Napoleon: Witness or Braggart?
...is evident in his memoirs. “In my scheme, England was in nature bound to become a mere appendix of France.” According to him, he was not a conqueror but a liberator. History then to him would be sifted through a sieve of his French patronage. In looking at the wars he fought, the outcome of the battle would be described through his eyes and his eyes might not tell the whole truth because an enemy of France was his enemy as well, and therefore would not be viewed in a positive light. Another problem with his accounts was his age. When Napoleon wrote these memoirs, he was aging and possibly on his deathbed. What at one time was distinct in his mind, would now be blurred with the passing of time. And when the thoughts become blurred, it is usually the thoughts that one doesn’t want to remember, that go first. For example, what he recalled about the Battle of Waterloo might not entirely be what happened at Waterloo but only what his mind tells him he remembers. Napoleon dictates “Shall I be accused of loving war too much? [The historian] will show that I was always on the defensive.” This is not an accurate statement. It is written in the textbooks that Napoleon tried to conquer all of Europe for France. Trying to overthrow a continent is not being on the defensive. Lastly, his memoirs may not serve as a good historical reference because Napoleon was conceited. He saw himself as the modern hero of Europe, that if he had succeeded in recreating Europe, from north to south, he would have spared it of many evils. Napoleon dictates “I have closed the gaping abyss of anarchy, and I have unscrambled chaos. I have cleansed the Revolution, ennobled the common people, and restored the authority of kings. I have stirred all men to competition, I have rewarded merit wherever I found it, I have pushed back the boundaries of greatness.” This is the talk of a man who is not afraid to tell the world of his qualities and his accomplishments. And in reading a primary sou...