"Was there a "good guy" in the Napoleonic Wars?" Topic

This has been a really interesting topic, it's created controversy amongst the readers and forced lots of opinions – all of which have been brilliant reads. Thanks again guys and the ladies too. Napoleon may not have been a good guy – that again is a personal opinion.

War is a fact of life, people wont be suppressed for long periods of time, they rise up and rebell which is happening today.

All people need is a spark to ignite the flames of rebellion. Life would stagnate and become boring if change didn't happen.

What do we do? Walk around like zombies saying 'Yes sir, no sir.'

We have to respect that everyone has an opinion – that doesn't mean to say that we have to agree with everyone's ideologies.

Napoleon stood up for what he believed in – right or wrong!

France is a republic today. Is that because of outside intervention or the peoples opinion?

Some Swiss guy I was talking to one day admired Napoleon for his ideas which still affect us all today. When you have people that struggle to survive (happening today) what choice do they have?

It's not a 'reassurance of school boys to ask these questions' as some have suggested – it's a great debatable subject and hats off to the guy who posted the question.

Steve

Agree-well stated.

B

"The French people were angry and frustrated by the oppressive taxes the Directory imposed."

Were they?

"Almost every mayor and town council in France was crooked. These guys, from the lowest government official to the highest were bankrupting France for their own gain."

Were they? All of them?

"Napoleon's Inspector General system which was decried by the allies and represented as part of Napoleon's secret police were feared and hated by the crooks whom they relentlessly rooted out."

Probably true, but he also had a ruthless secret police rooting out opposition and dissent as well.

"Had Napoleon not become head of state the most likely outcome would have been anarchy not democracy."

Really? Any evidence for that? I don't mean quote me chapter and verse of somebody else's view, but why do you think that anarchy would have been the outcome?

""The French people were angry and frustrated by the oppressive taxes the Directory imposed."

Then imagine their surprise when Napoleon increased their taxes considerably higher than under the Directory.

"Napoleon's Inspector General system which was decried by the allies and represented as part of Napoleon's secret police were feared and hated by the crooks whom they relentlessly rooted out"

Do you have any primary source material on that? Not some favorite quotes from a few favorite books, but actual citations of relevant French archival sources?

The organizational system for the French high police (informally known as "secret police") culminates in reports from the departements to the Ministry of the Interior. Each arrest, report, and interrogation is enumerated, and cross-indexed with the relevant mayor or responsible official. At the national (ministerial) level they are then arranged chronologically: all reports for 19 June, for instance, come before any reports for 20 June.) Each incident report summarizes the suspect, his/her status (at large, arrested, etc.), and then notes if there are any appended files (typically the transcripts of interrogations.) Many of those appended files are unfortunately lost, but the report summaries are amazingly, all still there.

I just spent today going through the High Police reports for Westphalia for the period May 1812 through October 1813. As you know, the High Police in many of the conquered and satellite states was run by the French. All arrests, reports, transcripts of interrogations, were recorded in French, and then the relevant files were sent on to Paris.

Have you read the equivalent documents for the "Inspector General system" to which you refer? If so, I would be very interested to be directed to the relevant original documents, specifically enumerating arrests for different sorts of crimes in the different departements, and indicating the punishment.

Would you like to read some examples of the sort of "crooks" who had reason to fear Napoleon's police…?

The Travelling Turk

I would.

So would I. I love that kind of "hands on" primary research!

BullDog and Chouan:

First, bear in mind that this is the "High Police." They're not supposed to be messing with petty crime; that's the job of the municipal police, and sometimes the Gendarmes. Yet they seem to be constantly in people's faces. Second, bear in my mind that the cases I'm researching this week are in Westphalia, so we have German and French cops, reporting to a French superior, and ultimately to France.

Here are a few samples from the file: (this is the Prussian state archive, where these ended up, so the file title is in German): HA. V., Rep.111, Nrs. 693-694 Korrespondenzregister der hohen Polizei (Juni 1812-Mai 1813 & Mai-Okt 1813)

--

13 June 1812: a gun was confiscated from a gardener named Schumann in Eschwege. He is to be observed as a potentially dangerous person.

