"Was Napoleon good or bad?" Topic

"Was Napoleon Bonaparte a good leader? Was he a hero or a tyrant? I often get asked questions that boil down to "was Napoleon good or bad?" It is not an easy question to answer. Like most of us, he was neither entirely good, nor entirely bad. Reasonable people can disagree about how Napoleon's life and legacy should be regarded. The answer depends on what you value, and by what standards you are judging him. Below is a brief summary of arguments usually made in favour of, and against, Napoleon.

Napoleon was an exceptional military commander (see, for example, "Napoleon was the Best General Ever, and the Math Proves it"). He fought over 70 battles, and was defeated in only eight. He transformed the way in which the French army operated and turned France into the greatest military power in Europe. His confidence and ambition inspired his troops, and their victories brought glory to France…"
Main page
link

Amicalement
Armand

Lawful Neutral?

Whose standards and goals are we supposed to judge him against?

Always took David Chandler's stealing from the description of Oliver Cromwell
He was a great bad man

Hear, hear 14Bore.

Maybe goodish for France until 1812 but not so much for the rest of Europe.

A Hero for France no doubt but an evil tyrant for the rest of Europe.

yes

Who's asking?

He was good/bad but he's not evil. Leader of the Pack H

Good, bad or otherwise, he was the star of the show. Everyone else were simply chorus boys.

He wasn't good for anybody. How can constant wars of conquest be good for anyone?

I'm with the view that Napoleon was neither good nor bad. He was simply Napoleon. The reason why we find it difficult to establish what conventional standards to judge him by or what rules to apply, is simply that he ripped up the rule book and defied convention. Despite his own allusions to Julius Ceasar, it is probably true to say there was no model that came before, and that subsequent "wannabees" aside there hasn't really been anyone since either. That generated the quote (probably justified) that as a written about figure in Western literature he probably only comes second to Jesus Christ. This is unsurprising if you take the view that they are both messianc figures.

I quite like Chandler's Cromwell "big bad man" analogy, or perhaps those that seek to tie him to his post-revolutionary times as "an enlightened tyrant". Whilst Cromwell's statue outside Parliament is one of the few to not attract the attentions of protesters, Napoleon remains a controvertial figure. There is a sizeable and vocal body of his adherents that regard him heroically and regard him as almost infallible (I'm sure that they will be along shortly, they usually are). There are also those who choose a diametrically oppossed polemic view, of him as an acquisitive disturber of the peace, effectively a dictator who brought untold misery to millions through his naked vanity and ambition. That was undoubtedly the view taken by Great Britain and the various coalitions at the time, but I think it unfair to accuse modern commentators or merely swallowing the propaganda. There are equal quantitiies of propaganda, from the 1st and 2nd Empires (as well as the more recent past) which seeks to defend or preserve his legacy.

I think this question actually tells us more about ourselves than Napoleon. In these uncertain times we look to heroes to bring us certainty to reassure us that times have been great before so with a similar messiah they can be again. It's characterised as the talismanic or comfort blanket effect, and it's strength should not be underestimated. For some people it is utterly beguiling.

On the other hand, throughout history almost all of our stories have included a villian. I'm sure they will be along too. Our media likes to build people up, then tear them down. It builds unity if we have someone to boo and hiss. Just go to any pantomime performance and you can see the effect in action. Our sense of self-justification demands someone worse than us. No matter how badly we/us/our hero has acted they were not as bad as Napoleon. We need this bogey-man effect, it helps us rationalise and deal with our cognitive dissonance. The truth is no one is completely bad. Even the Kray's associate, Frank Mitchell ("The Mad Axeman") kept budgerigars and Josef Stalin liked Tom Mix movies!

In all of this projection, both unconscious and disengenuous, it is easy to just deal in Napoleon the historical figure. A chimera, used as a cardboard cutout. Away from all the agendas and the Punch and Judy, we might glipse something of the real man. However, if all we have to hand are the works of hagiographers and demonisers the task is very difficult.

Fundamentally, I don't want to ever get to a definitive answer to this question. It's the twists and turns of the journey that I find so fascinating.

In the words of the late and much missed and lamented Terry Jones:

"Now listen here! He's not the Messiah! He's just a very naughty boy!"

He wasn't good for anybody. How can constant wars of conquest be good for anyone?

How can 1000 years of feudal oppression be good for anyone? Like the European monarchies were better?

