Napoleon Bonaparte

by J.M. Thompson

Fully examines the complex character of the French emperor.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction

432 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1952

About the author

James Matthew Thompson was a historian and theologian.

Reviews

[Antigone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Napoleon Bonaparte wrote a lot of letters. His secretaries were on call twenty-four hours a day and would not have been at all surprised to be roused from bed in the dead of night to fire off an Imperial epistle. His dictated documents are approximated at 64,600 and that is a sincerely conservative estimate. Thompson's biography is based on these missives, the theory being that his correspondence - unlike memoirs, records or reports - provides a much more accurate, in-the-moment representation of the man; the immediacy of his thoughts, his intent, his experience, as expressed by Napoleon himself. I have my doubts about this. That the dictator dictated seems to me, in this instance at least, a simple extension of his management style and is less revealing of his nature than it is the nature of his operational skill-set. While I can see the benefit in terms of acquiring the who, what, when, where and how of things...Bonaparte is never going to give you the why in a letter. Should his reasoning happen to appear, I, for one, would start cleaning my musket. Because, trust me, he's done talking. The Emperor is on his way.

There are other elements I had difficulty with. Thompson's penchant for quoting the letters in their original French without a nod to any form of translation left me frequently at sea. I have your basic cavewoman's facility with this language - I get the gist, and am capable of working a phrase out, but find it genuinely irksome to have it required of me by an English writer. Equally, Thompson likes very much to make British comparisons. In describing the Russian campaign, for example, he writes: "From the Niemen to Moscow was about as far as from Brighton to Edinburgh, via London (Vilna), York (Vitebsk) and Darlington (Smolensk)..." Supremely unhelpful, dude. And last absolutely has to be the misogyny. My tolerance is fairly high for this, and history is full of it, but geez was I tested here - specifically with regard to Marie-Louise, whose brief appearance in this history concludes with: "She was a worthless creature, after all." And why, you may ask? Because she didn't take her cue from Tammy Wynette.

A word, in brief, about Marie-Louise; the second wife of Napoleon. Her marriage was a political arrangement between Austria and France. She went into it dutifully and did not complain. She bore the requisite heir within a year. Her husband, in the meantime, fought and lost in Russia, fought and lost along the Rhine, and was ignominiously exiled to the island of Elba - where she did not join him, despite repeated pleas from her now universally-reviled spouse. Instead, she returned to her homeland with her son and fell into a rather indiscreet affair with her bodyguard, Comte de Neipperg, with whom she bore three children. While never quite the brightest bulb in the chandelier, I just don't think we can fault her for her ability to make the best out of truly abominable situations.

On the plus side - and yes, there is one - Thompson has done some creditable work on Bonaparte's governance of France. There's some fine material on the Concordat (which re-established the Catholic Church after its revolutionary pillage and assorted deprecations), as well as the famous Civil Code, the influence of which can still be seen in many governments today. These domestic achievements rarely garner the attention they deserve in Napoleonic histories, and it was nice to see them treated more thoroughly here.

So...a mixed bag, yet recommended to anyone curious about how France was run amidst all the many pitched battles.

[Caleb S · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Napoleon Bonaparte," by J.M. Thompson, is a comprehensive book following the French leader, Napoleon Bonaparte, from his childhood to his rise as Emperor in the early 1800s. It mainly tells the story through numerous letters that had been saved from the time of Napoleon that paint the picture of his life.
I would rate this two stars out of five for a few reasons: lack of context, hard to read, and not unveiling the reason behind Napoleon's actions a lot of the time. If you are already well versed in French History and the words used during the time this is probably a wondrous read, however, if this is your introduction to the period you will get a headache trying to retain your attention on what's happening. Context-wise, this book lacks, for instance, instead of explaining exactly where a letter originates from, Thompson would just put the name of the College where it derives from and assume we would understand what he is talking about. Similar to the problem of assuming the reader has more knowledge than normal, this book is very difficult to decipher with old French words sprinkled around the pages that the author presumes you will comprehend with little context to help you. This book, also despite following the complex and intriguing figure that was Bonaparte, rarely delivers an image of Napoleon's rationale for his actions, which makes getting invested in the complicated political time rather difficult. However, due to the subject matter, this book does manage to appear interesting and grip you into the story especially revolving around matters of the Napoleonic Wars between France and most of Europe.

[Nino Meladze · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book to verify historic facts. What was lacking for me is a bit more on personality, behaviour descriptions. This book would have been perfect if there was more flavour to character, explaining his actions by his personality

[Mick Maye · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reasonable expose of his life taken from the middle description of his life. Occassionally he tends to go to the British (Napoleon is an ogre) view, but mostly has a balanced view of his life.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

the beginning of the first chapter was ok. couldn't read most of it becuase it bored me. the language sounds old fashioned. i dont recommend it.