18 June, 1812: Christian Herbert and Elisabeth Diesmann are turned over to the Gendarmerie, and are to be kept under surveillance, having been suspiciously far from their commune of Kleinensee, in the Werra Dept. They are to be observed and if they leave again, arrested.

20 July, 1812: Charlotte Schiffern of Göttingen, arrested for "reprehensible conduct," (her second arrest since 1810, but why would the high police bother with common prostitution?).

4 Aug, 1812: "Jean" Müller, glovemaker, native of Rotheburg in the Werra Dept, is interrogated for suspicious transactions after dark. He was seen behind an inn talking with another man and when apprehended, was found to have gold coins.

31 Aug, 1812: Rabbi Jean Salomon is arrested on suspicion of smuggling. He has over 120 francs in Napoleons d'Or, and has been suspiciously traveling a lot.

24 Oct, 1812: Catherine Klein and Catherine Meyer, of Allendorf and Gronalmarode, respectively, are to be arrested for having joined a group of "vagabonds."

27 Oct, 1812: "Guillaume" Stöhr, a fireman and member of the national guard, has gone missing and turned up as a fireman in another town. He is to be observed.

8 Dec 1812: the merchant Solomon Stein is to be kept under surveillance; he's been in both Prussia and Austria recently, and was seen making transactions with gold coins.

22 Dec, 1812: a girl named Jeannette Sophie Werner is to be taken back to her town by the gendarmes; she is too far away and doesn't have proper documentation.

22 Jan, 1813: the barber "Chretien Louis" Klenker apparently has an alias. He is known to certain people as "Montag." He is to be placed under surveillance.

In Spring and Summer 1813, the files are increasingly about catching deserters or those who harbor them.
There is also rising concern about uprisings or assisting the enemy. For example: 3 July, 1813: a man named Rischert is arrested for concealing two caches of muskets.

Many of the women who get arrested are for "bad conduct" or "libertinage." But some are arrested for more dangerous things like brigandage.

13 Oct, 1813: Madame de Kahlenberg illuminated her home in a way that indicates possible communication with the enemy. At her home there was a dinner where it is reported that they toasted the health of the Prince of Hessen-Kassel. She is arrested.

(On that same day): Several reports interrogate innkeepers, regarding the circulation of an alleged Russian-German phrase book or dictionary. (Are they preparing to greet the enemy?)

Fascinating – some really heinous crimes in there… travelling too much… being too far from home… illuminating your home in a suspicious fashion…

Wonderful aren't they. Stepping on the cracks in the pavement, wearing a loud shirt during the hours of darkness, loitering with intent to use a pedestrian crossing, being in possession of an offensive wife etc etc. Yes I know they're old!
Wonderful in their ordinariness, but how oppressive, to be arrested for being away from home, by French Gensdarmes, or Westphalian Gensdarmes working for the French. No wonder Buonaparte is credited with creating German, and Italian, Nationalism.

"Wonderful in their ordinariness"

That's the point, I think. It's easy to forget, since so much (all?) of the popular literature about this period has taken the stories of military glory at face value. For some people, that's become a sort of sacred text, to be defended at all costs.

But when you dig a bit and ask what life was like for average people, you find that it bears almost no resemblance to the glorious Official Version.

It was a hard time to live. Taxes went up dramatically, there were shortages of everything, people and property were often at risk, and families sacrificed their sons by the hundreds of thousands.

Since I'm focused on Westphalia right now, I'll just offer this statistic: just over 60,000 Westphalians died in Napoleonic service. That's one out of every 16 Westphalian males. If you consider just those males of military age… it's one out of every 7.