Besides, without those wars what would wargamers really have besides WW2 and the ACW?

One major disappointment: he never got around to re-writing the koran. Opportunity missed methinks.

I love it MiniPigs.

With over half of England still being owned by 1% of the population and in the US 40% of the total wealth in the hands of 1% and 90% of the population having to get by on less than a quarter, you think feudilism is over?

Aah, bless.

If you think that the concentration of money, power, influence and legal privilege was reserved to 19th century monarchies, boy you are in need of a seriously large reading list! Over a third of the Forbes 400 inerited or were gifted their wealth and According to a recent survey, more than 70 percent of low-income American households had been involved in civil legal disputes during the preceding twelve months, and in more than 80 percent of those cases, they lacked effective legal representation. Inequality and privilege (which feudilism is often used as a byword for) is alive and well.

It's not even germane to the argument. Napoleon was an hereditary monarch, he nepotistically appointed his family and friends to other thrones and created, perpetrated and extended a feudal aristocracy, showering them and their descendents with titles and lands.

A peasant having to pay taxes to Louis to fund Versailles, and having to send their son to fight Churchil and a later one having to pay taxes to Napoleon for St Cloud and having to send their son to fight Wellington, probably wouldn't have seen the distinction.

Whose standards and goals are we supposed to judge him against?

By the standards of his day and by those who actually knew him and judged him accordingly, such as Fain, Rapp, Marchand, Savary, and others.

Napoleon was a hard man when he had to be, but I believe him to have been a fair man. And as a reformer he had no equal during the period. He was also just and humane.

You can't say that for his fellow heads of state.

How can constant wars of conquest be good for anyone?

Who started most of the wars between the Treaty of Amiens and Waterloo.

I'll give you a hint-it wasn't Napoleon.

and a later one having to pay taxes to Napoleon for St Cloud…

Wasn't St Cloud already in existence when Napoleon became head of state?

It was built between 1570 and 1701.

Yet another historical error with blame attached to Napoleon who wasn't even born when the chateau/palace was built.

In point of fact, Napoleon built no new palaces, although he did plan one for his son though that one was never finished. The site today is the Trocadero.

Brechtel

Those were all his cronies, that's like saying we should judge Elvis by the memoirs of the TCB band or the Jordanaires.

You and I get no real choice over where our taxes go on a day to day basis and the peasants of France didn't either.

Louis lived in a palace, Napoleon lived in a palace. Louis' family enjoyed titles and privilege, Napoleon's family enjoyed title and privilege. Louis fought discretionary wars, so did Napoleon. Louis expected to be succeeded by his son, Napoleon expected to be succeeded by his son. There are many more parallels than the diferences pedalled by commentators.

Say goodbye to the old boss, say hello to the new boss.

A sizeable number of the French population (Bonapartists?) may have bought into the flim-flam, but more than two centuries later I don't think we have to.

Such things have historically worked on the politically naive and the weak minded. I have no desire to join either of those societies so choose to take a more balanced view, others may prefer to give greater credence to Napoleonic legend.

He's an enemy of Britain so he has to be bad, doesn't he? It doesn't matter if Britain or any other nation declared war or invaded first, Napoleon had to be the bad guy. If a picture can';t be painted of him being bad, the British people might have asked why are we paying such high taxes, funding other countries to go to war with Napoleon and spending so much money on the navy and army. No social media to offer an alternative to British propaganda then! LOL

Handlebarbleep

You should not believe that anyone who posts something positive about Napoleon or argues and debates against anything negative, believe that Napoleon was squeaky clean. He wasn't. No one during the Napoleonic period was. Some of the things you mention I agree with, others I don't. It is a matter of trying to offer the whole picture, rather than a narrow minded and biased Union Jack one.

a narrow minded and biased Union Jack one

You make this sound like a bad thing. LOL.

Gazzola

I don't believe everyone does, I was describing the two ends of the spectrum. The reality is that most of us are probably somewhere along it.

It is amusing though to see just how far some people will go to stretch a point.

For example, Napoleon himself is on record saying that it was a mistake to re-introduce slavery, and that he would have played that whole strategy differently. Fair comment, one to the Emperor.

