Napoleon was certainly talented, but not specifically brilliant. Above all, he was the product of the best that the Ancien Régime had to offer: Napoleon, a penniless nobleman from Corsica, took advantage of a royal scholarship to study at the best military schools of the day. His talent as a military leader didn't come from nowhere, in fact, and was based on the best studies of his time, at the school of the greatest strategists, who had already laid all the foundations of what Napoleon then only applied - which doesn't call into question his talent for application.

Napoleon is also a perfect example of Ancien Régime assimilation: born in 1769, a year after France acquired Corsica, Napoleon could have been Italian. He read with pen in hand, and above all read anything and everything, including very few military works. His memory did the rest, and his extensive knowledge was always a great help on the battlefield. You never need to stick to one specialty to succeed!

Napoleon was fundamentally revolutionary: if his superficially Catholic culture didn't make him as bitterly anti-Catholic as the Jacobins, he was steeped in the Enlightenment, like most of his literate contemporaries, and he knew how to maneuver the Church, to the latter's great misfortune.

A factor in his later success, he was an outsider. Although more French than Italian, having left Corsica for Paris at the age of 11 and not returning until adulthood, he knew all about France, but had nothing to do with the revolutionaries or the monarchy, which he saw as the new illegitimate ruler of his native Corsica.

Another factor in his success: he was too young at the start of the Revolution to get involved in the events, which he watched from afar, and he managed not to compromise himself too much with the Jacobins at the height of the Terror. At the same time, he was able to observe everything from afar, without getting involved on either side. This enabled him to deceive everyone, a little later, by passing himself off as a revolutionary or a guarantor of order, or even a crypto-royalist.

Nevertheless, Napoleon was fundamentally revolutionary: if his superficially Catholic culture didn't make him as bitterly anti-Catholic as the Jacobins - who became an absolute repellent for a long time after the Terror - he was steeped in the Enlightenment, like most of his literate contemporaries, and he knew how to maneuver the Church, to the latter's great misfortune.

Napoleon was practically the savior of the Revolution: not only did he save it from perishing by avoiding the Restoration, but he also spread it and gave it prestige throughout Europe. Let's face it: Bonaparte prevented the Restoration from happening at least five times: Vendémiaire in 1795, Fructidor in 1797, Brumaire in 1799, the assassination of the Duc d'Enghien and the Empire in 1804 (plus the Concordat, which prevented any Restoration during the empire) and the Hundred Days.

We shouldn't be fooled by Napoleon's "conservative" aspects: he was always supported by historical revolutionaries and Jacobins, in all his governments right up to the Empire. The revolutionaries saw him as the champion of the Revolution, the Caesar saving the Republic from Restoration and invasion. Take the Empire: the creation of a new dynasty was encouraged by lifelong revolutionaries, who feared that Napoleon's death would bring about the Restoration. As long as a monarchical regime was to be restored, it might as well be revolutionary and modernist! There's nothing contradictory about this: for the revolutionary who wants to keep the revolution going, monarchy is the ideal regime, as it's the best way to keep things going. What matters is that this monarchy be revolutionary, and it was. That's where Napoleon comes in.

This Concordat, along with the wars, lulled non-revolutionaries and even counter-revolutionaries into complacency, allowing them to fall for the apparent new-found tranquility. The clerics were maneuvered magnificently: priests were allowed to say Mass, so they stopped supporting the counter-revolution.

    - The Concordat was a catastrophe for the Church and the Faith. It's not thanks to Napoleon that a normalized relationship has been restored with the Church: any government would have had to come to terms with the Church at that time, in a France that remains unanimously Catholic. It's a bit like saying that in 1945 it was an achievement not to have started another war tight away in Europe: no, nobody wanted war any more, and even the worst policy would not have allowed a war.
    - This Concordat was highly perverse: deception of the Church and the faithful, official relegation of the Catholic religion to the level of the others (it still benefited from its monopolistic position, but that's all, its status as True Religion was no longer recognized, nor as the historic Religion of France: this subsequently prevented any restoration of the Altar alongside the Throne).
    - This Concordat (and the organic articles), along with the wars, lulled non-revolutionaries and even counter-revolutionaries into complacency, allowing them to fall for the apparent new-found tranquility. The clerics were maneuvered magnificently: priests were allowed to say Mass, so they stopped supporting the counter-revolution. But they were wrong!
    - The pseudo-imperial coronation was a shameful parody. Poor Pope Pius VII was used as a stooge, giving the Usurper an appearance of legitimacy. Everything that appealed to Napoleon was, in fact, a poor imitation of the Ancien Régime.
    - The Civil Code was a revolutionary catastrophe, forever enshrining positive law as absolute, while denying particular customs, founding sclerosis that later became pretexts for Marxists and other rabid people of all stripes. Let's not delude ourselves: just because Napoleon's various institutions, such as civil marriage, were forcibly founded - they were all Catholic to begin with - on the good fruits of Christ, doesn't mean that the Civil Code is good by nature. On the contrary! It is all the more perverse in that it uses systems that are moderately bad, but cut off from the sap of the sacraments, and thus installs a purely revolutionary logic in the balance of power. The religion of the Civil Code is ridiculous! The said Code is now in tatters, it didn't last. This is proof that it has never held anything together. Only faith and natural law can sustain a society.
    - The Napoleonic Wars were catastrophic. Millions died. The generalization of the horrible conscription system, giving modern France a definite military advantage, but opening the way to total war in the 21st century, and ruining the whole Catholic civilization of just war. Not to mention the unstoppable destabilization of the world order, and the pointless absurdity of wars doomed to failure from the outset.

