The Age of Napoleon

The Age of Napoleon
© 1975 will Durant
870 pages

Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me – or didn’t.  Will and Ariel Durant intended for Rousseau and Revolution to be the final volume in their epic history of Western Civilization, but grew bored waiting for the Grim Reaper to show up and claim them.  They decided, therefore, to scratch an itch, and devote a final volume to Europe in the age of Napoleon.  No individual has ever dominated a single volume in this fashion; even Charles the Fifth,  in The Reformation, would disappear  in chapters chronicling Persia and Arabia.   But Napoleon’s story encompasses not just France and England, but Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria,  and Russia.  The emperor does move backstage at times – in the chapters on  English poetry and novels, for instance – but he is never completely gone.  This final volume manages through Napoleon’s person to be just as comprehensive, but more tightly bound.

The Durants open with a more involved chronicle of the French revolution that concluded Rousseau and Revolution, this one making more obvious that the revolution was a slow but quickening crumbling of royal legitimacy that collapsed into the chaos of revolution after a few sudden shocks.  The king’s decision to attempt to escape France in fear of his life was one such shock, demonstrating that he was and remained an actor – not a prop.  From here, the Durants follow the Wars of the Coalitions, as the various nations of Eurrope fell in to and out of alliances with or against France, with the enmity between England and France being the only fixed point.  In 1807, with Napoleon  enjoying one of his greatest triumphs – the subjugation of Prussia, and the pretended friendship of Russia –  the Durants pause to cover  both French and English culture, including one hundred pages on English poetry alone.   They then alternate  sections on the culture of Germany, Russia, Italy, Iberia, etc and sections on the Napoleonic wars as they encompassed these regions.

Related to this volume’s unusual dominance by one person is the unusually heavy amount of military coverage here. The Durants typically dispatch wars in  a few sentences, concerned with them only as a background to  the social or political events that develop as a consequence.  There’s no getting away from battles and Napoleon, though, even considering the energy he poured into the political administration of France and Europe, and the long-term effects that energy would have.  The result is not a military history, however; there are no maps of battles.  Instead, the Durants treat the readers with their usual balance of literature, science, economics, etc.   there is a section on Jane Austen, for instance.  Another prominent author, Germaine de Staël,  maintained a long rivalry with Napoleon; she wrote a celebratory survey of German culture that pined for more amity between France and the Germans, and was present in Russia when Napoleon drove towards Moscow.  Beethoven, of course, merits a full section of his own.

Napoleon reliably described himself as a Son of the Revolution, even though his policies ended some revolutionary dreams.  His concordant with Rome, for instance,  re-established the Catholic Church in France, albeit in a corralled form. That was a far cry from the total secularization (or de-christianization, depending on the revolutionary), dreamed of by many – those who redrew the calendar and butchered France's artistic legacies,  those who in a just heaven will be consigned to  war forever with the whitewashing Puritans and the sculpture-smashing Wahhabis,   as well as others who would destroy art and heritage for ideology. Napoleon did apply much of the revolutionary, modernizing spirit to those parts of Europe he conquered  -- overwriting their ancient laws and traditions with constitutions from his own pen.   Although Napoleon kept faith with some of the past as convenient -- his concordant with Rome, for instance -- the Durants observe that in his army and state,  merit reigned, allowing even commoners to advance.

Although the Napoleonic wars have never been of great interest to me, the Durants' volume created an actual enthusiasm in me about the subject. As usual, I was impressed with their critical but forgiving evaluation of Napoleon, whom they regard as one of the singular men of history.  His reputation owes not just to his role in closing the violence of the revolution, or in his spectacular battles -- but pouring so much energy into his work, and being so successful in combat and in administration, that he transformed Europe,  planting seeds that would flourish throughout the 19th century. A century after his final defeat at Waterloo, an even greater war -- one spurred by changes Napoleon wrought -- would be harrowing the soil of France in blood, bones, and cannon once more.

And now, dear readers, what's next in Will Durant's Story of Civilization?

C'EST FINI! 

Rousseau and Revolution

Rousseau and Revolution
© 1957 Will and Ariel Durant
1092 pages

"...little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor, and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded, and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever."

