What the Napoleon Film Got Right

Since so much of the commentary on the Napoleon film has focused on what it got wrong, I’ve decided to speak on what I believe it got right; which is, the extent to which Napoleon sought peace. The notion that one has of him, handed down to us through his sobriquets (e.g. the Corsican Ogre, Europe’s Nightmare), not to mention the complex to which his name was given, is of a belligerent little man, hellbent on world domination. However, this is not entirely true, and the film, to some extent, redresses this myth.

I say ‘to some extent’ because the scenes to which I will refer are brief encapsulations of what occurred throughout Napoleon’s reign (which is understandable since it squeezed 28 years of history into two and a half hours of film).

The first scene occurs just after Napoleon is made First Consul. He is dictating a letter to the King of England proposing peace. This letter, which in reality was sent on January 2nd 1805, six years after his coup, expresses a sentiment he would repeat throughout his reign. ‘My first desire,’ he writes, ‘is peace’. But war, he assures King George, is not something he is afraid of:

France and England, abusing their prosperity, may…