“Toujours l’audace toujours”

(Always audacity, always – Napoleon)

Napoleon became topical with the discussed film of the same name where four military battles and four love battles are seen (by the way, in my opinion the last ones were very boring and almost ridiculous), no one says that a statesman or a warrior has to be a good lover or a lover has to be a good statesman or warrior, but in the film both the statesman and the legislator are lost.

We see on the screen a slow, clumsy Napoleon who can only be compared to the heroic painting that the painter David made of him in some horse race before his troops haranguing them for battle. The coronation at Notre Dame is impressive where he decides to take the emperor’s crown in his hands and places it on his temples just like Josephin… no one should crown the character who achieved everything by himself.

I remember that before the Battle of the Nile, Napoleon spoke to his troops with that phrase that said: “Soldiers of France, fight well, forty centuries are watching you”. When Napoleon makes the horrible mistake of attacking Russia and causes his soldiers to die defeated by General Winter, attacked by Russian guerrillas and by the concept of leaving burned land, even with the burning of Moscow, it reminds me of Tchaikovsky who captures in his “1812” the emotion of a war that begins victoriously with the Marseillaise and ends with the heroic bells of Saint Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square.

Three million French people die in the service of Napoleon’s glory, sometimes capriciously faced with impossible enemies like the Battle of Waterloo.

When you arrive in Paris and see the Arc de Triomphe where the names of his main battles and his best Generals are, you want to try to understand the greatness of Napoleon Bonaparte with the transformation of Paris. And that manifests itself in Napoleon’s tomb.

The little Corsican ended up in exile twice on Elba Island and Saint Helena. His mark on history is indelible as he carried the intentions of the French Revolution: freedom, equality and fraternity to all the ends of Europe, creating a world where absolute kings should no longer have a place.

Austerlitz, Borodino, Marengo… battles painted with blood where the tricolor flag and the Marseillaise resonate gloriously but with the smell of death. Napoleon on film is smaller than Napoleon in memory and history. Long live France! Long live the French Revolution! Long live the equality of men and the brotherhood among the people!

José Galicot is a businessman based in Tijuana.

Email: jose.galicot@tijuanainnovadora.com