We then see a spirited defence put up by a series of people, mixed with attack (but other people did it!). A defence remember that Napoleon himself did not put up or in any way claim. The desire to defend the legend it seems transcends the history. It's not uncommon, witness the 'outrage' expressed on behalf of disabled people or minorities by well-meaning able-bodied white people. It's often greater than that of the group affected themselves, who will often point out that there are much more relevant and urgent issues. It's a faux rage, and it is perpetrated by those from both ends of the spectrum.

I've served in the British Army, but I can tell the difference between 'real' history (reasoned enquiry) where the first duty is to history itself and 'regimental' history (tradition) where the first duty is to unit cohesion and tribalism. What people are doing is reading memoires and pieces written for the second category and using them in the manner of the first.

Napoleon was a politician, and therefore extremely careful with his image. He rarely said anything without an agenda or a purpose, like the Wizard of Oz we get very few opportunities to glimpse behind the curtain. He was probably one of the most charismatic individuals the world has ever seen with a large entourage who fell under his spell. Heck, I'd even contend his charisma is still at work now, centuries later.

Likewise, he threatened many rulers and international institutions. Looking at the Empires 'high tide' map, they had every right to fear him. Some say it was cruel to imprison him on St Helena, I'd rather say necessary. These opponents, and the most sustained and implaccable was Britain, had absolutly no interest in praising or even fair dealing with Napoleon. Demonisation was therefore a perfectly reasonable response.

When we, two centuries later, look at both of these we should therefore ask ourselves some simple questions:

Who wrote this?
When did they write this?
Who did they write this for?
Why did they write this?

When it's being quote or referenced in a work, there are a few other questions:

Who is quoting it?
What is their bias?
Why are they quoting it?
What is being left out?
How is this balanced/corroborated by other evidence?

And for me the $65,000 USD question:

How do my personal preferences and biases affect how I'm interpreting it?

Failure to adequately ask and answer those questions honestly and I'm not sure what you are doing, but it isn't history.

Yet another installment of:

"I really don't care about Napoleon…but really he was the antichrist and the proof was he was just like every other Monarchy that needed to be gotten rid of and why don't you all see that!?"

The heavy, heavy crosses born by bringers of truth.

MiniPigs

Not the antichrist. Just not a saint either.

After all, one man's antichrist is another man's Holy Father as the MEP Ian Paisley once pointed out. How did Yasser Arafat put it "disagreeing over their imaginary friends"?

And that's the problem when you Deify or Demonise historical figures. People lose at least their objectivity, and ocasionally leave of their senses.

With "Greatness" often comes "Baseness", because all of us have our negative side and greed, over-ambition, vanity, pettiness and even cruelty are not just confined to the lower orders. Great talent is often accompanied by great faults. So many of our heroes later turn out to have feet of clay. It is the nature of pedestals that they are rather easy to fall off.

That appears to be the nature of the world MiniPigs and it doesn't seem to be otherwise just because either you or I want it to be.

I quite like going to Pantomime, I don't want to live in one! However, when this question is posed it just seems to devolve into a "Oh no he isn't! Oh yes he is!" affair. That alone sort of proves my point rather. If we could just put away the polarisation, we might just catch a whiff of what the real man was like, you never know.

Yet another installment of:

"I really don't care about Napoleon…but really he was the antichrist and the proof was he was just like every other Monarchy that needed to be gotten rid of and why don't you all see that!?"

The heavy, heavy crosses born by bringers of truth.

Hit the nail on the head, as usual. +1.

@Brechtel

Thanks, you too. It's getting harder and harder to get some objectivity going around here. :)

@Handlebarbleep

Napoleon certainly had out-sized appetites but he had out-sized talent as well. You touched on some modern comparisons. Consider how some current world leaders have rapacious appetites and no talents whatsoever.

Napoleon was no saint. He was an interesting man with a lot of talents who built a superb fighting machine with a lot of interesting heraldry and regalia and won most of his battles. I dont really care if he stole other people's croissants off their plates when they weren't looking.

I dont know why any of us have to justify anything with Napoelon. It doesn't seem to happen anywhere else in Wargaming on this Board. I can find the Waffen SS fascinating without liking Hitler and I can be a Charles XII or Frederick the Great enthusiast without the usual suspects chiming in about both mens' shortcomings over and over and over again.

I am a wargamer and a military historian and I resent anyone who thinks they have the right to continually criticize my interest… not that you do this but the point remains.

Also, the slavery thing; let's be careful here. Few people can support slavery today but the USA's Founders were often also slaveholders. While they too have to answer for that selfishness it doesn't negate their incredible genius in other areas; that is left for posterity to correct.