One of them was Fritz Wolf, a lieutenant in the 2nd infantry regiment. The last letter that he sent was to his friend Ludwig (an officer in Jerome's Garde du Corps), from Moscow. It concludes with:

"Now I've been thinking, that perhaps the mighty Schlachtenkaiser [Napoleon] has finally had enough, and with the capital in his hands, he'll make peace. And moreover, it has occurred to me, and the hope has entered my heart, that perhaps we'll start marching back soon — back to you, dear friend, and everybody else — and we can be happy again."

Fritz Wolf made it all the way back to the Beresina, and even made it across, and then took a bullet in the chest. He was not quite 28 years old.

-

Glory doesn't do much for me.

.. whistling on Tuesday… wearing cod piece likely to cause a breach of the peace

And yet Napoleon seems to have more than his fair share of modern day hero-worshippers – certainly judging by what I read on TMP?

Kevin, since you've been posting on other threads, I'll assume that your silence on this one is again the answer "No." You have not examined any primary source records of the French "Inspector General System" to which you refer.

Therefore you do not have any primary evidence to substantiate your assertion that they "relentlessly… rooted out crooks." You have not seen any of their arrest records, interrogation summaries, case files, or anything of the sort, correct?

But some are arrested for more dangerous things like brigandage.

For those which don't know, "brigandage" was the code word used by the French to describe anyone who dared to opose the government. Its use in that fashion is first attested under Louis XIV (during the invasion of the Palatinate, it was used to describe those Palatine peasants that murdered French soldiers that were sacking their farms). In other words, the term had a political content, rather than merely descriptive of illegal activities. Spanish guerrillas were consistently described as "brigands" by the French, independently if they engaged in actual brigandage or not.

I copied and pasted this form an entry at napoleon-series.org

New Letters of Napoleon I (omitted from the Napoleon 3 edition) Trans Lady Mary Lloyd, London 1898.
This is a one vol selection from Lecestre's 2 vol collection.
I selected those that seemed of most interest when I had the book out of the library. These are extracts selected in relation to Napoleon's attitude to liberty, which seemed to be the starting point on this occasion, so they are extracts from several layers of selection. I have left out his dealings with his brothers, with the Spanish royal family, with the Pope or anything of a purely military nature.
Before anyone raises the question, I haven't checked on the outcomes, my point is only to show Napoleon's preferred methods of maintaining control.
To Gen Lagrange, Governor of Cassel, Warsaw 13.01.07
…."The inhabitants of Hersfeld appear to be guilty. You will send a flying column of 4k men, and have the town thoroughly sacked, to punish the insult offered to the sixty men of my troops… The town of Wacht is guilty. Either it will give up the four principal authors of the revolt, or it must be burnt…..
Issue a proclamation… Indicate the men each town must give up on pain of being burnt….Visible traces must be left, to frighten the evil–intentioned in Germany. It was thus, by burning the big village of Binasco, that I kept Italy quiet, in the year IV. …"
To Marshal Berthier, Rambouillet, 7.9.07
"You must be sure to inform Marshal Soult, by special messenger, of the incident at Konigsberg, where two actors, appearing on the stage as French officers, were hissed by the audience. you will tell Marshal Soult that I have demanded satisfaction from the King of Prussia for this insult, and that I have required that the two chief culprits shall be shot….."
To M de Champagny, Min for Foreign Affairs. Rambouillet, 7.9.07
"… I shall refuse all evacuation until the two ringleaders have been shot…"
To M. Fouche, Min of Police Rambouillet, 7.9.07
" …..Give orders to have Mr. Kuhn, the American Consul at Genoa, put under arrest, for wearing a Cross of Malta given him by the English, and as being an English agent. His papers will be seized, and an abstract of them made, and he will be kept in secret confinement until you have made your report to me…."
" …to the effect that the nobility did not attend the ball given by M. Lamartiniere, Senator. (he asks for details and as to whether they were actually in Bordeaux at the time, since they might have been in the country.) If, on the contrary, any of these lordlings have ventured to fail in the respect due to the Senator, it will be well for me to know the fuglemen, so that the police may remove them from Bordeaux."
To M. Fouche, Min of Police Bayonne 25.4.08
"The Journal de l'Empire still goes on badly…..If he does not change his ways, I shall change the editor…Mons Etienne is the cause of the present agitation in France, about Roman affairs. Pray have all the old editors, who are so hot against the present Administration, turned away. … I had also forbidden the newspapers to refer to priests, sermons, or religion…"
To M. Fouche, min of Police Bayonne 11.7.08
"Have young St Aignan placed in the military school at St Cyr. You will let him know that it is my will. You will also let him know that I do not intend him to marry, till he has fought two campaigns. You will have him taken there bodily…"
To Gen Menou, Governor of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Aranda 28.11.08
"Maret sends you a decree which is not to be published till after its execution. Have the valley disarmed. Have 30-40 persons – those best known as having always taken part in former revolts – arrested, whatever their present behaviour may be…"
To M. Fouche, min of Police Benevente 31.12.08
"I am informed that the émigré families screen their children from the conscription, and keep them in grievous and guilty idleness….I intend to publish an edict which will send all youths of these families, over sixteen, and under eighteen, to the Military School at St Cyr.

