Western History 149: What was the significance of Napoleon in the long run?

The Napoleonic Era together with its predecessor the French Revolution represents watershed periods in the History of Western Civilization. Our modern political dichotomy – left versus right – emerges from the latter but it is with Napoleon that we see the genesis of the totalitarian state and the politics of nationalism.

Napoleon was not the first absolute ruler however he was the first to suffuse the trappings of the nation state, the scientific revolution, the will to power and populist glory to cement such a regime. France during the Napoleonic Era was a police state. Loyalty to the Emperor was paramount and Joseph Fouché who served as the Minister of Police ensured that the Bonaparte vision was articulated and enforced on the domestic front (although he would later conspire against Napoleon during the Hundred days). The establishment of the French consulate (1799-1804) was the earliest sign that opposition to Napoleon would be short-circuited. While the two powerful figures did clash Napoleon was ever cautious to tread lightly with his Minister of Police as he needed Fouché’s guile to diffuse the many conspiracies directed against the Emperor.

The police state ensured Napoleon’s survival in a France where the maintenance of political power since the Revolution was always tenuous. By codifying the Law and utilizing the police Napoleon could stay ahead of his enemies. It was a bizarre fusion. On one hand Napoleon respected the French Revolution for its emphasis on the Rights of Man but at the same time he was a staunch collectivist who saw the state as all encompassing, driven of course by a new enlightened figure of which he was the most authentic. The police were his necessary adjuncts.

Napoleon’s blood-stained march across Europe and the great French expansion was critical in that it helped spread the ideological gains of the French Revolution across the continent. Bonaparte was its main vehicle and Europe as he saw it, would eventually welcome what the French had to offer. In terms of the Hegelian March of History he was as he saw it on the right side of a revealed directionality.

However like most dictators Napoleon deluded himself.  As was  the case of military figures before him he was eventually brought down by his own success. If anything French expansion encouraged a counter-nationalism that bit back hard against Gallic Imperialism (look at Spain during the Peninsular War) sowing the seeds for his downfall.

Yes he had spread the ideals of the French Revolution but in doing so had morphed into a modern guardian of Ancien Regime absolutism that was simply unpalatable to those who were not French. His national chauvinism would not sit well in the longer term even if it was couched in the trappings of modernism and the science of a brand new era.

For later dictators the ‘rise and fall’ of Napoleon offered an eerie reminder that not all share a certainty of one’s inspired vision, especially when such an outlook threatens the lifeblood of freedom and what it is to be a people.