So sympatico, if I didn't know better I'd say one of you was a sock ;)

Doesn't make what I said any less true though.

Hit the nail on the head, as usual +1

(Oh no, that was me agreeing with myself – Quelle horreur!)

Thanks MiniPigs

Well reasoned, and I don't think we are that far apart.

I don't think though that we should let 'military history' devolve into some debased form of history. We should be able to hold our heads up high and be as disciplined as 'mainstream' historians. I care too much about the memory of the men and women themselves to see them turned into caricatures or Aunt Sallys for casual amusement. Just because it is a hobby shouldn't mean amateurish.

We can enjoy what we do without buying into the "over the moon" "sick as a parrot" commentary.

@MiniPigs

Like it or not, slavery is currently a 'hot' historical topic. Undoubtedly one with huge modern consequences. I'm concerned though that if we 'sweep it under the carpet' we are actually minimising that legitimate concern and story. As a hobby with a relatively narrow demographic I think that is much more dangerous.

Especially when Napoleon himself said that in hindsight it was a mistake. Our reticence to do the same risks some very unsavoury yet potentially accurate accusations. I think a little honesty and candour can go a long way.

Although it is axiomatic that we never equivocate Napoleon and Hitler, you make an excellent point. I think the difference is that I know of no site (discounting the dark web) which is allowing threads along the lines of "Was Hitler good or bad?". In some jurisdictions if it led to Holocaust denial it would amount to a criminal offence.

It's because Napoleon wasn't evil in the same way and has many praiseworthy traits that his legend persists. Someone mentioned the bearing of crosses, and I believe that the legend gives the historical Napoleon a cross that no man could bear, only a superman. Inevitably, when we examine the evidence we get a cognitive dissonance between the fallible man and his infallible legend. how can this be true? This must be part of some conspiracy of Emperor haters. That is one of the factors that I believe pours petrol onto the fire of this debate.

The same argument works in reverse. Those who see Napoleon as the Corsican Ogre cite his many shortcomings. When a very reasonable achievement is evidenced the opposite cognitive dissonance appears. How can this fiend do a good deed? This must be the work of a Napoleon worshipping cult. Yet more passion and benz to the flames.

Even worse, anyone who attempts to point out a middle ground gets attacked by all sides as a closet or disguised version of the other.

The true picture is that bad people, even in their selfishness, sometimes do good things. Things done by good people, with what at the time might be the most noble of intentions, ocasionally have negative effects. Both situations can also be misrepresented as the other, sometimes in good faith but occasionally by the unscrupulous with their own agenda. That is why I believe it is necessary to understand motivation and bias effectively. It is also why I'll never accept the testimony of a manservant or political enemy as objective and distrust the motivation of those who do.

I'm sorry but on this forum and on this board the original post is an act of trolling. This thread will end with people dawghoused. It always does.

@nsolomon99

The original article that this thread references is a perfectly balanced and reasoned piece, part of a series on a generalist history site.

I think the problem is not the subject itself, which could be rationally debated, but that some members (from both ends of the argument) are emotionally invested. This sometimes leads them to move from the abstract to the personal.

You and I, in common with anyone alive today, never met Napoleon. We've not even met anyone who met Napoleon. None of us owe Napoleon any allegiance, we've sworn no oaths. For the most part posters are not French, or even Corsican so nationalism shouldn't be a factor. Some of us come from nations who opposed Napoleon, but that's unsurprising because at the end that's most of Europe.

There has to be more to it, and for me it's the carisma of the man. Without the second empire and Napoleon III though, I think that may have waned more than it has. Indeed, thanks to global communications and mass media imagery, I'd be unsurprised if there were not more 'Bonarpartists' (by that I mean broadly admirers of Napoleon and his achievements) worldwide now than there were in France in 1815. The second empire kept the flame alive, and creating the shrine at Les Invalides has only helped perpetuate it. You would have to be a very cold fish indeed if you visited and felt nothing, it's designed to stir the soul. However, to just dismiss them as acolytes and romatic fantassists denies his very real achievements.

Likewise, the allied propaganda created this bogeyman, and distracted their populations from domestic strife and reform. Politicians have always liked bogeymen, and I'm sure we can all draw many more recent parallels. However, to just dismiss them as jingoists denies the very real harm that acquisitive regimes like Napoleon's cause.

