that he was both rootless and classless. Neither a nobleman nor a
plebeian, in his early days he faced both ways, being willing to serve
either King or Revolution. He was ideology-free, being constrained
neither by Richelieu's dynastic loyalty nor by the civic virtu of the
republicans. But if he was declasse, he was also deracine. He became a
Frenchman in his late youth and never really identified with the
traditions and interests of the country, as opposed to his own Romantic
and Platonic idea of France. On this view he understands France but is
not French. He is at once sufficiently imbued with the French spirit to
get people to identify their interests with his yet sufficiently 'other' to
stand apart. Of patriotism there is not a scintilla: as one cynic remarked,
Napoleon loved France as a horseman loves his horse, for only a
simpleton would imagine that the tender grooming given the horse is for
the animal's benefit. This has led historians like Taine and Q!.Iinet to see
him as the quintessential Corsican, which in turn they interpret to mean
an Italian from the Renaissance period, like Cesare Borgia; Bonaparte is
therefore a condottiere who seized France and falsely identified the
Revolutionary tradition with himself.
By this stage in his career we are perhaps better able to assess what
Napoleon drew fr om Corsica and what was the long-ter":l impact on him
of the island. Romantic egoism - with oneself at the centre of things and
no other motive obtaining than one's personal greatness- can be seen as a
cast of mind fo stered and enhanced by a lawless society, where no notions
of civil society or the common interest moderated the violent struggles of
chiefs and clan. The chaos of France after the Revolution produced a
unique conjuncture, replicating Corsica on a large scale: this was what
gave this particular individual his unique historical opportunity.
Certainly those who stress that Napoleon was a pure creature of the
Enlightenment and the philosophes have a lot of explaining to do when it
comes to Bonaparte's irrationality. This goes beyond the Romantic role of
the imagination, or even the unintegrated 'complexes', to a deep and
irreducible Corsican superstition. Napoleon was a deist who yet believed
that demons lurked in the shadow of the heedless Almighty. He made use
of all the superstitious rites practised in Corsica: at the critical moment of
a battle or at times of strong emotion he would make the sign of the cross
with wide sweeps of the arm, as did the Corsican peasants of the maquis
when they heard bad news. A believer in omens, portents and
numerology, he disliked Fridays and the number 13 but thought certain
dates were lucky fo r him, notably 20 March and 14 June. If forced to
begin any enterprise on a Friday, he was gloomy at the thought that the
marcin
(Marcin)
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