Napoleon's uncertainty how to respond to Louis XVI, the father of the
nation to whom he had taken oaths of loyalty. The flight to Varennes did
not alienate Napoleon, and in Paris in^1792 his dominant emotion during
the two savage mob irruptions into the Tuileries were sympathy with the
King rather than fellow-feeling with the crowd. The ambivalence
Napoleon felt for Carlo was mirrored in his uncertain attitude to Louis
XVI; he was partly for the Revolution against all kings, but partly for this
particular King against this particular mass of revolutionaries. What
finished Louis for Napoleon was when he became convinced that the
monarch had called on foreign powers to invade French soil.
The quartet of father-figures all represented men who, in Napoleon's
mind, were betrayers. Whether or not Letizia and the Comte de Marbeuf
were lovers - and circumstantial evidence overwhelmingly indicates they
were-Napoleon certainly thought they had been. This trauma explains
so much in his later life especially his sexuality, his misogynism. The
horror he expressed at finding Paoli with his godmother may refer, not to
an actual event, but to a transmogrified fantasy, hinting at Letizia's
infidelity with Marbeuf. Napoleon's 'mother complex' owes something to
the neurotic feeling that he could not be certain who his own father was -
even though, as we have seen, Letizia's probable infidelity with Marbeuf
had no actual connection with Napoleon, who was certainly Carlo's son.
The important thing is that he thought it did, and we surely find an echo
of the anxiety in that pithy clause in the later Code Napoleon:
'Investigation of paternity is forbidden'.
marcin
(Marcin)
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