and

To M. Bigot de Preamenu, Min of Public Worship. Benavente, 1.1.09
"Let the Archbishop of Bordeaux know of my extreme displeasure at the sermon preached by the Abbe Langlade,….As to this Langlade, I have ordered the Minister of Police to have him arrested, and I will punish him in such a way as will serve to warn others."
To Comte Fouche, Min of Police Rambouillet, 14.3.09
"Arrest the Vicar of Noyon, who has ventured to make improper allusions to the conscription, in one of his sermons. You will have him brought to Paris, and examined by one of the Councillors of State."
To Comte Fouche, Min of Police Paris.3.4.09
"There is a work on Suwaroff, many of the notes to which are very objectionable. This book is said to have been written by an Abbe. You must put the seals on that Abbe's papers, you must have all the notes cancelled, and you must even stop the publication of the work, which is anti-national."
To Comte Fouche, Min of Police Schonbrunn, 26.7 1809
"I send you a copy of the Gazette de France, in which you will find another article about Berlin. Give orders, on receiving this letter, to have the editor arrested, and put in prison, for having caused several articles from Berlin to be inserted in his newspaper, the object of which is to cast doubt on the alliance of France with Russia and to offend our allies. You will keep the editor in prison for a month, and you will appoint somebody else in his place…"
To M. Bigot de Preameneu, Min of Public Worship. Schonbrunn. 2.8.09
"You will let the Bishop of Ghent know that am displeased with the manner in which he manages his diocese, with his weakness, and the small amount of personal attachment he shows me…I order his Vicar general to resign and proceed to Paris…. Because if once I put my hand to the matter, I shall punish them severely."
To Comte Fouche, Min of Police Schonbrunn, 2.8. 1809
"Have the editor of the Brussels Oracle arrested. If it is true that two Saxon women ventured to make a scene in the theatre at Aix-la-Chapelle, have them arrested and taken to prison, where they are to remain for three months."
As above, same date
"It appears complaint is being made of the bad feeling in Belgium. Send reliable men to collect information. The authorities must be weeded out, bad characters must be arrested, and 500 or 600 suspected persons must be sent to live in Burgundy and Champagne. .."
To M. Fouche, Duc d'Otrante, Min of Police Paris 27.12.09
".. those persons (Belgians) who might do harm to the Government by their fortune, or their connections, are to be obliged to come and live in Paris, and the children are to be sent to St Cyr, or to St Germain. Have the same thing drawn up for all the conquered countries which have lately been added to France."
To M. Fouche, Duc d'Otrante, Min of Police Paris 21.1.10
A more detailed order for sundry individual Belgians to be removed.
"You will be careful not to have more than two of these people sent for from their Departments, at a time, and to leave an interval of a fortnight or three weeks between the dates of their departure, so that this measure may not appear forced and extraordinary, but merely a regular administrative step.
A person who has been described to me as being rich does not appear on your list. Let me have a report about this."
To M. Fouche, Duc d'Otrante, Min of Police Compiegne 24.4.10
"Is it true that engravings are being published with the title of ‘Josephine Beauharnais nee La pagerie'? If this is true, have the prints seized, and let the engravers be punished."
To Prince Lebrun, Grand Treasurer of the Empire, the Emps Lt gen in Holland. Paris. 25.9.10
There is a FN which states that this is the letter as originally drafted but that N cut the end. It does not say where the cut was made.
"You speak of the complaints of the inhabitants of Amsterdam; of their alarm and discontent. Do these Dutchmen take me for their Grand Pensionary Barnevelt? I do not understand such language. I shall do what is best for the good of my Empire, and the clamour of the madmen who will insist on knowing what is right better than I do, only fills me with scorn….. I have not undertaken the government of Holland to consult the populace of Amsterdam, and do as other people like. French nation has been willing, at various times, to put its trust in me. …I hope the Dutch will be good enough to show me the same respect…..etc"
To Gen Savary, Duc de Rovigo, Min of Police Fontainebleau 25.10.10
"I see by your police report, that the blocks of a will of Louis XVI, which was being printed for a certain Bonneville, a dealer in engravings, have been seized in the house of one Farge. Have these two persons arrested. Write to the Director of the Censure Department to have their charter revoked, and that they are never to be allowed either to print books, or sell engravings again ; then you will have them shut up in a State prison, until the millennium. When the Censorship was instituted, provision was made for depriving any handful of wretches who might attempt to disturb the public peace, of all right either to print or to sell books. Send me a statement of the booksellers and printers who are known to be evilly inclined, and cannot be depended upon, so that I may revoke their licence. Follow this up vigorously; it is time to make an end of it. There can be no greater crime than that committed by these people."