Edmund Burke, on the execution of Marie-Antoinette

In the tenth volume of Will Durant's  Story of Civilization, we now approach the latter half of the 18th century.  This is an age of titanic personalities, in every field.  Frederick the Great of Prussia, Catherine the Great of Russia,  Samuel Johnson, Goethe, Bach, Schiller, Gibbon, Adam Smith, Rousseau, Voltaire -- what an age to be alive in!    For those unfamiliar with Durant's epochal series, his approach was a symphonic history that covered politics, economics, religion, architecture, music,  and literature. This particular volume opens with Jean-Jacques Rousseau's critique of reason, and -- amid all the politics -- examines the influence of the Romantic reaction on the arts and politics, ending with the storming of the Bastille.

This is an age of enormous change; the industrial revolution has spread beyond England, and its social consequences are brewing political revolution, especially in France. It is an age of war, like most ages; Russia, Austria, and Turkey bicker incessantly over the Black Sea, and western Europe sees several wars of succession. The most influential conflict, however,  is the Seven Years War. This saw most of Europe allied against Prussia and England, with from some instability on Russia's part. While the consequences in Europe were minimal,  this was the war that made England an superpower.  While everyone invaded (and was rebuffed by) Prussia, the English chased the French out of  both India and North America, creating an incredible global empire.  The Seven Years War would set the stage for the American War of Independence, removing as it did America's great opponent on the continent, and pressuring the British to make the colonies pay for themselves via taxation.

Although the Enlightenment has already provoked its reaction in the form of the Romantic movement in the arts, the 'age of reason' itself is not yet spent: it is only now beginning to enter some subjects, like economics.  Irreligion among the intellectual caste is de rigeur, although in the Protestant north, a few individuals (Boswell and Gibbon, for instance) get their subversive kicks by embracing Catholicism, if only temporarily.  Writers like Voltaire and Rousseau write constantly of novel approaches to old problems: Emile, for instance,  is ostensibly about the proper education of a human being. (A curious subject, given that the author sent his own children to an orphanage on their birth.)  In the decline that which had been sustaining public morality, the Church and faith in general, people tried to find new ways of justifying a moral life. Some, like the Marquis de Sade, didn't bother; they rejoiced in the fact that without God, all things were permissible. Much of the philosophy here, skeptical as it was of the old authority, also rebelled against reason; this was an age of Feeling, of sensibility -- hence a larger role here for literature, theater, and other arts in the history. Rousseau in particular is used to epitomize the beginning of the romantic age, for his writings condemned cities, civilization, and material learning as corruptive elements leading the inherently good hearts of men astray. (Burk's comment about sophisters and economists almost echoes him there.) His emphasis on humanistic morals, however, did not make him a traditionalist; he regarded the Church with suspicion because it threatened patriotism, being an institution which transcended nations. (This was an age of French literature, Italian opera, and German music -- every nation had something to be extremely proud of.)  Rousseau is most remembered for his political philosophy, which emphasized the 'will of the people'.  While sometimes cited as an inspiration for the American revolution, Rousseau did not believe that representative legislatures truly served the will of the people; that had to be effected through full democratic assemblies, and so genuine democracies must remain small.   Rousseau's emphasis on popular will  and republics put him at odds with Voltaire, who distrusted the populace and smiled upon enlightened kings. In general, Durant noted, the revolutions of the 19th century would follow Rousseau in politics and Voltaire in religion.

Rousseau and Revolution is, like  all of the books in Durant's series, formidable in its size but not in its writing. Durant, when he shows his personality, is utterly amiable. He is not as personal with his pen here as he was in The Age of Faith or The Reformation, but at times we witness the human being behind the pen, mindful that he is not writing of abstractions but of real people. He cautions the reader to never lose sight of the individual people whose lives were creating what we perceived as larger trends. Accordingly,  Durant writes not just of big things -- the epic novels, the epic personalities -- but of passing affections, like fashion and frivolities, the concerns of the flesh and blood creatures who then walked abroad. The Durants are gentle and humane authors, students of the very history they write, forgiving of their subjects' sins and excesses.  We'll see if that lasts throughout the French Revolution, for this book ends with the storming of the Bastille.

We move now to Napoleon and the end of civilization; or at least, the end of Will and Aerial Durant's Story thereof.

