"Should Napoleon's Tomb be Honored?" Topic

This is a French--or possibly Corsican--issue. I am neither. A pity the time dedicated to other people's ethical dilemmas can't be used for painting or games.

Why does it have to be honored or not honored? Why can't it just be respected as a grave?

A dead soldier rates a rectangle about 3x6 with a marker at one end, 79th--assuming you can find and identify the remains, of course. No one should begrudge anyone that. His Imperial Majesty is kept in a place a little too gaudy to be a cathedral, filled with statues and inscriptions which promote his own official (post-Waterloo) version of his life and achievements--exactly the sort of thing less popular dictators with high body counts are often denied. To leave him there does him immense honor. To move him, after a century and a half, immense expense and serious artwork, is something else.

Myself, I'd leave him--honoring the art and not the man, if you will. I'd have left a lot of statuary recently demolished, and even give FDR something more like his self-image. But as I said, not my problem. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the French to decide it was a problem, either. This just fills the need for a daily poll.

+1 Robert!

TVAG

It's a decision that must be left to France. But from afar, as a Bonapartist, I like the tomb as it is (and have visited it during a French expedition), and even if not a Bonapartist I would respect it as an historical monument. Same as for forgotten monarchs, or military leaders of lost causes, and same as for writers I have not read -- not everything should be judged from a passing modern conceit or appraisal.

+1 piper909

"not everything should be judged from a passing modern conceit or appraisal."

Oh Piper, that's 1990's thinking! Entirely out of step with our modern enlightened era. The (immediate) future belongs to those ready to have a different opinion every morning, and loudly condemn anyone still believing what they themselves believed yesterday.

Keep your head down for the next 30-70 years.

Robert, it's funny to me, but you're describing the French Revolution to a 'T'. Tear down the old and build the new to a more 'enlightened' standard. Of course the same thing happened in Russia in 1917, Spain in 1936, China in 1948, Cambodia in 1976, etc.

Heh! I try to keep a low profile, Robert P.! Or at least, stay measured and not strident. I am mindful of the Buddha's Middle Way.

During the French revolution, all manner of royal tombs were desecrated and destroyed in outbursts of extreme Jacobin fervor (not only French monarchs, but English Angevins, various resting places of James VII's parts) -- and other relics that were seen as "aristocratic", including clothing worn by Joan of Arc that had been preserved up until that time. I regard things like that as monstrous.

That being said -- I can also understand why there are times to reevaluate. case in point, the long controversy about where Franco should rest. And what to do about Mussolini's tomb. I guess there are no simple one-size-fits-all solutions.

And let's not forget China's Cultural Revolution, with the Red Guards destroying as much of Chinese history as they could get their hands on. My general principles are that art and information should not be destroyed and that individuals and families may honor who they will. As for the honors accorded dead rulers by the state, a little restraint and delay early on can save a lot of angst a generation or so later.

What is the issue (not snarky, just too dim to comprehend?)

I guess you'd have to ask Deucey.