I recently read a book called "Napoleon's Biography" and found that I saw a Napoleon who subverted cognition.
What do you think of Napoleon? Do you think he succeeded or failed?
Cold-faced ruthless, a generation of tyrants, invincible? Successful people?
But I, through the "Biography of Napoleon" written by Emile Ludwig, saw another Napoleon who was low to the dust, a confused Napoleon.
The Napoleonic biography, by Emile Ludwig, sold out in the United States after its first edition in 1925 and topped the U.S. nonfiction bestseller list within two years. Today, this book has also received rave reviews in China and has been warmly recommended by Professor Fan Deng.
If you savor it, you will find that Napoleon is not actually the guy who is high in the imagination, and in the book, you will still have this feeling:
First of all, Napoleon was an extremely insecure, full of inferiority. He was not the one who had the sunshine in his heart and was omnipotent.
Napoleon's birthplace was Corsica, and later this place was conquered by the French, and it belonged to France, but Napoleon hardly considered himself French. His heart had always wanted to fight France back and liberate Corsica.
When he was in school, he rarely had a smiley face, and the inferiority complex in his bones made him not know how to interact with his classmates. He told others that their family was italian aristocrats.
He said he was an aristocrat, but he rarely saw him spending money. The nobles who did not spend money were naturally ridiculed by their classmates from noble families: "What is the nobles of Corsican!" If you are really brave and good at fighting, why were you defeated by our invincible army?
Hearing this, Napoleon burst out with extreme discomfort: "We are one against ten." You wait! When I grow up, I will definitely teach you Frenchmen a good lesson!
So much so that later when he became emperor, he would still talk about you French people.
It's like he's alone, surrounded by "enemies", can you say he can live with peace of mind? The same is true for children, if he is allowed to study and live in that aristocratic circle, it is quite a terrible thing, and if he does not adapt, he will not be able to relieve anxiety, and he will be depressed.
Because of his insecurity, his interpersonal relationships were not good, and he chose to study later. Artillery, siege tactics, Plato's Republic, astronomy, geology and meteorology, and the constitutions and histories of nations.
According to the author's statistics, his existing reading notes, about 400 pages: political maps, king tables, gunpowder data, how to platoon soldiers, etc., this is simply an outlier.
Of course, people without friends are too terrible to die in silence, but to erupt in silence. This kind of person, you have to be careful with each other.
You see, in a book, you can also learn how to know people.
Continue with the Napoleon in the book, and secondly, Napoleon is an emotional fool.
The book tells the beginning and end of his first meeting with his lover Josephine.
Soon after Napoleon became commander, he ordered that the private possession of weapons by civilians was prohibited, and many people's weapons were confiscated.
One day, a 12-year-old boy from Napoleon's office pleaded to return his dead father's sword, telling Napoleon that it was his father's legacy, not a weapon.
Napoleon thought the boy was interesting and agreed to his request. Not long after, the child's mother came to thank her. This mother was Josephine.
Napoleon took a fancy to her at a glance. The two men began to write letters to each other.
This passage in the book is particularly funny: "I am waiting for you, I am full of you, you leave in the afternoon, after three hours, I can see you after meeting you do not kiss me, otherwise you will feel the blood boiling and burning, and finally burn yourself to death." 」 ”
This letter of his, it is estimated that the fierce brain supplement, may not be able to form that brilliant picture.
There is also a passage in the book where Napoleon misses Josephine when he is fighting outside, and he says, "Come to Italy, I want to see you, it's safe here."
Josephine, who was busy with extramarital affairs, told him that she was pregnant and would not go.
Napoleon, who had always wanted a child, immediately apologized: I'm sorry! I've been complaining and blaming you, but the truth is that you're sick and I don't know...
When he went back to see Josephine, Josephine told him that I was not pregnant and lied to you.
From the movie "Napoleon's Love History"
Josephine was very abusive during Napoleon's war, and at most napoleon complained that even if she divorced, the reason for the divorce was not that she split her legs with others, but did not give him children.
And Mary Louise, who bore him a child, did not love Napoleon, only because he had a status at that time, and was an emperor. In the end, it was Mary Louise who betrayed him, and she agreed to the Austrian army to attack Napoleon.
It can be seen how much Napoleon failed emotionally!
There is also a person who makes me think that he is a loser, and he is a person who does not know how to pretend to understand.
In the book, Napoleon went to inspect the naval base and went to the seashore without seeing the ships exercising. He angrily called out to the commander of the navy and asked why there was no ship.
The commander said: "There will be a big storm soon, and if the exercise will kill people, this risk cannot be taken." ”
Not knowing how to pretend, he chased the commander away and began the exercise.
As a result, the storm really came, and hundreds of people died in an instant, but fortunately, Napoleon escaped.
The book also tells the story of his strategic failure.
He led his troops to attack Russia. But no one has seen it since entering Russia. If you want to fight, you can't find anyone, just like you kick your foot out to hear a noise, and then you kick on the cotton pile and don't even react.
It was cold and tired, and by the time we reached Moscow, the troops were almost swallowed up by the land.
In 1815, he was exiled by the French to St. Helena. 6 years later, he died. This was his life.
Napoleon was exiled
What's the use of us looking at biographies?
In peacetime, you can't see war, and you can't go back to Napoleon's time, but we can learn from his failures, find problems, and prompt us to try not to learn from his failures and shortcomings.
It is worth mentioning that the book is gifted with Easter eggs, you can look at the guide manual written by Teacher Fan Deng to better understand Napoleon.