VFLE - "Napoleon"

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE 

1) WILL ("king") 

2) PHYSICS ("toiler") 

3) LOGIC ("skeptic") 

4) EMOTION ("gawker") 

Bonaparte himself defined the order of his first two functions when he declared: "There are only two powerful forces in the world: the saber and the spirit. In the final analysis, spirit overcomes the saber. "Spirit," in this case, of course, is synonymous with Will, and "saber" is a metaphor for Physics. Therefore, by calling "spirit" and "saber" the most powerful forces in the world, Napoleon was simply pointing to what he had Above, and by favoring "spirit" out of the two, he was calling his First Function, that is, Napoleon had 1st Will and 2nd Physics, of which he, if not aware, was guessing, judging from the phrase above. 

Although it must be said that even without the Emperor's voluntary recognition, his 1st Will is visible to the naked eye. The striking simplicity, nonchalance, and naturalness with which he held positions of command, up to and including the imperial one, clearly point to his "regal" origins. One story of how he, playing cards, managed not to notice that a certain German prince manages to kiss his hand on the fly, worth something. 

From the "royal" nature of Napoleon's character, however, it does not follow that power did not change anything in his behavior, simply put, it did not spoil him. Occupying a position of power, Bonaparte allowed himself to be rude, rude even to women, which before it was not noticed. A biographer, especially engaged in the attitude of Napoleon to women, he wrote: "He could sometimes publicly put them in the most awkward position. During receptions, ladies were anxiously awaiting the moment when the Emperor spoke to her. He would compliment them unflatteringly on their toiletries and give away their secrets in front of everyone. It was his way of correcting the manners of the court. A young girl could expect to be asked how many children she had. Young women he could ask what month of happy expectation they were in, and to old ladies he would tell them to their eyes that in all likelihood they would not be long for the other world. If a lady was ugly or not to his taste, he would say to her when she presented herself to him, "My God, madam, I have been told that you are not bad-looking..." 

Being extremely egotistical, Bonaparte was less inclined to spare the ego of others. To the only woman he loved, Josephine, he gladly described his adulteries in detail and in response to her tears declared: "I am not a man like others, and the common laws of morality and decency do not apply to me. So, if he does not say so, any possessor of the 1st Will thinks. In this case, though, such behavior seems to have been revenge for the unhealed wound from the horns Napoleon's wife had first given him. 

Napoleon's boorish directness had its own flip side, a positive side - the ability, absent in many other leaders and bosses, to listen to the bitter truth without offense. Kolenkur wrote: "At times, even in all his treatment, in the tone of his voice manifested the mood of a man satisfied with the frankness, with which he speaks, and which so are not used to sovereigns. The bulletin issued by Bonaparte after his flight from Russia breathes with soldierly straightforwardness and honesty. However, it lacks the most important point - the name of the culprit of the catastrophe. Self-criticism has never been a strong point of the emperor, and the reader can hardly imagine the pathetic tricks this "genius" resorted to in order to find the cause of disasters beyond the real, lying on the surface causes: his own stupidity and boundless arrogance. 

Like all "kings," Bonaparte was fearless in the face of possible competition from other gifted ambitious men and felt this fearlessness in himself. He said: "I am not afraid of energetic people. I know how to use them and lead them; besides, I do not violate equality in any way, and young people, like the whole nation, value only equality. If you have talent, I will promote you; if you have merit, I will patronize you. Everyone knows this, and the general assurance of it goes to my advantage." There is much truth and much slyness in this statement of Napoleon's. Fearing no one, he was, however, insanely jealous of someone else's glory, someone else's authority, was ready to destroy and destroy thousands of people for the mere fear that the laurels of the triumphator may go to another. For example, at the head of the remnants of the retreating Great Army from Russia, Bonaparte deliberately left the stupid, weak-willed Murat instead of the energetic, respected in the army stepson Eugene Beauharnais. Disaster was not long in coming. In connection with it, Colencoeur remarked: "...a kind of distrust of loved ones and of everyone who had acquired personal authority was entirely in the emperor's spirit and coexisted with his character. 

