Napoleon's rise: luck and talent

Press, 17 April 1982, Page 16

Napoleon's rise: luck and talent

Prelude of Fame: An account of the life of Napoleon Buonaparte from his arrival in France to the battle of Montenoite. By Bertram Ratcliffe. Frederick Warne, 1981. 108 pp. Illustrations. Bibliography and index. $31.25. ■ (Reviewed by Keith C. Hooper) The military has often provided a sure path to political power, partcularly for successful generals. Unfortunately today the time-honoured criterion of external triumphs in defence of the homeland has too often been substituted by simply a strong reputation for dealing with internal dissent. Napoleon Bonaparte, however, qualified on both counts, a thrusting, ambitious, unscrupulous general-officer, who in the words of the late Chairman Mao realised, “power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” Probably more sensitive and intellectual than the majority of soldier-politicians, be nevertheless determinedly strode the same path to power.

Bertram Ratcliffe’s book deals with that most interesting period in any successful career: the early struggles to gain recognition. From arriving in France, a penniless Corsican refugee with a large dependent family to his eventual world acclaim, Ratcliffe unfolds an incredible tale of luck and coincidence. By chance encounters, being in the right place at the right time and receiving unstinting praise from his commanders in the field, Napoleon rose from captain to brigadier-general in one year. A record surely, even in revolutionary armies.

Yet Bonaparte had his setbacks. Befriended by the militant wing of the revolution headed by Robespierre, he was, on the latter’s fall, placed under arrest. However, his earlier written condemnation of tyranny stood him in good stead, and gradually he worked his way back into favour with the ruling

moderates. Ratcliffe discloses in his subjects denouncement of tyranny and numerous love-affairs, Napoleon’s paradoxical ability to hold at once two opposing views. • Perhaps, like many strong characters, he simply believed that whatever he wanted was right, whereas the motives of others were always suspect. Anyway it is to be noted that though affairs of the heart took second place to his career, he could write unswerving letters of love and

devotion to two different girls at the same time. Moreover, a same blurring of distinctions enabled him to demand total obedience from subordinates, while he. performed with ill-grace and indiscipline towards his seniors. The climax of this book occurs with “the whiff of grapeshot” affair, when

Napoleon saved the ruling moderates in the Convention from the ire of the Paris mob, and became the hero of the peoples’ representatives. The affair itself was not particularly heroic: Bonaparte, the skilled artillery officer, had waited with his guns for the mob to press forward before opening fire at point-blank range, immediately killing 200 and wounding many more. The rest fled. From this incident a lesson emerges for all revolutionaries: the moderates having been urged to power to restore some sanity, had by pulling too hard on the reins taken the steam out of the revolution and created a dangerous psychological and economic vacuum. Napoleon, therefore had to rescue the Convention twice over, by dispersing the mob, and then by winning a string of victories in Italy; so turning French energies outward and giving society a new impetus. But, as usual when soldiers seize power and seek to divert minds to their own ends, there is a human price to be paid. In this case Ratcliffe believes it was all worthwhile: "Fewer would have died but they might well have found life less worth living.” One wonders! Obviously the author admires his subject and the surrounding concept of glory. He makes no comment on the ruthless or egoistical aspects of Napoleon’s character: instead the narative advances an almost enchanted tale of an energetic young man, inevitably destined for unlimited power.

Fortunate coincidences exist in abundance and one suspects much apocryphal material has been included to spice the story. Yet if it lacks in rigorous academic notation, the reader is compensated by the compelling presentation of this saga, written in the best romantic tradition of history. Certainly an enjoyable and readable account of a famous soldier-dictator in the making.