English Caricature and Satire on Napoleon I. Volume I (of 2). Ashton John

‘Napoleon Buonaparte is the son of a poor lawyer of Ajaccio, in Corsica, in which city he was born on the 15th of August, 1769. His grandfather, Joseph, originally a butcher of the same place, was ennobled by Count Nieuhoff, some time King of Corsica. He was the son of Carlos Buona, who once kept a liquor shop, or tavern, but who, being convicted of robbery and murder, was condemned to the Gallies, where he died in 1724. His wife, La Birba, the mother of Joseph, died in the House of Correction at Geneva (? Genoa). On the 3rd May, 1736, when Porto Vecchio was attacked, Joseph Buona brought to the assistance of King Theodore a band of vagabonds which, during the civil war, had chosen him for its leader. In return, Theodore, on the following day, created him a noble, and added to his name Buona the termination Parté. Joseph Buonaparte’s wife Histria, was the daughter of a journeyman tanner of Bastia, also in Corsica.’

      And yet one more, from another equally veracious ‘life.’ ‘Buonaparte’s great-grandfather kept a wine-house for factors (like our gin shops), and, being convicted of murder and robbery, he died a galley slave at Genoa, in 1724: his wife was likewise an accomplice, and she died in the House of Correction at Genoa in 1734. His grandfather was a butcher of Ajaccio, and his grandmother daughter of a journeyman tanner at Bastia. His father was a low petty-fogging lawyer, who served and betrayed his country by turns, during the Civil Wars. After France conquered Corsica, he was a spy to the French Government, and his mother their trull. What is bred in the bone will not come out of the flesh.’

      CHAPTER II

DESCENT FROM THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK – ANAGRAMS, ETC., ON HIS NAME – THE BEAST OF THE APOCALYPSE – HIS MOTHER’S ACCOUNT OF HIS BIRTH

      The foregoing was the sort of stuff given to our grandfathers for history; nothing could be bad enough for Boney, the Corsican Ogre– nay, they even tortured his name to suit political purposes. It was hinted that the keeper of ‘the Man with the Iron Mask,’ who was said to be no other than the twin (and elder) brother of Louis XIV., was named Bon part; that the said keeper had a daughter, with whom the Man in the Mask fell in love, and to whom he was privately married; that their children received their mother’s name, and were secretly conveyed to Corsica, where the name was converted into Bonaparte, or Buonaparte; and that one of these children was the ancestor of Napoleon Bonaparte, who was thus entitled to be recognised, not only as of French origin, but as the direct descendant of the rightful heir to the throne of France.

      They put his name into Greek, and tortured it thus: —

      Napoleon, Apoleon, Poleon, Oleon, Leon, Eon, On,

      Ναπολεων, Απολεων, Πολεων, Ολεων, Λεων, Εων, Ων,

      which sentence will translate, ‘Napoleon, being the lion of the nations, went about destroying cities.’

      In the ‘Journal des Débats,’ 8 Avril, 1814, although not an English satire on his name, it is gravely stated that he was baptised by the name of Nicholas, and that he assumed the name of Napoleon as an uncommon one; but this name, Nicholas, which was applied to him so freely in France, was but a cant term for a stupid blockhead. Whilst on this subject, however, I cannot refrain from quoting a passage from a French book: ‘I do not know what fellow has held that Napolione was a demon, who in bygone times, amused himself by tormenting a poor imbecile. The fellow can not have read the life of the Saints: he would then have learned that St. Napolione, whose name is given at length in the legend, is as good a patron as any other; that he performed seven miracles during his life, and twenty-two and a half after his death – for he had not time to finish the twenty-third; it was an unfortunate tiler who, in falling from a roof, broke both his legs. St. Napoleon had already set one, when an unlucky doctor prescribed some medicine to the sick man which carried him off to the other world.’9

      There is an extremely forcible acrostic in Latin on his name, which deserves reproduction: —

      N ationibus10

      A uctoritatem

      P rincipibus

      O bedientiam

      L ibertatem

      E cclesiæ

      O mni modo

      N egans

      B ona

      U surpavit

      O mnium

      N eutrorum

      A urum

      P opulorum

      A nimas

      R evera

      T yrannus

      E xecrandus.

      But not only was his name thus made a vehicle for political purposes, but the expounders of prophecy got hold of it, and found out, to their great delight, that at last they had got that theological bugbear, the Apocalyptic beast. Nothing could be clearer. It could be proved to demonstration, most simply and clearly. Every one had been in error about the Church of Rome; at last there could be no doubt about it, it was Napoleon. Take the following handbill as a sample of one out of many: —

A Prophecy(From the 13th Chapter of Revelations)ALLUDING TOBUONAPARTEVerse 1st

      ‘And a Beast rose out of the Sea, having ten crowns on his head,’ &c.

      This Beast is supposed to mean Buonaparte, he being born in Corsica, which is an island, and having conquered ten kingdoms.

Verse 5th

      ‘And a mouth was given him speaking blasphemies; and power given him upon the earth, forty and two months.’

      Buonaparte was crowned in December, 1804; it is therefore supposed the extent of his assumed power upon earth will now be limited, this present month (June) 1808, being exactly the forty-second month of his reign.

Verse 16th

      ‘And he caused all to receive a mark in their hands, and no one could buy or sell, save those that had the mark of the Beast.’

      To persons conversant in commercial affairs, these verses need no comment. There are, at present, some of these marks to be seen in this country; they had the Crown of Italy, &c., at top, and are signed ‘Buonaparte,’ ‘Talleyrand’; and all of them are numbered.

Verse 18th

      ‘Let him that hath understanding, count the number of the Beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is Six hundred, Sixty and Six.’

      This verse is curious, and should be read attentively. The method of using letters for figures at the time the Revelations were written is proved by many monuments of Roman antiquity now extant.

      The above verses are not the only parts of the chapter which have reference to Buonaparte, but the most prominent ones; the connection throughout has been clearly ascertained.

      In a curious little book called The Corsican’s Downfall, by a Royal Arch Mason, published at Mansfield in 1814, at p. 6, it says, with reference to the numeration, ‘The oldest treatise on the theory of arithmetic is comprised in the seventh, eighth, and ninth books of Euclid’s Elements, about two hundred and eighty years before the Christian era. The first author of any consequence who used the modern way of computing by figures, instead of letters of the alphabet, was Jordanus of Namur, who flourished about 1200; and his arithmetic was afterwards published and demonstrated by Johannis Faber Stapulensis, in the fifteenth century. The name, then, and number of the Beast must be discovered (if at all) by the ancient method of computation in use at the time when the prophecies were written.’

      But Bonaparte ungratefully refused to fulfil prophecy by being destroyed at the end of forty-two months, i. e. in June 1808, which must have put the expositors on their mettle. They were, however, fully equal to the occasion, and ingeniously solved the quotation this way.

9

Buonaparte et la famille, ou Confidences d’un de leurs anciens amis, Paris 1816.

10

Denying by every means the authority of nations, obedience to princes, or liberty to the Church. He usurped the goods of all, the treasure of neutrals, the souls of nations: in very truth he was an execrable tyrant.