NEO-CLASSICISM
Napoleon (Novel)
By Emil Ludwig
In 1799, after the French Revolution had quieted into the
Thermidorean Reaction, a brilliant general named Napoleon Bonaparte overthrew
the Directory and came into power as leader of the Consulate, beginning in
1799. Under Napoleon, France became a nationalist power, expanding its
territory into Italy and exerting its influence over other powers. Napoleon
consolidated his rule by suppressing rebellions in France, normalizing
relations with the Church in the Concordat of 1801, and streamlining the French
law system in the Napoleonic Code. By 1804, Napoleon was so powerful that he
declared himself Emperor.
Defeating the various military coalitions the other
powers of Europe threw against him, Napoleon won battle after battle: Marengo
(1800), Austerlitz (1805), Jena-Auerstadt, and Friedland (1807). He built a
vast empire of dependant states, forced Czar Alexander I to ally with him in
the 1807 Treaty of Tilsit, and controlled the majority of Europe. Everywhere he
went he spread the reforms and influence of the French Revolution to a
remarkable extent. Just about the only blemish on his record during the first decade
of the 19th century was a stunning naval loss to Britain at the Battle of
Trafalgar
Seeking to undermine Britain's sea power, Napoleon issued
the Berlin Decree in 1806, imposing the Continental System on Europe, which was
meant to stop European countries from trading with Britain. Instead of hurting
Britain, the Continental System hurt Napoleon. Upset by Napoleonic rule,
Germanic nationalism got its start, and the Germans began to move towards
Romanticism as an intellectual rebellion against French Enlightenment ideas. In
Spain, the attempt to impose the Continental System led to the Peninsular War,
a protracted guerrilla war that diverted French forces from the rest of Europe.
In 1810, Napoleon replaced his wife, Josephine, who had
borne him no heir, with a younger wife, Marie Louise of Austria. They produced
an heir, referred to as The King of Rome. Napoleon's happiness did not last,
however, because at the end of 1810, Alexander I withdrew Russia from the
Continental System. In 1812, Napoleon moved his Grand Army into Russia. Though
Napoleons army pushed the Russians into constant retreat, the terrible Russian
winter decimated Napoleon's Grand Army. Napoleon rushed home to raise a new
army, but was defeated in October 1813 by an international coalition of armies
at the Battle of Leipzig.
In 1814, Napoleon was exiled to the island of Elba and
Louis XVIII took the throne of France, returning a Bourbon to the throne that
had been lost by Louis XVI just twenty years earlier. As the powers were just
starting to negotiate a settlement, Napoleon escaped from Elba and returned to
France, raising an army during the period known as the Hundred Days. Napoleon's
army was defeated by Wellington (Britain) and Blucher (Prussia) at Waterloo in
June 1815. He was then exiled to Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he
eventually died.
The chaotic Europe left behind by roughly two decades of
war was reorganized by the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815). The major powers
sent their top negotiators: Metternich (Austria), Castlereagh (Britain),
Alexander I (Russia), Hardenberg (Prussia), and Talleyrand (France). The
complex and delicate negotiations in Vienna created a stable Europe wherein no
one power could dominate the others, as Napoleon's France had, for quite some time.
Not until a century later, when World War I started in 1914, would another
Europe-wide military conflict break out.
Analysis:
The
English Neoclassical movement, predicated upon and derived from both classical
and contemporary French models, embodied a group of attitudes toward art and
human existence — ideals of order, logic, restraint, accuracy,
"correctness," "restraint," decorum, and so on, which would
enable the practitioners of various arts to imitate or reproduce the structures
and themes of Greek or Roman originals.
This literary piece is a neoclassical for it was
published and written during neoclassical period. A revival in literature in the late 17th and
18th centuries, characterized by a regard for the classical ideals of reason,
form, and restraint.