To Gen Savary, Duc de Rovigo, Min of Police Paris 14.4.11
"I send you a letter from Gen Molitor, let the grand Treasurer know that the measures taken are too feeble, that the students and townsmen of Utrecht, who have insulted the patrols, must be arrested forthwith, and tried by a military court."
To Gen Savary, Duc de Rovigo, Min of Police Paris 18.3.11
Concerning several priests, reported to be "dissidents and enemies of the Government."
"I should wish all these people to be arrested at once, the seals put upon their papers, and they themselves brought, without any one knowing where they are, either to Vincennes, or to some other State prison. All their papers should be sent to Paris, where they must be examined.
…You must not trust either the Prefects, or the Justices of the Peace, nor the local gendarmes, but you must employ Paris police agents, and good picked non-commissioned officers of the Gendarmerie, who will proceed simultaneously to all the places where these priests are to be found, and seize their persons."
To Pr Lebrun, Grand Treasurer of the Empire, the Emps Lt gen in Holland. St cloud, 3.5.11
"It is my intention that the 500 men who formed the mob which beat the Prefect, shall all be sent to France, and forced to serve in my ports….The houses of the persons who have taken flight must be burnt, their relations arrested, their goods confiscated, and they themselves condemned to death by default, in a military court. It is necessary to have several of the most guilty shot….Blood and chastisement alone can wash out the insult offered to the government."
To Savary on the same dates he specifies: "…their fathers, mothers, wives, brothers and sisters imprisoned…"
To Pr Le brun, Grand Treasurer of the Empire, the Emps Lt gen in Holland. St cloud, 12.5.11
"I hear you have altered your late decision, on the occasion of the riots in Amsterdam, and that you brought the persons implicated in the affair before the civil courts. … You may have taken the initiative in a momenty of confusion, but this particular course having been approved by me, you cannot return to it without my consent…"
As above, same subject, 20.5.11
"It is indispensable that honest and well intentioned people should be protected, and led by kindly treatment; but the rabble must be driven by terror….Sedition mongers go unpunished, and in the end, they will have to be suppressed by fire and the sword. And further, I cannot leave my armies in the interior of the country for ever.
…The rioters at Amstrdam and Rotterdam must therefore be sentenced by military court."
As above, same subject, 22.6.11
"I have been interested in seeing the result of the military inquiries, and that three men have been sentenced to death and executed. There is no other way of overawing the mob."
To Comte de Montalivet, min of the Interior. Trianon 19.7.11
"It is necessary for you to give the Director-general of the Department of Literature orders not to allow any work on ecclesiastical affairs to be printed. The great art in such matters is never to mention them. I have been distressed by the pamphlets which have appeared on such subjects."
To M Maret, Duc de bassano, min for Foreign Affairs Paris, 29.2.12
"…My Minister at Cassel must let it be known, that I am exceedingly displeased with the town of Brunswick, and that the very next time the town is guilty of an offence, I shall put it beyond the pale of my protection, and have so severe an example made of it, that the posterity of the inhabitants will remember it, a hundred years hence."
To Gen Savary, Duc de Rovigo, Min of Police Paris 30.3.13
"I confess I could not help being very much astonished by the play yesterday…I had a right to expect that the Minister of Police would not have allowed the Court to be handled in so dull and silly a fashion….Never have people been allowed, in any country, so to depreciate the Court. If it had not been for its clumsiness, and lack of talent, the play would have had a most mischievous effect on public opinion…Put a stop to the performances of this wretched comedy, and alter the composition of your Board of Censors."
To Gen Savary, Duc de Rovigo, Min of Police Dresden,6.8.13
"You will have the Director of the Seminary (Ghent) who professes such bad principles, arrested and confined in a State prison, without anyone being aware of his whereabouts."
To prince Cambaceres, Grand chancellor of the Empire. Dresden, 14.8.13.
Relating to "the verdict of the the Brussels Court of Assizes." "You will also send for the Min of Police, so that before my intention is made public, the accused persons may have been re arrested, and the jurymen who are implicated, seized. My letter will not be inserted into the Moniteur, and the decree submitted to the Senate, until three or four days afterwards…the Minisrtr of Police will be one of the members of the Secret Council, and take the intitiative in the whole of this business. Extraordinary circumstances necessitate extraordinary measures, and they are provided for in our Constitution."
Susan

