The Mentor: Napoleon Bonaparte, Serial No. 38Tarbell, Ida M. (Ida Minerva)
History
The Mentor: Napoleon Bonaparte, Serial No. 38
Tarbell, Ida M. (Ida Minerva)
Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 1769-1821
Industries of all kinds had sickened in the long period of war.
Bonaparte undertook their revival by one of the most severe
applications ever made of the doctrine of protection,--he even
attempted to make his women folk wear no goods not made in France!
His interest in agriculture was as keen as in manufacturing, and
his personal suggestions and interference of the same nature. The
prosperity of the country was stimulated greatly by the public works
Bonaparte undertook. One can go nowhere in France today without finding
them. It was he who set the country at road building. Some of the most
magnificent highways in Europe were laid out by him, including those
over four Alpine passes. He paid great attention to improving harbors.
Those now at Cherbourg, Havre, and Nice, as well as at Flushing and
Antwerp, Bonaparte planned and began. As for Paris, his ambition for
the city was boundless. He was responsible for some of her finest
features and monuments.
His greatest civil achievement was undoubtedly the codification of the
laws, and it was the one of which he was proudest. That he contributed
much to the Code Napoleon besides the driving power that insisted that
it be promptly put through, there is no doubt. His great contribution
was the inestimable one of commonsense. He had no patience with
meaningless precedents, conventions, and technicalities. He wanted laws
that everybody could understand and would recognize as necessary and
just.
[Illustration: NAPOLEON AS FIRST CONSUL]
Nothing more daring was undertaken in this period by Bonaparte than his
reëstablishment of the Catholic Church and his recall of thousands of
members of the old régime driven out of the country by the Revolution.
It was an attempt to reconcile and restore the two most powerful
enemies of the Revolution, the two that the first consul knew Europe
would never cease to fight to restore to power. There was of course
great opposition in radical and republican circles to both ventures.
[Illustration: NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
From the painting by Delaroche.]
[Illustration: LIEUTENANT OF ARTILLERY
From a painting of Napoleon by Greuse.]
[Illustration: KING OF ROME
From a painting by Sir Thomas Lawrence of the unfortunate little son
of Napoleon and Marie Louise. His unhappy story is told by the French
dramatist Rostand, in the play “L’Aiglon.”]
EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH
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