1. Violation of the Concordat
Napoleon
is accused for acting in an uncivilized manner towards the Pope. In
1804, He declared himself emperor and invited the Pope to officiate and
crown him. However, when the Pope was on the verge of crowning him.
Napoleon snatched the crown from him and crowned himself. He did this
just to show that nobody including the Pope was above him. This was not
only a national scandal but a humiliation to the Pope and Catholic
religion. Napoleon also abrogated the Concordat by arresting and
imprisoning the Pope. By 1808, there was a serious conflict between
Napoleon and the Pope because of Napoleon's anti-catholic behaviors and
policies such as the continental system. Consequently, in 1808, Napoleon
occupied the Papal States and officially added Rome to the French
empire in 1809. The Pope reacted by excommunicating Napoleon from the
church to which Napoleon reacted by arresting and imprisoning him. This
disappointed the Catholics and liberals in France and all over Europe.
NB.
In 1814, pressure from within and outside France forced Napoleon to
hand over the Pope to the Austrians who released him. He was eventually
restored to his former position.
Besides, the
concordat was received with mixed feelings. Die-hard Catholics could
never forget the church Status and privileges during the Bourbon
monarchy and therefore rejected it. On the other hand, fanatic
revolutionaries denounced the concordat as a betrayal of the
revolutionary reforms and a drive to the pre-1789 church privileges,
which they had shed blood to abolish. They considered payment of the
clergy by the state as unnecessary wastage of state resources. It was
not surprising that one of the revolutionaries commented; “the only
person missing at this ceremony are the million men dead who died to
get rid of this nonsense".
NB. Napoleon was not a
deeply devoted religious person who cared about life after death. His
feeling was that spiritual forces controlled the lives of the peasants
and soldiers and that is why he decided to influence and control those
forces. To him, religion was not to be dismissed like an outdated theory
in Chemistry. He considered religion as a political instrument to
consolidate his power. This is why Napoleon was a multi-religious person
as he confessed that; I am a Moslem in Egypt, a Jew in Syria and a
Catholic in France".
2. Dictatorship
Napoleon
adopted dictatorship, in his administration of France. He centralized
all powers to himself and left no room for democracy at higher levels of
administration. In 1804, he violated the constitution and declared
himself a life emperor. There was no election and parliament which
deprived the Frenchmen of a representative government. Worst of all, he
revived the system of Lettress de-Cachet especially from 1810. Napoleon
manipulated some codes/laws to strengthen his dictatorship. For
instance, he used the Penal and criminal codes to arbitrarily arrest and
imprison his political opponents. All these turned France into a
fascist state from 1810, contrary to the expectations of the
revolutionaries.
3. Revolutionary Subjects
Napoleon
was an "intellectual coward." He is blamed for abolishing the teaching
of revolutionary liberal subjects like history, philosophy, political
science and literature. This is because, these subjects sharpen the
reasoning capacity of people, which would incite them to criticize and
expose his weaknesses. He admitted his weakness when he said; "I fear an
Insurrection caused by Shortage of Bread. I would fear them more than a
battle of 200,000 men." Napoleon was generally too fearful of
parliamentary debates and liberal critics from higher institutions which
made him to ban the teaching of revolutionary subjects.
The
ban on revolutionary subjects violated article IV of declaration of
rights of man, which provided that "Liberty consists in being allowed to
do whatever does not injure other people". This undermined France's
capacity to produce future revolutionary leaders and betrays Napoleon as
a true son of the French revolution.
4. Education of the Girl Child
Napoleon's
education system segregated girls in favour of boys. He commented that;
I do not think we need to trouble ourselves with any plan of
instruction for young females...Public education is not suitable for
them, because they are never called upon to act in public. Manners are
all in all to them and marriage is alt they look to. To him, women
should be taught religion and morals to indoctrinate them with the
spirit of tolerance, forgiveness, love and submission to their husbands.
This is why he stated that; "What we ask of education is that girls
should not think, but that they should believe…. Napoleon believed that
women should not play any public role nor hold any public office apart
from the "Kitchen". This is against the principle of equality of all men
by nature and denied France of talents that could have been exploited
from women.
