Tyrant, liberator, warmonger, bureaucrat: the meaning of Napoleon

Ever watched a film about how important bureaucratic reforms are devised? Ever wanted to? Hopes were high among a certain type of nerd that a Hollywood blockbuster out this week would provide just those thrills. Alas, “Napoleon”, a big-budget biopic, serves up rather more predictable fare: the manner in which a Corsican upstart seized absolute power as French emperor, fought endless battles and bonked a slew of mistresses. Thrilling as blood, sweat and courtship can be, it misses the point of Napoleon. For whereas many tyrants over the course of European history have fought wars and ruled impetuously, not to mention imperiously, few have marked modern Europe—and the world beyond—so enduringly. Forget Bonaparte the general, the Napoleon that really matters was the fellow who held dozens of administrative gatherings from which emanated the laws and institutions that hundreds of millions of people still live by today.Europeans are unsure about where to place Napoleon, who ruled France from 1799 to 1814 (a bit less long than Angela Merkel ran Germany two centuries later) before a brief return in 1815. To many he is one of those figures from distant history, a latter-day Julius Caesar or Charlemagne, who came to rule vast swathes of the continent. Detractors paint him as a tyrant whose personal ambition led to ruin and death, a prelude to the madmen who came to wield totalitarian power in the 20th century. Indeed, Napoleon and his killed millions. Adjusted for population, that is perhaps no less murderous than an Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin. But, unlike them, his reign also bequeathed institutions, laws and reforms that left Europe more free and better run.