Commentary
During Napoleon’s lifetime, French Canadians feared and opposed him. But later on, Quebecers, like almost everyone else, made a heroic myth of the man
Napoleon Bonaparte, the former artillery officer and self-crowned emperor who ruled France between 1799 and 1815 and conquered half of Europe, is history’s ultimate heroic-romantic figure. As a ruler, builder, lawgiver, and military leader, as a champion of the downtrodden, resister of British power, apostle of liberty for humanity, embodiment of the glory of France, and lover of countless women, his reputation has enjoyed a long afterlife since his death in humiliating South Pacific exile in 1821. In 2014 even that most English of historians, Andrew Roberts, published a brilliant adulatory biography of Napoleon, calling him “a giant of the modern era,” the “founder of modern France and one of the great conquerors of history.”…