"The Napoleonic ‘police’ or ‘security state’ in context" Topic
13 Posts
All members in good standing are free to post here. Opinions expressed here are solely those of the posters, and have not been cleared with nor are they endorsed by The Miniatures Page.
Please do not post offers to buy and sell on the main forum.
For more information, see the TMP FAQ.
Back to the Napoleonic Media Message Board
Areas of InterestNapoleonic
Featured Hobby News Article
Featured Link
Featured Ruleset
Featured Showcase Article
Featured Workbench ArticleVolunteer shares his techniques for painting, rigging and basing Age of Sail warships.
Featured Profile Article
|
Tango01 | 22 Jul 2016 12:48 p.m. PST |
"Two recent publications in English have approached a definition of the Napoleonic regime of social order. Building on Godechot's conclusions of 1951 that the French Empire was "perhaps the precursor of the modern police states" Michael Sibalis in his 2001 article "The Napoleonic Police State" takes out the ‘perhaps' categorically making the First Empire a police state…" More here link Amicalement Armand |
rmaker | 22 Jul 2016 1:16 p.m. PST |
Actually, Cromwell's Commonwealth is the prototype of the modern police state, complete with inane laws about totally private behavior (e.g., confiscating Christmas dinners). |
robert piepenbrink | 22 Jul 2016 2:45 p.m. PST |
rmaker, not "totally private behavior" in an era of state religions. Christmas dinners were a Catholic, or at least a non-puritan, thing. And for all that, Cromwell tolerated a wider range of religious behavior than any previous British ruler in Christian times. This is when the Jews are able to return to England, for instance. But His Imperial Majesty Napoleon I, together with his Jacobin predecessors, does have most of the hallmarks--the state censors, the secret police, internal exile and a well-stocked prison for political troublemakers like the Kings of Spain, Haitian rebels and the Pope. And not to forget orders to shoot someone now and fill in the crime on the death warrant later. It's not the Gulag, but you can see it from the tower cells in Vincennes. I admire Napoleon as a military man, but as a politician he was the wave of a very unpleasant part of the future. |
Brechtel198 | 23 Jul 2016 9:23 a.m. PST |
Here is the conclusion of the article referred to in the OP: 'The purpose of the preceding remarks is to try to put Napoleonic government in context, to measure the regime by the standards of the time. Unless carefully placed in the context of the well-ordered police state of the 18th century, I think that the term police state could almost be seen as an anachronism. It is too tainted with the totalitarianism of the twentieth-century to be used for structures of the early nineteenth. It is an unhelpful and could be seen as politically loaded. I also think that we should search the 18th century for the models for Napoleonic state organisation of law and order. Simply scratching the surface, as here, we can see that the intensive use of two quintessentially Napoleonic structures associated with law and order, namely the gendarmerie and the prefects, are not Napoleon's inventions but Napoleon's Ancien Régime repackagings. We can also see in Napoleon's approach to law and order a clear filiation to 18th-century definitions of the well-ordered police state, notably with a broader definition of the word police in its original sense of a policy for the structuring of the state for the good of society, but one in which the ruler has the final word. For it was in the 18th century that Napoleon took his political apprenticeship. I shall give the final words to Thibaudeau. "People have slandered the imperial police. It was arbitrary, by its very nature; this is why in free countries a so-called ‘general' police is condemned. People thought that the imperial police had a secret code (like the inquisition) and that its agents had mysterious instructions. For my part, I can state categorically that, in all my ministerial correspondence, I have never seen anything repugnant to the conscience of an honest man, and that I have often found in it liberal principles which would have raised up, if that were possible, an institution much descried by public opinion. I say this in defence of ministers Fouché and Savary. I saw them censure pointless irritations, despise fuss and recommend moderation and justice. If you consider the obstacles and dangers constantly put in the path of the emperor and the empire, I am sure that the arbitrary action of the imperial police was