5. The Continental System
The
continental system that was designed as a strategy of defeating Britain
failed and had negative consequences for France and Europe. The system
blocked the British superior and cheap manufactured products to European
Countries, France inclusive. Worst of all, the substitute to British
goods were of poor quality and very expensive, which lowered the demand
in the market. This made the French and European businessmen to .close
their businesses and industries. The end result was famine, inflation,
unemployment industrial breakdown and financial crisis.
6. Repressive Laws against women
Napoleon used repressive laws that neglected the principle of equality and violated the rights of women.
The
code Napoleon was a conservative instrument that legally made women
inferior to men. Napoleon remarked that; The angle told Eve to obey her
husband...it should be written in our code..! The Penal
Code
provided for severe punishment for women who disobeyed their husbands.
Women were to be under total control of their husbands and could not
acquire or sell property without the consent of their husbands.
This denied women their right to equality, liberty, fraternity and property.
NB
Divorce was permitted by mutual consent such as adultery, violence,
grave criminal offences. This was contrary to the doctrine/ teaching of
the Catholic Church that prohibited divorce for whatever reason:
7. Repressive Laws against Children
Apart
from women, the Code-Napoleon also ignored and abused children s
rights. Girls of less than 21 years were not allowed to make any
decision such as on marriage without the approval of their father and
the same applied to boys below 25 years old. Children of less than 18
years were to surrender their income to their fathers. The code also
gave fathers power to imprison their children for any unlawful
behaviour. All these consolidated the dictatorship of fathers over their
children and thus undermined their rights.
Favouritism and Nepotism
Napoleon
practiced Favouritism and Nepotism in his domestic as well as foreign
policy. The electoral process that was instituted to check favouritism
was reduced to Colleges i.e. Electoral College, which gave Napoleon a
chance to impose his family members and relatives to key positions of
responsibility in France and the conquered States. For instance, his
brothers; Louis Bonaparte, Lucien Bonaparte and Jerome Bonaparte were
made kings of Holland, Italy and West-Phalia respectively. This was not
different from the hereditary system of appointment of the Bourbons and
betrays Napoleon as a true son of the French Revolution.
9. Press Censorship
Napoleon
suppressed and restricted freedom of the press through his Police
chief, Fouche. Napoleon's view was that Liberty was not for the common
people. Consequently, he limited the number of Printers in Paris and
their proprietors were made to swear oath of obedience to the
government. The number of legal newspapers in Paris was also reduced
from 70 in 1800 to only 04 (four) by 1810. Those who defied the
government order and published anti-government ideas were either hanged
or imprisoned. This explains why the defeat of Trafalgar in 1805 was not
published in any newspaper till after Napoleon was overthrown. Thus,
Napoleon denied the Frenchmen the right to information (Press Freedom)
and undermined the revolutionary principle of liberty.
10. Aggressive foreign policy
Napoleon
is blamed for his numerous unending wars that were due to his burning
ambition to conquer Europe. The wars that he provoked such as the
Spanish (1808) and Moscow campaigns (1812) costed France thousands of
soldiers and a lot of financial resources. These ambitions also made
European powers to join hands in a series of coalition that climaxed
into his final defeat and down fall in 1815. Thus, Napoleon's aggressive
war policy led to economic decline in France, heavy losses of lives,
destruction of property and isolation of France in Europe.
Conscription into the army
Lastly
Napoleon conscripted (forceful recruitment) the Frenchmen into the army
just to raise a big army to fulfill his ambition of conquering the
whole Europe. By 1812, he had enacted a law that entitled all abled
bodied men to join the army. As European powers hardened on fighting him
and depleted his soldiers, Napoleon resorted to conscripting young boys
who were hurriedly trained and sent to the battle field. Most of such
conscripted boys and men were cowards who fought reluctantly and often
withdrew from the battle field or fraternized with Napoleon's enemies.
For instance, about 80,000French conscripts defected to the allied
powers on the eve of the Moscow campaign. This was because they were
forced to join the army against their consent/will. It should be noted
that Napoleon's army was also heterogeneous with conscripts from
Belgium, Portugal, Denmark, Italian States, and German States etc. It
became impossible to have proper command and instill discipline in the
army because they were from different historical, cultural and
linguistic backgrounds.
Attachments
No attachments
No comments:
Post a Comment