The Napoleon Myth

After his death, the emperor's magical figure rose in a new light. They forgot the tyrant and his destructive will, the insatiable lust for power that cost two million lives, and the unyielding spirit of the barracks. He was remembered as a fervent advocate of democracy and progress, his fabulous victories, his wisdom that opened paths for all talent, his sovereign genius that rejuvenated and reorganized everything. What he did was turn the continent into an inhuman battlefield, yet at the same time, he gifted the world a dramatic display of superhuman intellectual power and might: two million dead, yes, but two million heroic deaths; France was a barracks, but full of light and air.

His downfall was a "divine judgment," but one over a fallen angel; the executors of this judgment were not humans but shadows: discredited puppet kings and soulless little princes. If mediocrity defeats the genius, it is never uplifting, even when the genius is also a demon, and after the end of his career, it became clear that he too was merely one of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, sent by God on a mysterious mission. "Great men are meteors, they shine and consume themselves to light up the world," said Napoleon, and he too appeared like a comet. Every word he spoke was recorded, even the ones he did not utter, and busts, engravings, fairground stalls, children's books, the buttons of walking sticks, and tobacco snuff boxes all bore his image. His relics soon became objects of cultic reverence. His body was moved to the Dome of the Invalides, and Thiers created the Napoleon legend in his historical works. In Béranger's songs, the immortal archetype was born: the simple soldier-emperor with a hat, whose heart belonged entirely to his people; Victor Hugo celebrated him as the "Mohammed of the West." The mountain people of Sicily eagerly awaited his return, while the Arabs merged his image with that of Alexander the Great. In Thuringia, there was already a saying that in the belly of the Kyffhäuser mountain, Barbarossa no longer sat, but Napoleon. Thus, over time, he became a myth, and some did not want to believe that he had truly died.

Egon Friedell "Az újkori kultúra története V." Holnap Kiadó, Budapest, 1989