Ah, Susan. I haven't spoken with her in ages. Nor visited the Napoleon-Series for that matter, sigh.

Nothing surprising there, VW. I've seen his correspondence regarding how to deal with the Spanish insurrection and was much the same. Which, however, shouldn't be forgotten is that those policies weren't exceptional at the time, to deal with insurrections and civil disturbances.

Only a few individuals tried more "illustrated" approaches. Caffarelli, for example, tried to achieve some kind of accomodation with Norhern Spain insurgents, regarding the treatment of Spanish sympathizers of Joseph I and French soldiers captured by the guerrillas. He was rebuked by his superiors, and neither the Spanish insurgents did show any inclination to moderate their behavior towards collaborators. Actually, in March 1810 the Spanish Regency passed a law that allowed any Spanish armed force (guerrillas included) to take represalies against any French soldier captured nearby any center of population where the French troops had committed any kind of war crime, regardless the actual guilt of the soldier captured. Some weeks after this law was passed, Diaz Porlier claimed it to execute 6 French prisoners of war as represalies for the judicial murder of two of his own soldiers in Palencia; he hanged them in three villages near Palencia, as a warning. The French governor of the town threatened with hanging any Spanish soldier he would capture.

""You must be sure to inform Marshal Soult, by special messenger, of the incident at Konigsberg, where two actors, appearing on the stage as French officers, were hissed by the audience. you will tell Marshal Soult that I have demanded satisfaction from the King of Prussia for this insult, and that I have required that the two chief culprits shall be shot….." "

This text was used as part of an A Level exam paper a few years ago. One must assume that the Examiners, working for the examination board "Edexcel" were biased, as were Ofqual for allowing the paper to be allowed.