well below that of the police in solidly established states." And if one wishes to overstate the case, as the above poster has, then Napoleon's government should be compared with those of his contemporary heads of state, such as the Hohenzollerns, Romanoffs, and Hapsburgs, as well as the government of Great Britain, which was far more repressive, based on the reactions of parliament to the French Revolution, than anything Napoleon did as head of state. As one British visitor to France, Anne Plumptre who was in France from 1802-1805, stated: 'I was as perfectly free as I am in England, I went whithersoever I was desirous of going, and was uniformly received with the same politeness and hospitality as while peace still subsisted between the two countries. I never witnessed harsh measures of the government but towards tohe turbulent and factious; I saw everywhere the works of public utility going forward; industry, commerce, and the arts encouraged; and I could not consider the people as unhappy, or the government as odious…I have found speech everywhere as free in France as in England: I have heard persons deliver their sentiments on Bonaparte and his government, whether favorable or unfavorable, without the least reserve; and that not in private companies only, among friends all known to each other, but in the most public manner, and in the most mixed societies, in diligences, and at tables-d'hote, where none could be previously acquainted with the character or sentiments of those with whom they were conversing, and where some one among the company might be a spy of the police for any thing that the others knew to the contrary-yet this idea was no restraint upon them.' Anne Plumptre's book can be found here on Google Books: link |
Tango01 | 23 Jul 2016 10:22 a.m. PST |
Thanks Kevin!. Amicalement Armand |
Jcfrog | 23 Jul 2016 10:34 a.m. PST |
Comparing to nowadays…what a police state! Of course efficiency matters as seen in Nice as we half nearly half more cops than the Uk. And as the Germans, strict gun laws. That makes sure no one but the mislead followers of a religion of love, tolerance and care for women, can even when 17, easily get one. |
dibble | 23 Jul 2016 3:22 p.m. PST |
Anne Plumptre? That Lord or rather, Lady Haw-Haw of the Napoleonic era. So no bias there then. Especially when that person would have loved Nappy and his looting, raping burning murdering hoards to invade her Country. PS Kevin. Have you heard that Mickey (Post Captain) has passed away? Paul :) |
Brechtel198 | 24 Jul 2016 4:11 a.m. PST |
Paul, Yes-von Richter emailed me about it. That is very sad news-and all of us are not getting any younger. He'll be greatly missed. Sincerely, Kevin |
Supercilius Maximus | 25 Jul 2016 10:43 a.m. PST |
I would agree broadly with Brechtel's premise. Despite not having a police force (in the modern sense), since Tudor times England, then Great Britain, and finally the United Kingdom, had always had a very well organised, well funded, and effective network of spies and undercover agents who kept the government of the day informed about revolutionary groups throughout the British Isles. I would dispute the validity of Anne Plumptre's comments, though; let's not forget how the treatment of his wife's corpse turned Thomas Graham from a broad supporter of the French Revolution, into a diehard enemy. |
von Winterfeldt | 25 Jul 2016 11:50 p.m. PST |
"but as a politician he was the wave of a very unpleasant part of the future." yes indeed |
Brechtel198 | 26 Jul 2016 4:08 a.m. PST |
Perhaps you could support that with actual evidence? The financial system Napoleon put in place lasted for years. The returned Bourbons kept in place Napoleon's governmental reforms. France's monetary system, school system, and the emphasis on hospitals and orphanages remained in place. Napoleon ensured basic civil rights and the gains of the Revolution to France and guaranteed religious freedom for France, including granting the Jews full citizenship in France, the first European country to do so. So, perhaps the 'unpleasant part of the future' could be commented upon a little further than just a throwaway comment? |
von Winterfeldt | 30 Jul 2016 3:44 a.m. PST |
Napoleon's blue prints how to seize power and how to (ab) use it are clearly evident in the recent political world |
Brechtel198 | 30 Jul 2016 4:00 a.m. PST |
Really? Please explain how… And if you cannot, then all you are doing is displaying an amazing level of ignorance on the subject-which happens more often than not on the two forums in which you participate. |
|