On other forums people hace attempted to tie these perspectives into a residual radical anti-british faction who just like to see Britain being given the occasional bloody nose, or see parallels between 'Napoleon haters' and Brexiteers. Personally I wouldn't like to speculate on the intersection of those Venn diagrams, but rather choose to believe that human beings have always needed heroes and bogeymen, and think that probably goes a long way to why some people feel it so personally.

So, sadly nsolomon99 I think you could be right, but if we were a little more self-aware of our own biases and respectful of the opinions of others, I don't think it needs to.

Sorry but you've missed the points around Napoleon entirely. There is no way that that man can both so controversial and at the same time inconsequential.

In any case, the amount of effort that a handful has to keep lathering onto this topic is seismic. If you don't like Napoleon, fine but to try to get everyone else to also pretend that he wasn't the most interesting person of his era is a waste of time.

Shortcomings indeed. What exactly were the virtues of Francis I, Louis XVIII, George III/IV; eating four square a day and then polluting the royal salle de bains?

And the idea that not swallowing British propaganda on Napoleon is anti-British is very telling.

But, if certain posters think it is to their credit to keep going on and on about Napoleon "bad", people that are interested in Napoleon are "bad" or are supporting "bad" or whatever it is that is printed on their virtual sandwich boards then I suppose they have the right to do so. However, one wonders what exactly they are trying to achieve? Making sure they get the message out that Napoleon was bad? I think we got that.

In any case, that's the rather blackboard scraping message I get from this and I wonder what kind of discussion we are engaging in. For example, this "You cant want to discuss Napoleon because he brought back slavery" is rather like the PETA message that meat is murder; fanatical bullying and no more. Incidentally, it usually has the result of getting me to order a double bacon cheeseburger.

But perhaps I am mistaken, maybe the anti-Napoleon viewpoint's supporters can demonstrate the headway it has made on here with getting people to see it their way?

For my part, all this viewpoint on Napoleon "bad" has done is made me more interested in him and made me consider how much better he was than the British society of the time. Thus, maybe constant righteous attacks/condemnations towards people for their interest isn't quite getting the desired results?

@MiniPigs

As I say, I don't think our interpretations are that far apart on many points. I would never call Napoleon inconsequential. He reshaped the map of Europe, deposed and established dynasties and millions died in the wars that bear his name. But he was still only a human being, with all the limitations and fallibilities that brings. His talents were many, but often his motivations were as base or petty as any of us. I don't believe we will ever truly understand him if we don't understand that.

I would also never say that anyone who admires his achievements was "bad". But I would also acknowledge that not everyone received universal benefits from his reign. Quite the opposite therefore of wanting to not discuss the slavery issue, I think we should. The fact that he admits later that he'd got that episode wrong actually puts him in a better light.

I'm not anti-Napoleon as you put it, just anti the legend obscuring the real Napoleon. I would not wish to put words in the mouths of the critics, but I don't think they seek to proselytise. The only thing I'm seeking to do is encourage both sides to be more tolerant. Treating it as a binary issue is part of that problem. The real answer to the question is, both good and bad all we should be debating is the degree and in which areas, not taking up intellectual arms against each other or descending into partisan or personal attacks. If that comes across as patronising or self-righteous it's not my intent, but if no one speaks up for fair play here I think we will lose a really valuable opportunity.

I guess we're overdue for this topic.
How long has it been since the last time we "discussed" it? Two weeks? Three?

For crying out loud, let that dead horse Rest In Peace! Stop beating him!

"There are those who say you never loved the Emperor."
The Duelists

Chaotic Neutral?

@John the OFM

What always amazes me that we are quite happy to consign the vicious killing and maiming of potentially hundreds of people to the roll of the dice, yet some of us get so exercised over any perceived slight to a single individual who died peacefully in his own bed some 200 years ago!

Nobody's ever been killed in any wargame I've played. Props to anyone who plays games where this happens – you are hardcore….

Does a heart attack playing paintball count 4th Cuirassier?

Has it happens 4thC, I did participate in one of those 1:1 scale skirmish games with real ammo once. Went on for 6 months as well, so thank goodness for that saving throw! :)

(Not a scratch by the way, my only service attributable injury was falling down the Officer's Mess steps drunk – it was a Regimental Guest night, so counted as a compulsory parade!)