Power made Napoleon more suspicious and cynical than before. I hope the reader will forgive me for quoting from Colencoeur's memoirs, but it gives an almost exhaustive picture of Napoleon's attitude to people: "In private life he showed no more complacency than in political affairs. Everything was interpreted by him against his neighbor. Always acting as if he was on stage as the emperor, he thought that others were playing with him the roles they had learned. So his first feeling was always one of mistrust, though only for a moment. Then he changed his attitude, but you always had to be prepared for the fact that his first impression of you will be little pleasant, and maybe even offensive to you. Always suspecting that underneath your remarks or suggestions there was some personal or secret interest, whether you were friend or foe, he confused friends with enemies first. I have often experienced this and can speak of it with full knowledge. The emperor thought, and on every occasion said, that ambition and interest were the driving motives of all actions. He seldom, therefore, allowed a good deed to be done out of a sense of duty or out of a sensitivity. He did, however, notice people who seemed to be guided by a sense of self-pity or a consciousness of duty. Deep down, he considered it, but he did not show it. He often made me doubt that sovereigns believed in the possibility of having intimates. The author of these lines, Colencourt, met Napoleon when he was already emperor, but mistrust, alienation are common, independent of social position, properties of the 1st Will. 

But let's go further, following Napoleon. For the 2nd Physicist, violence is a normal, frequent and natural way of defending and asserting one's self. Napoleon is no exception here, who, remembering his childhood, said: "Nothing impressed me, I was prone to quarrels and fights, I was not afraid of anyone. I hit one person, scratched another, and everyone was afraid of me. He carried his love of fighting from childhood into adulthood and cultivated it in himself from his military career until Waterloo. 

It does not follow, however, that Napoleon's 2nd Physique was embodied solely in effective violence. Bonaparte was a caring and affectionate son, brother, husband, father. The thought of the welfare of the peoples under his control also never left him. The emperor said: "... I am moved by the sorrows of nations. I want them to be happy, and the French will be happy. If I live another ten years, prosperity will be universal. Don't you think I like to make people happy? I like to see happy faces, but I have to suppress this natural tendency, because otherwise it would be abused. To these words of Napoleon, contrary to the facts, one cannot help believing: he himself was a workaholic, he appreciated diligence in others and, if he had not always been itching to fight, in ten peaceful years he could have noticeably improved living conditions in the country. In general, the epigraph to the combination of the 1st Will and the 2nd Physics can be taken Napoleon's words: "...I am a man. Whatever others may say, I also have something inside, I have a heart, but it is the heart of a monarch." 

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The only thing that can stop "Napoleon" in his victorious and irresistible, as it seems, march to the heights of power is his Achilles' heel - the 3rd Logic. And an immediate obstacle can be a competitor with a higher Logic, someone with imaginary or real intellectual superiority. When Marshal Zhukov, another prominent representative of the "Napoleon family", was asked why he did not remove from power Stalin, who fell into prostration in the first days of the war, Zhukov gave a purely "skeptical" answer: "I did not consider myself smarter than Stalin (with his 2nd Logic - A.A.)". 

Fortunately for Napoleon, he did not face the problem of intellectual competition in his career, so his 3rd Logic manifested itself differently. On the one hand, her fears were embodied in severe newspaper censorship. On the other hand, a good envy of other people's intelligence led Napoleon to take scientists with him on his campaigns, to care for them like no other, to take pride in the title of member of the National Institute like no other title. 