"For those which don't know, "brigandage" was the code word used by the French to describe anyone who dared to opose the government. Its use in that fashion is first attested under Louis XIV (during the invasion of the Palatinate, it was used to describe those Palatine peasants that murdered French soldiers that were sacking their farms). In other words, the term had a political content, rather than merely descriptive of illegal activities. "

Quite. Those resisting the Revolution in the Vendee and in Brittany were always referred to, amongst other unpleasant expressions like "scelerats", as "Brigands". As you suggest, as a conventional term for those resisting the forces of order, as it were.

"Nothing surprising there, VW. I've seen his correspondence regarding how to deal with the Spanish insurrection and was much the same. Which, however, shouldn't be forgotten is that those policies weren't exceptional at the time, to deal with insurrections and civil disturbances. "

But the other examples, didn't Napoléon over react and shows nothing than brute force to deal with any sort of critic to his reign?

for example :

To Pr Lebrun, Grand Treasurer of the Empire, the Emps Lt gen in Holland. St cloud, 3.5.11
"It is my intention that the 500 men who formed the mob which beat the Prefect, shall all be sent to France, and forced to serve in my ports….The houses of the persons who have taken flight must be burnt, their relations arrested, their goods confiscated, and they themselves condemned to death by default, in a military court. It is necessary to have several of the most guilty shot….Blood and chastisement alone can wash out the insult offered to the government."
To Savary on the same dates he specifies: "…their fathers, mothers, wives, brothers and sisters imprisoned…"
To Pr Le brun, Grand Treasurer of the Empire, the Emps Lt gen in Holland. St cloud, 12.5.11
"I hear you have altered your late decision, on the occasion of the riots in Amsterdam, and that you brought the persons implicated in the affair before the civil courts. … You may have taken the initiative in a momenty of confusion, but this particular course having been approved by me, you cannot return to it without my consent…"

Again, those actions weren't unexceptional,in the context of the times. See, for example, the punishments met by Irish rebels, Jacobites or any who dared to defy the established government in United Kingdom. Or in Spain, where defiance was met by "garrote vil" (a method of execution that consisted in breaking the neck of the condemned, using a block of wood and a screw) or deportation to Northern Africa "presidios".

Mind that I am not defending Napoleon; just pointing that his actions weren't, as far as we know, that different from those taken by other governments when their authority was being questioned.

"his actions weren't, as far as we know, that different from those taken by other governments when their authority was being questioned."

Indeed. I've always said that.

What I don't have much patience for, however, is the attempt to portray him as somehow morally or ethically superior to other absolute monarchs, or to pretend that governed according to the rule of law, since he most certainly did not.

His will was as absolute, and as capricious, as any other dictator or monarch.

Basileus, the unpleasant and illegal repressions carried out in Ireland post 1798 were almost entirely the work of Irish Yeomanry and Welsh and Scottish Yeomanry and Fencibles. The British authorities did seek to control the excesses of the local forces, with limited success. This isn't by any means to defend those excesses which were illegal and harsh. However, they were recognised by people such as Sir John Moore to be illegal and were not the policy, official or otherwise, of the British governmment at the time, who were actually trying to calm things down. One could argue that it was the repressive nature of the local elites, the ascendancy, who caused the violence, who suffered from the violence of the rising, and who maintained the violence of the repression. There certainly, as far as I can see, was no deliberate government policy of extra-legal or illegal violence.
Scotland after the 1745 rebellion was, of course, a different situation. The Highland Host was feared and loathed by the lowland Scots, as well as seen by the English as a barbaric feudal host, which it was, towards whom normal rules wouldn't and didn't apply, any more than normal rules have ever applied to those thought of as beyond the Pale of civilisation.
It is the argument that Buonaparte only used force subject to the law that is wrong. "Rule of Law" existed in the Buonapartist French Empire, but the Law was bypassed or ignored as Buonaparte thought fit at any given time, as the examples given show. One could, I suppose, argue that Buonaparte's Gensdarmes and soldiers would view Calabrian or Tyrolean, or Spanish, or German, or Russian peasants as being beyond the civilised pale and therefore beyond the normal rules of warfare. But Buonaparte's orders for extra-legal executions, as given above, show that the direction towards repression and executions outside of the "Rule of Law" came from above.