Perhaps the plumes and the drums make it more abstract, maybe this is more of a problem for the modern gamers, but if we are replaying a historical game, behind every dice roll are real people.

With hundreds of thousands (if not millions) tumbled into their mass graves, it seems a bit churlish to generate such rage over imagined insult to someone lying in a magnificent tomb. Before anyone accuses me of being anti-Napoleon, that sentence works just as well for Wellington or Blucher!

Those were all his cronies, that's like saying we should judge Elvis by the memoirs of the TCB band or the Jordanaires.

Undoubtedly, that is meant as a pejorative comment, which is completely unwarranted. That only displays an ignorance of the people mentioned. It may even reach the depths of intellectual dishonesty.

Baron Fain and Marchand were loyal and honest public servants. Rapp and Savary were proven combat commanders who did much more than their assigned duties. Why do you insist on minimizing historical figures merely because they fought for and/or served Napoleon? It is not only ahistorical, but ridiculous in the extreme.

You seem to be stuck on Elvis, who has nothing to do with military history, Napoleon, or the Grande Armee. And it is definitely not a valid analogy.

You and I get no real choice over where our taxes go on a day to day basis and the peasants of France didn't either.

You missed the point-you stated that Napoleon built St Cloud-he didn't which was pointed out to you. Once again a distortion of history on your part-again-as well as a factual dodge.

Louis lived in a palace, Napoleon lived in a palace. Louis' family enjoyed titles and privilege, Napoleon's family enjoyed title and privilege. Louis fought discretionary wars, so did Napoleon. Louis expected to be succeeded by his son, Napoleon expected to be succeeded by his son. There are many more parallels than the diferences pedalled by commentators.

There are less ‘similarities' than you suppose. Napoleon was a self-made man and completely remade France for the better. Louis didn't do that.

Say goodbye to the old boss, say hello to the new boss.

An oversimplification if nothing else-again with no appreciation to the historical record. And Louis XIV lived at Versailles, not the Tuileries.

Where was Napoleon supposed to take up residence?

A sizeable number of the French population (Bonapartists?) may have bought into the flim-flam, but more than two centuries later I don't think we have to.

And which ‘flim-flam' would that be? That term certainly fits with the British and allied anti-Napoleon propaganda.
And the term ‘Bonapartist' belongs more to Napoleon III and Thiers than to the period 1800-1815.

It seems to be that any sort of historical 'flim-flam' is being pedalled by your constant denials and historical inaccuracies.

Such things have historically worked on the politically naive and the weak minded. I have no desire to join either of those societies so choose to take a more balanced view, others may prefer to give greater credence to Napoleonic legend.

And which ‘balanced view' is that? You have repeatedly stated that you don't dislike or hate Napoleon, yet you take the ‘view' that supports that you do. That is either hypocritical or intellectualy dishonesty, or both.

Ah, Brechtel, surely the bottom line is : which do you think exercises the readership more- that you might pronounce this or that statement hypocritical or intellectually dishonest, or a-historical, or logically fallacious, or unconstitutional, or moot, etc.,- or that you should insist on rolling out these and similar phrases with such automative, stultifying frequency as to render them meaningless?

Or possibly neither?

ENOUGH !! This type of pointless discussion is becoming tiresome and frankly boring !

Perhaps we could simply agree that:

When he was good,
He was very, very good;
But when he was bad,
He was horrid!

And then follow Chad47's advice.

Lawful Neutral?

Yea, I like that. Would an evil man enact the Napoleonic Code of Law?

Deja Vu.

Some things never change.

@ USAFpilot

No, but an egotistical and unscrupulous one would apply his name to it as though he'd had anything to do with it.

If George Washington had been Napoleon, he'd have been Emperor of America by 1791, the US Constitution would have been called the Washington Constitution, and the USA would have been at war with Spain, Britain and France.

I am sticking with yes.

And this thread is relevant to Napoleonic wargaming with miniatures?

No, but an egotistical and unscrupulous one would apply his name to it as though he'd had anything to do with it.

The Code was done at Napoleon's order and it was his idea. He didn't write it, he had four lawyers do it. At the sessions of the Council of State that debated it, he was present for over half and had input into the Code and was sometimes overruled.

The actual title is the Code Civile and was given the name the Code Napoleon because it was his idea.

I posted information on this forum before on the Code, I guess you missed it.

'Egotistical and unscrupulous' I think not. Perhaps you could support your inaccurate and contentions comment?