The Great Debate

The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the  Birth of Right and Left
© 2013 Yuval Levin
296 pages

The Great Debate uses the war of letters between Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine  to explain the philosophical differences between conservatism and progressivism. Both men were political actors, albiet in different spheres, and both achieved renown during the period of the American and French revolutions. While both the respectable MP Burke and the revolutionary Paine supported the American cause, they broke furiously over the French.  Drawing on each party's respective works, some written as direct rebuttals to the other, Yuval Levin explores their opposing philosophies in different sections: the meaning of 'nature', the role of choice,  reason versus tradition, and so on.

As a pair, they remind me faintly of  John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, with Adams as the cynic and Jefferson the romantic. Burke emerges here as a man constantly aware of human frailties, and desiring to mitigate them as much as possible -- chiefly by preserving the structure of government passed down from generation to generation, which he assumes as custom-tailored for its people through the ages -- and making marginal, cautious changes as circumstances dictate.  Paine is marked more by idealism, mindful only of the good which we are capable of.  For Paine,  tradition and custom are the mere baggage of time. For him, there are certain principles which, if followed, guarantee freedom and progress. The trick is that these principles have to be built into the foundation, so  virtually everything has to be torn down to make room for them. It is in that vein that he argues that the American states should adopt a tack that would later be embraced by the French: erasing the historical boundaries of distinct places, and instead creating new little subdivisions of the State, purely for administrative purposes. Burke did not see the American revolution as a revolution; he saw Parliament's recent presumption of absolute powers over the colonies as all-too-new preogative, at odds with the facts of distance and precedent. (For Paine, the Amercan revolution was the start of a global revival, the dawn of an Age of Reason applied politically.)  Paine can see no reason to create internal checks and balances: so long as the beginning principles are sound, there will be no need of conflict.

 For me,  I think back to Adams and Jefferson, and wonder whose vision I trust more -- the skeptic of human nature Adams,  who mistrusted too much democracy but refused to own or  hire slaves...or the idealistc Jefferson,  who could sing 'liberty' to the heavens but who maintained his own stock of enslaved persons. Give me Adams -- his actions have more weight than the prettiest words.  The same goes for Burke and Paine. While I can disagree with Burke time and again, ultimately erring on the side of caution strikes me as as better than ripping apart society and allowing for creatures like Napoleon.  While Levin doesn't reduce Paine to caricature, the amount of time he gives to Burke -- required given Burke's sheer complexity --  gives the book a Burkean balance.   Paine's idealism survived as long as it did, I think, because he never held an office of political responsibility. He thus enjoyed the luxury of never having to put his ideas into practice personally, rather like a few other political philosophers of the 19th and 20th century.   I found The Great Debate fascinating  dialogue between two equally sympathetic men, of idealism mixing with cognizance of our limitations.  The title is total oversell, though,  since Paine's connection with progressivism only appears in the conclusion.

Jefferson

Jefferson: A Novel
© 1998 William Brant
448 pages

In  the late 1780s,  William Short put pen to paper to create a biography of his boss and mentor, Thomas Jefferson. Then serving as ambassador to France, Jefferson was already a seasoned American politician, having previously been in the Congress that declared independence, and shortly thereafter held office as Virginia’s governor. That biography is a novel going in two directions;   the main thread follows Jefferson’s social life in France during the 1780s,  with interruptions by Short to tell Jefferson’s story from boyhood to his travels abroad.  The text is heavy with dialogue; the major activity is talking before dinner, or during it, or after it --  and the expressions seem drawn mostly from Jefferson’s letters. Because the storyteller is Jefferson’s protégé, is a tale largely sympathetic to the quiet man whose presence looms so large over his friends and American history; Short puts several stories about Jefferson to rest, offering his own interpretation of events.  It’s a strange novel, one that doesn’t so much go somewhere as give readers a chance to spend dinner after dinner with Jefferson,  coming to know his mind and the stories of his life. Other personalities like John Adams (a man of "granite flecked with sugar"), Ben Franklin,  and the Marquis de LaFayette are regular companions. The heavy but agile use of Jefferson's actual writings, and the abundance of historical characters, make it a book worth reading for anyone passionate about the Revolution and its lingering meaning. Like American Sphinx, it's more of a study in character, but this time from a more intimate angle -- face to face over a course of French fare. 