Already disillusioned, Carnot foresaw that freedom would be a mediocre compensation for many. He said, "An imaginary good."

Napoleon consecrated his unbridled Machiavellianism. Using everyone and everything for his cause was not a problem for him. It's interesting to note that, believing he was serving himself, he was in fact a fine slave to the Revolution, which he continued, anchored and protected.

Thus, the Revolution cannot renounce its conquests without destroying itself. If it does, there's nothing left to do but recall the Bourbons. This was the meaning of Napoleon's refusal, less than twenty years later, to the Allies when they offered peace on condition that France returned to its former boundaries. The expiring Revolution chained its successors to eternal war. England would have to be defeated, or the Revolution would have to be defeated. Napoleon will try to bring England to its knees by the continental blockade, and the continental blockade will lead him to undertake the subjugation of the whole of Europe. Another legacy of the Revolution. Already, by a decree issued on October 9, 1793, on Barère's proposal, goods of British origin had been prohibited, and Clootz had said that this measure should be imposed on neutrals to "destroy Carthage". In 1796, the same prohibition was renewed. The Emperor did not invent this policy or this system. But the Empire will be needed to continue them. ^[1]

    - Riddled with glory and ambition, Napoleon never let go of the idea of a return, as evidenced by the Hundred Days. Worse still: even in retirement, he worked on his own legend, to survive, and thus founded Bonapartism, a misfortune to this day, because it has distracted so many honest people from a clear awareness of the causes of our misfortunes and the remedies - the legitimate King (for France, I do not know for US) and the Catholic Faith...
    - Napoleon consecrated his unbridled Machiavellianism. Using everyone and everything for his cause was not a problem for him. It's interesting to note that, believing he was serving himself, he was in fact a fine slave to the Revolution, which he continued, anchored and protected.
    - Whether he died a Catholic or not is irrelevant. We hope for his sake and his salvation that he converted, but that doesn't change anything, politically, to the catastrophe he produced.
    - Don't be fooled by the patriotic rhetoric of the time: the Patrie was the Revolution. For them, France was the Revolution. But if France had to wage war on the whole planet, it was because the cosmopolitans of the time were "French", since only France was considered liberated and regenerated. Once the Revolution had spread, it was Europe, Marxism and then globalism that negated states, now obstacles to the deeper regeneration of the Great Reset. Napoleon's France was the world government of the time, opposing local particularisms in France, and neighboring traditional royalty in Europe (Napoleon's united Europe can indeed be seen as a direct and substantial precedent for the EU, the world government).
So, yes, if I were a modernist and a revolutionary, I'd say: Thank you, Napoleon!

And let's not forget that it's fashionable in conservative circles to praise this piece of history, this extraordinary character, as if he had brought glory to France, as if he had worked for religious peace, and even - crazy idea! - the exaltation of faith. It's almost as if he were a saintly martyr, converted on his deathbed!

We all know that the army looks for role models and that, for a long time, the Bonaparte illusion was prevalent, as a purveyor of cheap glory and beautiful engravings - nevertheless obtained on heaps of corpses and an irreparable destruction of the traditional Catholic order, the consequences of which we are still suffering.

We understand that in the present situation of disintegration of the West in general and France in particular, and of latent civil war, we cling as best we can to the past. What's more, in the face of the stupidly ignorant and snarling enragés on the other side, it may seem tempting to turn a blind eye to the emperor's revolutionary background, in order to exalt a certain revolutionary militarism, or certain natural virtues such as courage, effort and sacrifice, which at the time were still normal, as nurtured by a Christian society and subject to the competition of the saints.

