How to get a promotion.....
- From: Straydog <asd@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2007 09:32:15 -0500
The following is a quote from a book I just finished...
It involved the Napoleon Bonaparte family (yes, THE Napoleon)
Brackets ([]), in case you don't know it, signify comments by me for clarification.
----quote-----
During a state banquet at Saint-Cloud on 18 May, after the proclaimation of the Empire, it was announced that not only had Joseph and Louis [both brothers of THE Napoleon] become princes but that their wives were princesses and Imperial Highnesses. Elisa and Caroline [sisters of THE Napoleon] remained without titles. One of Josephine's [Napoleon's wife] ladies-in-waiting, Mme de Remusat, who was present, tells us:
Mesdames Bacciochi and Murat appeared dumbfounded by this
distinction between themselves and their sisters-in-law.
Mmme Murat in particular could scarecely conceal her
resentment.... During dinner she was so little in control of
herself that, when she heard the Emperor [Napoleon] address
'Princess' Louis ..[Hortense, Napoleon's step-daughter]...
several times, she was unable to keep back her tears. She
swallowed several glasses of water in an attempt to recover
herself and to seem to eat something, but in the end she was
overcome by sobs...Mme Bacciochi, older and with more self-
possession, did not cry, but adopted a curt and cutting manner,
treating the ladies-in-waiting with marked hauteur.
Elisa and Caroline went home in a fury--no doubt they saw it as yet another victory for Josephine.
The very next day, so Mmme de Remusat (said)..., Caroline had a private interview with Napoleon in the Empress's boudoir. ... Screams and sobs were heard. Caroline 'demanded to know why she was being condemned, she and her sisters, to obscurity, to public contempt, when strangers were being heaped with honours and titles.' The Emperor replied coldly, 'To listen to you, one would think that I had robbed you of the inheritance of our father the King.' Caroline played a last card, falling rigid to the floor in a faint. Astonishingly, one of the hardest men in the world [Napoleon] surrendered to this hackneyed feminine strategem. The following day the official journal, the _Moniteur_, announced, 'The French Princes and Princesses have been given the title of Imperial Highness. The Emperor's sisters will bear the same title.' In addition Bacciochi was speedily promoted to general and created a senator."
[there's more]
"The clan's mother [the mother of Napoleon] was not going to be left out. .... [a person of importance] wrote to Napoleon on her behalf, complaining that his lack of letters to her was making her feel ill. Furthermore, 'Your mother would like a title, a formal rank. She is very distressed that some people are calling her "Majesty", or "Empress Mother", while others only address her as "Imperial Highness" like her daughters. She is impatient to learn what has been decided for her.' ...After lengthy discussions with experts on etiquette who had survived from the old days of Versailles, her son decided on the style 'Madame, Mere de Sa Majeste l'Empereur.' which the imperial court soon abreviated to 'Madame Mere.'"
---end quote
This is from the book "Napoleon's Family" by Desmond Seward. 216 pp, including index, and a reference list of about 60 books with relevant titles.
Here is a quote from the DJ blurb:
"No family in history ascended to the thrones of Europe as rapidly--or were stripped of their royal trappings with as much dispatch--as the Bonaparte clan. Napoleon...bestowed enormous favors and wealth on his seven brothers and sisters and placed them on the thrones of Spain, Naples, Tuscany, Rome, Holland, and Westphalia.:
"[in the book, the author discusses] The gossip-mongering, back-biting, and bickering for honors among Napoleon's siblings was incessant, often vicious, always deliciously entertaining, and a constant embarrasment to their illustrious brother. They showed little aptitude for governing and little courage on the military fields, reserving all their daring for dissolute adventure and scandal. One brother was a drunken wastrel, another a venal womanizer, and third a paranoid depressive. The emperor's sisters distinguished themselves not only by the eminence of their lovers--among whom numbered Metternich and the violinist Paganini--but by their insatiable appetite for more."
While I was primarily interested in the 'psychology' of a guy who made so much trouble for so many people (wars, death, destruction), the whole extended family including all of the relatives and how they carried on could be summed up as a bunch of basically spoiled brats who lived beyond their means and had inflated ideas about their "entitlement" to priviledge but always managed to secure large "allowances" (from the treasury of France), pensions, and shared booty that Napoleon scooped up when he won wars (most of the time) and took back to France, not without taking a large private "cut" of this booty for himself and his family.
Napoleon seemed to be a guy with a strong obsession to be preoccupied with this hobby of his to carry out conquests by war and at the expense of France and France's resources even when everyone (even much of his immediate family) was finally telling him to give the hobby a rest because it was killing France. Out of all of the waste, there was barely one page of credit for anything done out of social conscience by any of the Napoleon family members.
Of course my hobby is in discovering that so many of these "leaders" organize their hobbies in a manner that embellishes and agrandizes THEMSELVES and their goals and all at the expense of OTHERS (i.e. underlings). In other words, these people are dangerous.
.
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