The Age of Revolution

History of the English-Speaking Peoples: The Age of Revolution
© 1955 Sir Winston Churchill
332 pages

The third volume in Winston Churchill's "History of the English Speaking Peoples" begins with the most dramatic assumption of power in modern English history.  In the age of religious warfare, the Protestant-majority Parliament deposed its Catholic king, James II, and invited William of Orange and his wife Anne (an English princess) to take the throne. The 'glorious revolution' opens The Age of Revolution, an age which ended the long epoch of history-as-made-by-the-king and ushered in the modern dominance of parliaments, congresses, and diets.

The revolutions which felled kings in England, America, and France anchor the book, with countless European wars occupying the chapters between. Although the wars of religion are fading,  state politics causes conflicts aplenty on its own, like the wars of French and Spanish succession, and the seemingly near-constant Anglo-French wars in the Netherlands. The wars leapt continents, as the Seven Years War in Europe became the French and Indian War in North America. The greatest conflict, of course, was the series of Napoelonic wars, which end the book. Throughout this long century (the book spans 127 years),  the English king plays an increasingly smaller role; the 'glorious revolution' isn't the last time Parliament simply chooses to appoint its next king, and the Hanoverian succession of Georges that continues today  demonstrated that de facto sovereignty lay with Parliament, not the king.

Churchhill is a moderate historian, and its coverage of the American War of Independence is as genteel and even-sided as one might expect from a half-American author shared the rigors of World War II at the side of Franklin D. Roosevelt, of whom he said, "It's fun to be in the same decade with you."  The conservative Churchhill is likewise careful when recording the bitter battles between Tories and Whigs, the then-dominant political parties; neither side is favored. (The long view of history aides objectivity; I doubt Churchill is so fair in his narrative of World War 2!) This is narrative history, a grand story driven by personalities like the the handsome, brilliant, dashing, gallant, honorable, endlessly clever Duke of Marlborough.  Also known as John Churchill, or Sir Winston's great-great(etc)-grandfather, the attention given to him shows that  this isn't quite 'objective' history, but what's the point of having famous ancestors if you can't brag about their exploits defending the Netherlands against dictators from the east?  Given his own history in World War 2, little wonder he identified with the Duke's so strongly. The French revolution gives us a villain in Napoleon, and towering heroes in the form of the Duke of Wellington and Lord Nelson to slay the Corsican dragon.

All told, The Age of Revolution is quite an enjoyable survey of this period's history, of medieval kingdoms maturing into modern states, despite being largely about the wills of titanic characters and the wars they fought.

A Far Better Rest

A Far Better Rest
© 2000 Susanne Alleyn
353 pages

Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities is the story of a family beset by revolution. Regarded as a classic of western literature,  the novel warns against the dangers of Revolution and celebrates individual self-sacrifice, unpredictably embodied by the figure of Sydney Carton, who rouses himself from a drunken slumber to save a man’s life, returns to his rest, and rises once more at the novel’s end to save an innocent man from the guillotine’s murderous wrath. A Far Better Rest is Carton’s story, told through his eyes -- and an excellent complement to the classic, I might add.

At first the novel did not too much impress me: its cover and opening chapters made me suspect I was in for a period romance instead of a ‘proper’ historical novel. This, I’m happy to report, was a misjudgment on my part. While romance is inevitable -- Carton’s enduring love for Lucie Manette drives him throughout the plot, here as in Dickens’ original -- this is not a bodice-ripper. Indeed, those bodices which are mentioned remain firmly fastened. Though we see inside Carton’s soul, Alleyn does not make her readers bedroom voyeurs. Instead, Alleyn focuses on what love drives Carton to do. Inspired by Lucie’s faith in him, and her simple goodness, Carton determines to recall himself to life and travels to France, where he finds himself in the middle of a Revolution -- a revolution that will, as it continues to mold France’s destiny, force Carton and others to choose their own paths. Carton is continually buffeted by fate, but seeks redemption if only to justify Lucie and others’ faith in him. Lucie is not his only motivation: having grown as a character, Carton only learns of the Mannettes’ presence in Paris in the midst of a personal quest.