As Napoleon's career progressed, Napoleon's ideas about his own mental faculties obviously changed dramatically; his self-confidence in this respect eventually reached such a degree that, once a silent artillery captain, he turned into a tireless chatterbox by the time of his coronation. According to Colencoeur, Napoleon "did not have enough of the might of power and the power of force. He still wanted the power of persuasion. The fact that his thirst for persuasion was impractical and represented a form of selfaffirmation is indicated by the fact that the emperor often spent his polemical fervor on small people who did not decide anything, the same Colencoeur, who himself was surprised by Napoleon's passion in this matter and wrote: "The more difficult was the emperor to convince me, the more art and ingenuity he used to achieve this goal. Judging by his efforts, by the brilliance of his arguments and the form of his speech, you could think that I was a power, and he was extremely interested in convincing that power. 

I have often observed in him this eagerness and this perseverance. I am far from attributing it to my own account. He did the same thing to everyone he wanted to convince, and he always wanted to do it. 

His Logic was the 3rd, and so it remained, with all its derivatives: skepticism, susceptibility to superstition, short-lived forecasts and the superiority of the irrepressible "I want! 1st Will over the sobering babble of reason. The defectiveness of the Emperor's logical apparatus was no mystery to the courtiers and was simply glossed over by them. Caulaincourt, who spent a short time near Bonaparte, wrote: "When the Emperor had any idea that he thought useful, he created illusions for himself. He assimilated the idea, cherished it, was penetrated by it; he, so to speak, absorbed it with all his pores. Can we blame him for trying to give illusions to others? If he was trying to tempt you, he himself had already been tempted before you were. No man's mind and judgment have been deceived to such an extent, have been so much exposed to error, have been so much a victim of their own imagination and their own passion, as the emperor's mind and judgment... 

Possessing such genius, such hardened character, and such a powerful will that made him stronger than failure, he was at the same time so prone to indulge in dreams, as if he really needed this means of consolation of weak souls. 

* * * 

Napoleon's 4th Emotion, as is the custom of all Fourth Functions, was non-partisan, malleable, and could create the illusion of good artistic ability. The 1st Will usually uses the 4th Emotion for political purposes, which is what Napoleon did, who liked to say: "I can be a fox or a lion. The whole secret of governing is to know when to be one or the other." Napoleon tried to use his artistic talents in his negotiations with Alexander I, at critical moments playing in front of the Russian king's state of affect. Alexander, however, was a more talented actor than Napoleon (see "Dumas"); he was subtle in his own play and subtly aware of the play of others, so he did not believe Napoleon's affect and responded by grasping the door handle with determination, much better played the offended virtue. 

* * * 

The "Napoleon" type can be considered quite common in the world. Thanks to the 2nd Physique, he is good at any position. True, "Napoleon" is good as a worker, but he is even better as a master; he is a good athlete, but even luckier as a coach. In short, in all matters concerning leadership (1st Will) in the practical field (2nd Physics), "Napoleon" is hard to beat. 

Among famous people, "Napoleons" are very likely to include: Caesar, the Apostle Paul, Luther, Bismarck, Churchill, Franco, Tito, Den Xiao Ping, Marshal Zhukov, Pope John Paul II, Valens and a host of other big and small "Bonapartists" for whom the sphere of application is only an excuse to fulfill a major need, the need for leadership. 

The usual "Napoleon" is an ungrown, dense man with a stubborn, good-natured, sneering look. Clothes are emphasized neat, clean, with many clasps and not flashy. His hair is short and practical. Speech is emotionally free, but somewhat retarded. - Dense, stocky man with a hard, straight, mocking gaze. His face is round. He is sassy, ceremonious, unflappable. The gesture is calm, stately, confident, precise. His speech is even, assertive, ironic, monotonous. Secretly has a weakness for music, literature, art, and, after drinking, not averse to sing something himself in a soft, little expressive voice. His eyes are persistent, attentive, thoughtful, without gleam. Mimicry and gestures are almost absent. The haircut is short and neat, even women rarely resort to hair coloring "Tvardovsky" is caring, homely, handy, although not without arrogance and irony refers to the simple cares of life.