We all know that the army looks for role models and that, for a long time, the Bonaparte illusion was prevalent, as a purveyor of cheap glory and beautiful engravings - nevertheless obtained on heaps of corpses and an irreparable destruction of the traditional Catholic order, the consequences of which we are still suffering.

So let's be clear: Napoleon was a calamity. This is not to say that everything about him is to be discarded, but overall, Bainville is right to conclude, in his magisterial study of Napoleon:

"Except for glory, except for "art", it would probably have been better if he had not existed. All things considered, his reign, which, as Thiers put it, continued the Revolution, ended in abject failure. His genius prolonged, at great cost, a game lost in advance. So many victories, so many conquests (which he had not begun), why? To get back below the point from which the warlike Republic had set out, where Louis XVI had left France, to abandon natural frontiers, now consigned to the museum of dead doctrines. There was no need for so much fuss, unless it was to bequeath beautiful paintings to history. And is the order Bonaparte re-established worth the disorder he spread across Europe, the forces he raised there that fell on the French? As for the Napoleonic state, which lasted through four regimes, which seemed built on iron, it is in decay. Its laws are falling by the wayside. Soon we will be farther from the Napoleonic Code than Napoleon was from Justinian and the Institutes, and the day is approaching when, by the push of new ideas, the legislator's work will be obsolete. "^[2]

We recommend this profound and accurate work: in it, Bainville does not seek to criticize Napoleon, but to understand the character: why and how did he reach such heights? What was at the heart of his actions? This work almost endears Napoleon - almost! - and Bainville doesn't despise his subject for a second, but he must be objective: Bonaparte was, all in all, a calamity for France - and for the world - by spreading the revolutionary disease to the ends of the earth, as well as the pagan glory of murderous epics, for the proud satisfaction of victory and hegemony, rather than in the service of justice. We're a long way from Saint Louis, but very much in tune with the openness of today's world, which will make the West so loathed the world over for its imperialism, its pretension to dominate everything, and its cruel wars. But alas! The West was only superior because of its Christianity and its fruits of humility, charity and justice! Once these fruits had been devoured by the Revolution, the world gave a frightening superiority to the cockaded demons, for the time of a brief glow, which disappeared as quickly as flaming oak...

The Bonapartist legend has done much harm in our country and around the world, justifying across the globe the Machiavellian dogmas of international relations and the rejection of Christian justice for the sake of domination and glory... So let us remember what a calamity the emperor was!

The nineteenth and twentieth centuries then gave way to the twenty-first, which no longer possesses even the Catholic cushion that held back the worst degenerations. Nothing holds back the drift of our world, which is sinking into a black and cruel paganism, terrible for its unparalleled technology and dark for its apostate and, therefore, unnatural character, denying the most common realities...

So yes, let's remember Napoleon as the catastrophic vector that allowed the Revolution to save itself and prosper, to our great misfortune.

Let's finish by underlining how fickle and illogical fallen man is! He clings to the glitter of glory, which makes him pitifully endearing in his attempt to avoid dying by cherishing what kills him.

The Bonapartist legend has done much harm in our country and around the world, justifying across the globe the Machiavellian dogmas of international relations and the rejection of Christian justice for the sake of domination and glory... So let us remember what a calamity the emperor was!

"However, after more than a hundred years, the prestige of his name is intact, and his ability to survive as extraordinary as his ability to rule. When he left Malmaison for Rochefort before surrendering himself to his enemies, he had slowly, reluctantly left his memories and the world stage. He will only move away from human memories with the same slowness, and we can still hear, through the years, through revolutions, through strange rumors, the emperor's footsteps as he descends to the other side of the earth and gains new horizons. "^[3]

So, in the face of the worshippers of the imperial Moloch, let us remember what true greatness is, that of the Most Christian King doing justice and protecting true peace, and the true King of kings, Christ!

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[1]Jacques Bainville (1879-1936), Napoléon, Paris, Arthème Fayard, coll. « Le livre de poche historique », n° 427-428, 1931, 500 pp., p. 56.

[2] Jacques Bainville (1879-1936), Napoléon, Paris, Arthème/Fayard et Cie, coll. « Le livre de poche historique », 1931, p. 459.

[3]Jacques Bainville (1879-1936), Napoléon, Paris, Arthème/Fayard et Cie, coll. « Le livre de poche historique », 1931, p. 459.