Any novel inspired by A Tale of Two Cities cannot very well avoid the Revolution, but Carton’s place in the relative thick of things gives the reader a personal view of the chaos that began to unfold after the First Republic found itself at war with a continent full of adversaries and ruled by a council of ruthless crusaders determined to preserve their gains at all costs. Carton finds in the Republican struggle something to live for, but his hopes are dashed when the Revolution, "like Saturn, eats its own children".  Alleyn evidently knows the period quite well, and displays an impressive amount of historical detail. (She even attaches a bibliography -- not something I see in a lot of historical fiction.) This is reflected in the style of the narrative, for Carton-as-narrator employs some older spelling variations ("connexion"), capitalizes random Nouns within sentences, and O! uses period abbreviations, tho' they run the gauntlet between being distracting and somewhat immersive.  Alleyn or her editor's choice of font was also well done -- conveying an 18th century feel.  The only truly distracting stylistic choice (for me) was Carton's self-censorship:  words deemed vulgar are marred by underscores, so damned becomes d___ed and bollocks b_ll_cks.  The reader knows d___ed well what's being said, but 'walking through' the underscores tends to slow down the book's pace.

Speaking of pace, the book turned into a page-turner after a slow start. The beginning of the book is its weakest -- there's a forced scene in which Carton meets two future revolutionaries while studying in France, one that has no function other than to establish a prior relationship between the boys for when they mature into men destined to lead France from monarchy to Republicanism. The political elements make the book a sort of thriller, and Alleyn's depiction of Carton's relationships with Darton, Lucie, and a third character, coupled with his masterful character growth, created in this book book an absolute winner for me -- one I'd recommend without reserve. Just as Carton redeemed himself, so will his "self-written" account redeem the story of A Tale of Two Cities for those who think it too florid, dense, or inaccurate -- for Alleyn thinks Dickens' exaggerated account of the revolution a blot on his reputation and attempts to portray it more fairly here. She's an author who takes her history seriously.
        

Related:

• A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens.
• Citizens, Simon Schama

Citizens

Citizens: a Chronicle of the French Revolution
© 1989 Simon Schama
948 pages

Aux armes, citoyens,

Formez vos bataillons,

Marchons, marchons!

Qu'un sang impur

Abreuve nos sillons!

Mon dieu, this was a read. My first mentor and first college-level history professor recommended this to me back in 2004, although its girth has intimidated me for years. (I've not yet read Gibbon for the same reason.) Out of persistent affection for my instructor and my newfound interest in popular movements and revolts, I braved Citizens and found it an engaging read which not only made good my ignorance of the Revolution, but forced me to reconsider what little I knew of it. Although it has loomed large over my imagination, enjoying it was only a matter of sitting down, opening it up, and reading the first few sentences.

The author purposely returns to a style of historical narrative that hinges on the actions of individuals and the importance of dramatic events, eschewing the more detached and analytical style of Marxist historians who see revolutions of the middle class against feudal orders as historical inevitabilities. I'm fairly comfortable with historical materialism, although not so devout a materialist that Schama's focus on France's individual situation, culture, and the effect of charismatic persons perturbed me. Schama frequently appears in the text as an individual ("I do not mean to say...") when explaining the significant of an event to the reader. While I've been told this is  unprofessional for a historian, it does have the effect of reminding the reader that this is an individual opinion:  opinions can sound like absolute facts when stated  in the objective, authorial voice that is encouraged among historians.

Schama's broad treatment of the Revolution reevaluates traditional accounts of the shakeup that place emphasis on France's economic woes and see the outbreak of violence as unnecessary and tragic. He sees the failure of France's monarchy as virtual suicide, while the opening  moves for reform practically institutionalized violence against the old regime. Schama's most interesting observation for me was that far from being a government mired in the past, Louis XVI's government was obsessed with modernity, and those who desired the government to change had opposing interests even when working together. Relatedly,  Schama's idea that the Parlements found so much power in agitating against the government that even when the king and his ministers attempt to repair the ship of state, they blocked his attempts and forced failure fascinated me. Citizens shows well a nation's descent into chaos, although two-thirds in the emphasis on individuals and particular events made it difficult for me to grasp the general story.

For a student of France and the Revolution, Citizens is a worthy read.