Paris exhibit explores both sides of Napoleon
PARIS— Few historical figures have as contentious an image as Napoleon Bonaparte. A military genius, he ended 10 years of revolutionary bloodletting in France, wrote a code that still underpins many of the world’s legal systems, introduced the metric system, gave the continent its first telegraph network, and emancipated Jews and Christian dissidents across Europe.
At the same time, his armies executed prisoners and looted art throughout Europe. He muzzled the press in France and imposed his family as rulers across Europe, and reinstated slavery in French colonies. Millions died in his wars, although France was as often the victim of aggression as the aggressor.
A new exhibition at the Paris Invalides War Museum makes no ef- fort to hide the bad side of the emperor, whose imprint is still felt on every aspect of modern France.
At the start of the show, the viewer comes face to face with JacquesLouis David’s heroic painting of a dashing Napoleon crossing the Alps in 1800 on a fine steed. The panels make clear the painting was a work of propaganda, and include copies of other paintings that show him more prosaically, and accurately, riding a sturdy mule in a wool coat.
The display makes ample use of such contrasts. David’s sketch for his adulatory painting of Napoleon’s 1804 coronation is hung next to a drawing by caricaturist George Cruikshank showing a bratty Napoleon and an obese Josephine.
A Baron Lejeune painting presenting Napoleon’s coup d’etat in 1799 as a democratic exercise is partnered with an English cartoon showing Napoleon as a crocodile scaring a room of frogs. The exhibition doesn’t have a mili- tary theme, even if it’s in France’s national war museum. The show’s title makes it clear the emphasis is on how Napoleon influenced Europe, and how other Europeans viewed him. Paintings, cartoons, statues, newspapers, and coins show that, during his rule, portrayals throughout Europe ranged from dashing liberator to squat tyrant. Maps show the imprint his monuments and public works left in cities as far apart as Paris, Milan and Antwerp. His height was often underestimated by the scorning English. In fact, he was 5 feet, 7 inches — about average for his time. Nine European countries shared collections for the show, including Greenwich’s National Maritime Museum, which lent Lord Nelson’s uniform from the Battle of Trafalgar, complete with deadly bullet hole; and the Kremlin Museum, which sent a Russian general’s uniform and standard.
There’s Turner’s watercolour of Waterloo and a gruesome Goya work showing the bloody repression of Spanish rebels.
The explanatory panels are excellent, full of detail and never didactic — although they are only in French. Napoleon and Europe runs through July14 at Musee de L’armee, 129 rue de Grenelle, Paris.
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