"How Catholics brought Napoleon to his knees" Topic

"Locking up the Pope alienated millions of the faithful and was one of Bonaparte's most stupid mistakes

"She was on her way home from church when she felt labour pains," Napoleon would say of his mother Letizia, "and had only time to get into the house, when I was born, not on a bed, but on a heap of tapestry." Napoleon Bonaparte's fraught relations with the Catholic Church started early in life, for although his mother was a devout Catholic, his father was a Voltairean who despised popular religion. A secularised Enlightenment non-believer, Carlo Buonaparte did not even marry in church (although his wife's uncle Lucciano, the Archdeacon of Ajaccio in Corsica, altered the records to make it appear that he had).

Napoleon adopted his father's attitude to faith rather than his mother's. He was at best agnostic about the divinity of Jesus, alth-ough he did acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being and was occasionally seen to cross himself in battle. "Did Jesus ever exist," he asked his secretary when in exile on St Helena in the mid-Atlantic, "or did he not? I think that no contemporary historian has ever mentioned him." (He was clearly unfamiliar with Josephus's Antiquities of the Jews which mentions Jesus.) He enjoyed theological discussions, but when a priest offered his services to help him through his father's death, the 15-year-old Napoleon refused. Several of the cleverest scientists and mathematicians he knew were atheists, but as he told his last doctor, "wishing to be an atheist does not make you one"…"
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Amicalement
Armand

He seriously considered converting to Islam, the story goes.

I think his religion was pragmatism.

I always wondered if taking the crown from the Pope did actually "de-legitimise" his emperor status. The Allies seemed to recognise him as such, however, why else all the calls for him to abdicate, if never acknowledged as such, anyway?

I think his religion was pragmatism.

Rather like Frederick II ("The Great") who was much more open about it.

Religion certainly played a major role in setting the Spanish population against the French.

Alexander certainly seemed to take on a degree of religulous zeal in the europäische Befreiungskriege and the Invasion of France.

I think it fair to say that Napoleon was seen as an enemy of the established order & hence, Church, royal houses & conservative elements everywhere were in opposition.

He may not have quite been the poster-boy of the Revolution, but many thought he still had horns & tail.

I think it fair to say that Napoleon was seen as an enemy of the established order & hence, Church, royal houses & conservative elements everywhere were in opposition.

He may not have quite been the poster-boy of the Revolution, but many thought he still had horns & tail.

This is just an personal observation from the few dozen books I've read of the period, but most of those books to include personal correspondens.

And I've noticed that the french letters rearly mention god, be it from common privates to marshals.

The British and prussian are mixed, some letters seem very devout, others more secular

Russians clearly seem the most devout, both in letters(most privtes, NCOs and even lower offciers were illiterat so letters are few and far between) And just descriptions, how they tot out icons before borodino like some sort of crusader army. Yet even there in the low (none) educated serf armies, some were sceptical to what they saw as old superstitions.

The Napoleonic period came at the end of the age of enlightenment, there was alot of secular people, especialy in Britian with free press and a very high litteracy(for early 19th century) The french officers and privates came from the revolution and many still held those ideals like secularsim ect.

Religion in the Napoleonic period is quite intersting thing.

PS. again this is my obervationd based on a handfull of books with a handfull of letters, with no hard data to back this up, I might be totaly wrong.

Probably a fair observation.

After a generation of an avowed atheistic regime such as Revolutionary France, it is not surprising that many Frenchmen rejected the Church. It would be interesting to discover how later generations of Frenchmen moved back to faith.

I do know there were BIG riots some 100 years later in the early 20th century, when france again became secular state.

Frenchmen do not reject the church… they rejected their
privileges and illicit enrichment.

Amicalement
Armand

I'm not so sure, Armand.

I know it's just wiki but:
link

The Revolution violently attacked the institution & this made at least a sizeable number of Frenchmen permanent atheists.

Consider the behaviour of the French in Spain & Russia towards churches & the clergy.

"a sizeable number of permanents atheits", "avowed atheistic regime" ?? Where and when?? Napoléonic France was the not the Soviet Union, it was still a catholic state and even with Revolutionnay France the catholics priests were State civils servants, France was a secular State officially between 1795 and 1801. Atheism was definitely not very common in France and whole Western Europe before the XXth century.

Please less ridiculous nonsenses of the anti-french propaganda coming from Spain or Great Britain : first the Spanish were allied with the French and the Spanish Church collaborated with the French even if the Spaniards don't want to admit that.

When you read memoirs and others diaries many French soldiers (as others Europeans) very surprised to be depicted as "jews" "mamelouks" and so-called "antichrist" didn't see at all Spain as a true catholic country, France and the rest of Europe was genuilely more christian than Spain for them, you can't imagine their surprise when they saw the so-called catholic behaviour of the Spaniards. It is totally forgotten today that Spain was for France and the rest of christian Europeans a dubious suspect country religiously as former islamic country (remember that last moorish community was not expelled before 1610) and the Inquisition very far from being regarded as a garantee for the catholicity of the inhabitants, just the opposite, even if the famous sentence hated by Spain wounded in his pride and so a great reproach to Europe "Africa begins at the Pyrenees" was written after 1815 this one shows that this country was not really recognized and seen like the others christians nations in Europe