Reactions to Napoleon Bonaparate have always been mixed, particularly among the Romantics. Byron had a life-long fascination and self-identification with Napoleon, going so far in Childe Harolde as to call Napoleon "the greatest... of men" and to call himself "the grand Napoleon in realms of rhyme". Wordsworth, on the other hand, saw Waterloo as an act of "Almighty God" and became so vehement in his disapprobation of Napoleon he joined the Grasmere Volunteers to help defend England in case "Satan" should dare invade.

The German intelligentsia, despite having their country invaded by Napoleon, were more-or-less unanimous in their approval (Beethoven excluded). Goethe, with deep pleasure, received the Legion d'Honneur from Napoleon himself and declared that Napoleon, after the Revolution was "the expression of all that was reasonable, legitimate, and European in the Revolutionary movement". According to the British historian Alistair Horne, the philosopher Hegel went even further. "Hegel was said to have stood bareheaded in the street, even when the French soldiery stole his possessions; to him, Napoleon represented the 'Embodiment of the Absolute Ideal'. One hopes that said Embodiment was kind enough to return Herr Hegel's possessions.

It is always difficult to smuggle a banned book into a country in which it is banned, particularly when said banned book is Victor Hugo's Napoleon-le-Petit, which was obviously critical of Napoleon III, who exiled the author, and that country is France, ruled by said Napoleon III. Hugo's work reached Paris:

-tucked in barrels of hay
-wrapped around tobacco leaves
-stuffed in carriage clocks
-sandwhiched between two sheets of metal, i.e. as a sardine
-in bundles of pages strapped to the legs of tourists in baggy trousers
-hidden in the bindings of prayer books
-in women's garters

Perhaps the most outlandish method of dissemination reads like something out of Dumas novel, though it comes straight from the French Foreign Office:

"The latest mode of clandestine transmission consists of small balloons fashioned from sheets of printed paper which will be launched whenever the wind stands fair for France."

The Other Dumas Apparently Just Sucked

One Thursday in 1847, a little known playwright, Adolphe Dumas put on his play L'Ecole des familles. The Monday before, Edouard Thierry asked Alexandre Dumas, "When are they going to play your L'Ecole des familles at the Theatre-Historique?"

"Thursday," said Alexandre Dumas.

"How long do you think it will run?"

"Thursday," repeated Alexandre Dumas.

"But I didn't ask you when, I asked how long it will run."

"Well yes!" replied Alexandre Dumas. "I told you- Thursday."

Malays were pretty fierce back then it seems

While we are on the subject of opium, it would be remiss of the Amateur Historian not to mention Thomas de Quincey, whose rambling but fascinating narrative Confessions of an English Opium Eater, is not only an intriguing look at addiction, altered states of consciousness, English Romanticism and 18th-19th century England, but a repository of bizarre happenings, such as the Malay Incident. It is best to leave most of the description of this even in de Quincey's own words.

‘One day a Malay knocked on my door. What business could a Malay have to transact among the recesses of the English mountains was not my business to conjecture, but possibly he was on the road to Seaport, about forty miles distant’.

Though the servant girl, 'who had never seen an Asiatic before' was left in mutual bewilderment with the Malay, who spoke English as well as she spoke Malay, de Quincey took it upon himself to see to it that said nameless Malay got a place to stay and something to it. Then de Quincey gave him a parting gift in the form of (you guessed it!) a large lump of opium. de Quincey writes:

‘I was struck with some little consternation when I saw him suddenly raise his hand to his mouth, and bolt the whole, divided into three pieces, at one mouthful. The quantity (of opium) was enough to kill some half-dozen dragoons, together with their horses, supposing neither bipeds nor quadrupeds were trained opium-eaters.'

The Malay was perfectly fine, though de Quincey had highly symbolic nightmares for several pages after that.

Bad Romanc...ticism

The Amateur Historian has often thought that Lady Gaga's music videos were best understood under the influence of something and would like to suggest that opium is as good as any- which this delightful music video on Samuel Taylor Coleridge shows perfectly:

It's only a flesh wound!

Wellington wasn't the only Brit at Waterloo with the stiffest of upperlips. During the battle, the Earl of Uxbridge reamarked to Wellington, "By God, sir, I have lost my leg!"

Wellington replied, "By God, sir, so you have!" at which point Uxbridge went to have the shattered remains of his leg amputated. His only reaction to the excruciating field surgery was to remark, "The knives appear somewhat blunt."

Stiff Upper Lip, what what?

The Duke of Wellington, among other things, was well-known for his hilariously matter-of-fact approach to difficult situations. During his political career (which is often forgotten, perhaps wisely, in favor of battlefield heroics), a madman burst into Wellington's office. Wellington asked what he wanted.

The madman replied that he wanted to kill the duke of Wellington.

"Does it have to be right now?" the Iron Duke demanded.

When the madman hesitated, Wellington waved him away and told him to come back later.

Unsurprisingly, Wellington escaped this assassination attempt unscathed.

Rather a sticky situation

Ever since the New York delegation to the 1776 congress arrived in Philadelpha, unable to do much more than abstain from voting because the New York legislature had never been too busy arguing to give them any instructions (an oft-repeated quote from the film 1776: "New York abstains. Courteously!"), New York has had something of reputation for being the homebase of large, quarreling groups whose actions tipped into the bizarre.

The Amateur Historian enters the Molasses Gang evidence. This gang, first formed in 1871, had a peculiar form of robbery. One member would walk into a store and ask the storeowner to fill up his hat with molasses, saying that he had a bet with a friend on just how much molasses his hat could cold. The gangmember would thereupon stick the hat, full of molasses, on the head of the shopkeeper and the gang- presuming they hadn't gotten bored and wandered off halfway through, as was often the case- would loot the store.

The Amateur Historian does not quite blame the gang members for getting bored. It must have taken a very long time to fill anything up with molasses, let alone a hat.

Happy Birthday VH!

Gentle Readers, you might have realized that, as of late, there have been a spate of posts about Victor Hugo. Now, why is this you might ask? To build up to Victor Hugo's birthday today, of course!

The Amateur Historian, it must be admitted, feels herself unworthy of snarking just one moment of Hugo's life on his birthday, of all days, and so will let Graham Robb, who is quite possible The Literary Biographer of 19th century French authors, do the talking for her:

"[During the Paris Commune, the] whole city had paid tribute [to Victor Hugo], from the actress who called herself to 'Cosette' to the schoolteacher who called herself 'Enjolras'... 'Enjolras' was Louise Michel, soon to be adored and detested as one of the fiercest anarchists of the Commune, the so-called 'Red Virgin'. The thought of this martyr of socialism baring herself in front of her childhood hero has caused some discomfort to her admirers. A broad-minded socialist regime might have made it the subject of a commemorative postage-stamp."

The Amateur Historian would never use any other postage-stamp ever.

Lost in translation

Even the most profound of literary geniuses have their little slip-ups. As the Gentle Reader may have noticed, the Amateur Historian possesses a certain fondness for Victor Hugo, whose life might as well have been the subject of one of his novels (and, to a certain extent they were; though some literary critics have floated the theory that all writing is, to a certain extent, autobiographical, Hugo drew inspiration for all of his works from his own life).

The Amateur Historian believes that Alfred, Lord Tennyson, was the first to point out that it took an odd sort of genius for a man exiled for about fifteen years to English-speaking islands in the Channel to never learn a word of English. It would have been useful for Hugo to learn at least one as, in his novel Les Travailleurs de la Mer, set on and dedicated to the island of Guernsey, Hugo lovingly devoted an entire chapter to his character's 'bug-pipe'.