Boneaparte – Notes created from Andrew Robert’s Napoleon for Suzanne to draw upon for a poe f
Bonaparte had dinner at 6 except he works so often that he rarely at 6.
Chickens were roasting all day and night long because he ate whenever he needed. Meals lasted 10 minutes, 30 for Sunday dinner. You never knew when he would lurch up and march off to work.
He worked around the clock, a secretary following him to capture his orders and the hundreds of letters he dictated. He spoke so fast that his secreters devised personal short hand to keep up. Some nights after hours of work, he would slip out into the Paris to have hot chocolate.
He drank wine but never spirits and no one ever reported seeing him drunk. 1,500 contemporaries wrote books about him. He dressed simply in a time of grand fashion. He encouraged the new fashions so people around him were opulently dressed to build a new, non-royal style of power and to set himself off as one of the people.
He slept, 7 hours a day but those hours might come at any point. He slept when he needed to and otherwise spent most of his time working. He even napped on battlefields. Reportedly he could work for 30 hours sleep and hour and be raring to go.
Hegel watched from his Bonaparte ride through Jena as he conquered Prussia. Bonaparte had lunch with Goethe during which they talk poetry and theater. Goethe called in one of the most enjoyable conversations of his life.
H Slept 7 hours a day but come at any time off day and often broken up. Took naps whenever he needed even during battle
He liked long hot baths and had people read newspapers to him while he said. He staff toiled through his long hours but said he was level and gentle in character, forgiving and easy to please. He played chess and liked to tell ghost stories. He hunted but wasn’t a good shot. He cheated at cards but would pay back any cash he won.
The founder of modern France, Bonaparte was one of the greatest military minds in history conducing 60 set battles and winning 53. Alexander the Great at eight set battles, Hannibal four. He flew past the west’s greatest general, Julius Caesar who fought in forty three. No one has come close to asserting hegemony across Europe.
But he was a strategic genius with impeccable timing. His armies moved so quickly they regularly surprised and routed people. He understood the power of artily long before others and decimated troops with his cannons. He created a planning system that knew the depth of each river, the location of shelter, food and enemy troops in age of horseback and feather pens.
But even if he had never fired a single cannon, history would hail him for his contribution to the political history of Europe. Bonaparte end the chaos of the revolutions but creating institutions that cemented the concept of equality before the law. Dedicated to ended monarchies, he championed meritocracy, property rights, religious toleration, secular educations, sound financing and equality in law. More significantly, he build institutions and practices to realize all of these ends.
European Kings and Queens saw him as such so dangerous they formed seven coalitions to destroy him. Bonaparte’s wars were responses to these threats and as he won taking kingdom after kingdom, he spread these institutions and values across Europe. He codified French law and the resulting Napoleonic code remains the basis of French and much of the EU’s laws. Forty other countries adopted much of the code.
The system he built to review laws remains intact. .The public honors he established to replace feudal relationships are still highly coveted. The schools he started still operate. The bridges, reservoirs and canals he built still function. He valued science and the arts providing funding and facilitators.
Bonaparte loved to joke. He liked subordinates to question his ideas. He also exaggerated in victories and papered over his loses. He inspired those around him, made them feel they were part of history and they live mattered. Even after the horrific losses in Russia and Waterloo his soldiers stayed loyal for Bonaparte was right. He and his followers did more to end destroy feudalism and created the modern work than anythings else, including capitalism.