<<Again, those actions weren't unexceptional,in the context of the times. See, for example, the punishments met by Irish rebels, Jacobites or any who dared to defy the established government in United Kingdom.>>

I actually cited this in a reply to an earlier post on this very thread, comparing the 82 individuals arrested and tried after the 1798 Rebellion (all of whom were specifically involved in the mass killings of unarmed civilians or non-military officials rather than simply "opposing the government") to the indiscriminate mass slaughter in the Vendee, apparently so appalling that the French government was still embargoing the release of public records over 200 years later. OK, that doesn't involve Napoleon per se, but it does suggest that British responses to rebellions by the 1790s were considerably more liberal than those in other parts of Europe, however more "egalitarian" they might claim to be.

Further to Chouan's answer, both Moore and Abercromby were responsible for peacefully disarming several counties in the eastern half of Ireland. After the battle of Vinegar Hill, Regular troops were used to escort the rank-and-file of the Rebel army back to their towns and villages to prevent the type of excesses by local forces that Chouan describes. Packenham's "Year of Liberty" is an excellent read on this subject.

It is also interesting to compare and contrast how the British government treated the convicted Napper Tandy (returning him to France – and apparently paying for his passage – rather than executing him) after it became clear that he had been brought into Great Britain illegally by German agents who had abducted him in Hamburg, with the abduction and extra-judicial execution of the Duc d'Enghien. Admittedly, there were diplomatic approaches by the French government on Tandy's behalf, but as the treatment of someone convicted of treason at that time, it is still an exception.

Incidentally, the UK was the last major nation (in fact, possibly the last of any size) in Europe to formally establish a secret police force for observing home-based political groups. Not until 1883, with the formation of the Special Irish Branch of the Metropolitan Police, was there a British equivalent of the police forces we see in the posts on this page.

ndeed. I've always said that.

What I don't have much patience for, however, is the attempt to portray him as somehow morally or ethically superior to other absolute monarchs, or to pretend that governed according to the rule of law, since he most certainly did not.

His will was as absolute, and as capricious, as any other dictator or monarch.

I agree completely.

I have not any particular admiration for Napoleon. Especially, as I have researched his policies in Spain and can attest from first hand accounts what they meant for the population.

What I disagree with other posters -not with you, though- is in their depiction of Napoleon as exceptional in the other way, i.e. as a particularly murderous autocrat, compared with other autocrats of the period.

See Chouan's answer to my post:

Rule of Law" existed in the Buonapartist French Empire, but the Law was bypassed or ignored as Buonaparte thought fit at any given time, as the examples given show.

Again the idea of excepcionality: Napoleon was special, even in his wrongdoings.

I disagree with that idea. At least, the evidence I've seen in the use of the force and violence from the part of the authorities against those purported to be rebels, strongly suggest that even in their practice of reprisals the French weren't that exceptional.

The rule of the Law was conveniently ignored -or it was manipulated- when the authorities wanted to, and that wasn't particular of Napoleonic France but common almost everywhere. The only thing that the power needed to do was to declare the wrongdoers beyond the pale of the law -sometimes, describing them as "savages"- and any violence could be justified against them, as Chouan correctly points.

"Again the idea of excepcionality:"

I'd say that the Napoleonic regime was abnormally well-organized and efficient for its day. That meant that its organs of repression had a better-than-average chance of catching and punishing its victims.

One could thumb one's nose at the Tsar of Russia, and then escape somewhere for years, simply because the place was so vast and had poor communications and a creaky bureaucracy. One could anger a German autocrat and then hop across the border(s), finding political sanctuary without much difficulty. But the French population, and the populations they occupied, were under the near-constant surveillance of a highly efficient autocratic state, as those examples I offered demonstrate.

I read a police report written by a man who'd hidden in the bushes outside a Christmas party, in order to observe who came and went from the house.

The Napoleonic regime in my opinion, stands at the dawn of the modern surveillance state. Luckily for historians, they left copious and detailed records of it all.