"Napoleonic Corruption" Topic

Oh, and if you haven't already bought Charlie Esdaile's new history of the Peninsular War.... I recommend you don't.

I'm only on page 7, and Napoleon is taking bribes from the Portuguese.

Hi Sam,

So if the answer is "Both" to both questions then, essentially, Napoleon did reduce corruption and corruption did decrease. Which is what I said before all this started.

OH! Almost forgot... 'CASE CLOSED"! :-D And..."NO RETURNS"!

Having accomplished that, I am off to paint toys and play Napoleonics on Sunday afternoon!

In other words... TO ENJOY MY HOBBY! :-)

So farewell to this subject!

Everyone, play fair and have a nice day! ;-)

Sam,

You have misrepresented what Esdaile said. Don't you know that's very naughty? Would you like me to send you a bundle of straw? Would that help? You were better off leaving the thread alone.

Mustafa: 'Napoleon is taking bribes from the Portuguese' referring to Esdaile, page 7, The Peninsular War.

Esdaile: 'Although news had now been received that no aid would be forthcoming from the British, reports from Paris suggested that Napoleon's entourage could be bribed into dissuading him from taking action', page 7, The Peninsular War.

Where does it say anything about Napoleon 'taking bribes'?

The 'entourage' referred to is most probably the Talleyrand/Fouche gang, who were notorious for making money out of almost every endeavor and were sacked by Napoleon when they finally got caught.

Nice try, but very weak. You ought to quit while you're ahead.

Well, it's good at least to see that you think I'm ahead.

Don't forget to finish the quote from Esdaile, which concludes with:

"...and large amounts of gold and jewels were placed at the disposal of certain confidential agents in Paris."

How many more examples would it take? Cited by how many authors?

So what if - a decade later - Talleyrand and Fouché were finally fired. (And it wasn't corruption that Talleyrand was fired for, as you well know.) If the police catch lots of robbers in the act of robbery, does that mean that it's inaccurate to say that "robbery is widespread?" Quite the contrary.

Come on, Kevin. You keep trying to deflect, wriggle, maneuver, distract with insults, change the subject, etc... but the case I've been making has always been very, very simple.

My argument, which you've never even attempted to refute, was:

"The Napoleonic empire suffered from widespread corruption. It existed at the lowest levels of administration (consuls, police, Douanes), and at the highest (ministers, the Empress, magistrates.)"

And dang it, look at that - you made me miss the last-minute bid on Ebay for an old Archduke Charles bio! A plague upon your house!

That's right-blame someone else for your oversight. ;-)

What you said was that the Impeial government was corrupt from top to bottom, including Napoleon (which you later denied saying and that wasn't correct either).

You're just digging your hole deeper. If your research and 'interpretations' are that bad, God help your students, because no one else will.

I guess that last line falls under the: "attempt to distract with insults" category.

But let's see if I've got this right: You concede that the Empress was on the take, the Foreign Minister was on the take, the Chief of Police was on the take, the governor of Hamburg was on the take, several Marshal and many Generals were on the take, and you haven't offered anything to refute the many examples I've cited of judges on the take, police on the take, consular and customs officials on the take...

...but Napoleon's empire didn't have a major problem with corruption?

And as for Napoleon's allegedly swift response? Talleyrand comes and goes almost as he pleases in the cabinet. Fouché is in office for a decade, then promoted up to the Senate, Bourrienne has to pay back a mere one-sixth of what he embezzled, and isn't even fired? None of the Marshals were cashiered for financial naughtiness, even though some of them were legendary.

If this were any other head of state - anybody, in fact, other than Napoleon - you'd readily admit that his regime had a serious corruption problem.

PS - Is there even any record that Bourrienne actually did pay it back? I examined the books of the Hamburg Senate pretty thoroughly, and I never saw it. I don't argue that Napoleon may have ordered him to pay it back, but did the Emperor ever check to see that it was done?

How on earth (and to whom?) do you pay back years of extorting from thousands of private citizens?