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This essay is a substantially revised version of a talk that was delivered to the Edinburgh Carlyle Society in March 2005 and published in the Society's occasional papers series. All translations are mine unless otherwise indicated.
OF THE INSTINCT for hero-worship, Carlyle writes that "it is very cheering to consider that no sceptical logic, or general triviality, insincerity and aridity of any Time and its influences can destroy this noble inborn loyalty and worship that is in man" (Heroes 14). Though he regarded Napoleon as a deeply flawed hero, Carlyle would not have been surprised either by the controversy or the interest that has been stirred as a result of the 200th anniversary of his coronation as Emperor in Notre Dame Cathedral on 2 December 1804. While "le bicentennaire du sacre" has generated widespread criticism of Napoleon's legacy - the French Historia Thématique devoted its entire November-December 2004 issue to a "Contre Enquête Explosive" centered around the question, "Napoléon: Empereur ou Dictateur?" - the occasion has also demonstrated the enduring strength of what Carlyle would have called the Napoleonic "Mythus" (Sartor 144). Its power and its allure are best summarized by Dominique de Villepin, the present prime minister of France, who asserts in his best-selling study, Les Cent-Jours, ou l'Esprit de Sacrifice (2001): "The conjunction of a man and a nation, Napoleon lives indissolubly in our collective destiny" (593).
For Villepin, Napoleon's life illustrates his boast that "Je suis la Révolution française." In peculiarly Carlylean language, he celebrates the Emperor's legacy: "Not a day goes by without my feeling the imperious need to remember so as not to yield in the face of indifference, laughter or gibes . . . and to advance in the service of French ambition" (65, 10). Villepin's response suggests that even in an age dominated by postmodern skepticism, heroworship remains a vital force. As Carlyle observes in Heroes, unbelievers might mock the tendency, but "in no time whatever can they entirely eradicate out of living men's hearts a certain altogether peculiar reverence for Great Men; genuine admiration, loyalty, adoration, however dim and perverted it may be" (13). Nonetheless, Carlyle rejects Villepin's conviction that Bonaparte incarnates the French Revolution. According to Carlyle, Napoleon betrays the very principles that first distinguished him...