'
The Memorial of Saint Helena,' a masterpiece of propaganda first published in 1823 (after
Napoleon's death in 1821) by
Emmanuel de Las Cases, revives the golden legend and lays the foundations of
Bonapartism. Famous novelist
Honoré de Balzac illustrates the admiration of the French and many Europeans by writing in "A Conversation Between Eleven O'Clock and Midnight," an excerpt from "Contes Bruns": "Who will ever explain, depict, or understand Napoleon? A man represented with his arms folded, and who did everything, who was the greatest force ever known, the most concentrated, the most mordant, the most acid of all forces; a singular genius who carried armed civilization in every direction without fixing it anywhere; a man who could do everything because he willed everything; a prodigious phenomenon of will, conquering an illness by a battle, and yet doomed to die of disease in bed after living in the midst of ball and bullets; a man with a code and a sword in his brain, word and deed; a clear-sighted spirit that foresaw everything but his own fall; a capricious politician who risked men by handfuls out of economy, and who spared three heads—those of
Talleyrand, of
Pozzo de Borgo, and of
Metternich, diplomatists whose death would have saved the French Empire, and who seemed to him of greater weight than thousands of soldiers; a man to whom nature, as a rare privilege, had given a heart in a frame of bronze; mirthful and kind at midnight amid women, and next morning manipulating Europe as a young girl might amuse herself by splashing water in her bath! Hypocritical and generous; loving tawdriness and simplicity; devoid of taste, but protecting the arts; and in spite of these antitheses, really great in everything by instinct or by temperament;
Caesar at five-and-twenty,
Cromwell at thirty; and then, like my grocer buried in
Père Lachaise, a good husband and a good father. In short, he improvised public works, empires, kings, codes, verses, a romance—and all with more range than precision. Did he not aim at making all Europe France? And after making us weigh on the earth in such a way as to change the
laws of gravitation, he left us poorer than on the day when he first laid hands on us; while he, who had taken an empire by his name, lost his name on the frontier of his empire in a sea of blood and soldiers. A man all thought and all action, who comprehended
Desaix and
Fouché."
The Count of Monte Cristo Napoleon plays an indirect yet utterly important part in
Alexandre Dumas' novel
The Count of Monte Cristo. The novel starts in 1815 with Napoleon exiled on the island of
Elba. Here we learn that he hands a letter to the protagonist
Edmond Dantès to give to one of his chief (fictional) supporters in
Paris - Noirtier De Villefort, the president of a
Bonapartist club. Dantès is unaware that Villefort is an agent of the exiled Emperor and that the letter Napoleon handed him contained instructions and plans about Napoleon's planned return to Paris. Dantès' rivals include Mr. Danglars, his long-time unspoken rival and shipmate, who first reports Dantès to the authorities as a Bonapartist, and Gérard De Villefort, the opportunistic son of Noirtier and staunch royalist, who, in order to protect his father from being outed as a Bonapartist, burns the letter and uses its former existence to frame Dantès and have him imprisoned in the
Château d'If until his escape after 14 years and seeks vengeance upon those who wronged him.
Doctor Who Napoleon features prominently in the
BBC Doctor Who Past Doctor Adventure World Game, in which the
Second Doctor must avert a plot to change history so that Napoleon is victorious. In an alternate timeline created by the assassination of the
Duke of Wellington prior to
Waterloo, Napoleon is persuaded to march on to
Russia after the victory at Waterloo, but he dies shortly afterwards, his empire having become so overextended that the various countries collapse back into the separate nations they were before, thus degenerating into a state of perpetual warfare. (This situation is made worse due to the intervention of the Doctor's old enemies the Players). In 2013, Applied Mechanics produced
Vainglorious, an epic, 26-actor immersive performance with Mary Tuomanen portraying Napoleon. Depictions of Napoleon in literature include: • Stanley from
A Streetcar Named Desire invokes the
Napoleonic Code while speaking with Blanche. • The pig in
Animal Farm who wrests control of Jones's farm from the other animals and becomes a tyrant is named
Napoleon. • Julien Sorel from
The Red and the Black by
Stendhal has to hide a portrait of Napoleon. •
Vengeance Is Mine (1899) by
Andrew Balfour is a novel revolving around Napoleon's exploits during the
Hundred Days and the Battle of Waterloo. • Moreton Hall's novel
General George (1903) focuses on the
Pichegru Conspiracy plot to assassinate Napoleon. A later update changed this to him saying "You know who I am, Sonic! I am the genius,
Dr. Robotnik!" •
H. Beam Piper's short story
He Walked Around the Horses features a
parallel universe in which both the
American Revolution and the
French Revolution were suppressed. Consequently, Napoleon does not rise to power and the Napoleonic Wars never take place. In 1809, he is described by a British general named Sir Arthur Wellesley as being a Colonel of Artillery in the
French Army and a brilliant tactician whose loyalty to the
French monarchy has never been questioned. • The collection
If, or History Rewritten assembles numerous
alternate history essays written in the first four decades of the 20th century. Napoleon has varying roles in many of them. •
Elvira Woodruff's ''Dear Napoleon, I Know You're Dead, But...'' (
Holiday House, 1992), illus. Noah and Jess Woodruff is a novel about a boy who writes letters to Napoleon. •
Harry Turtledove's
Alternate Generals anthology series have at least two stories based on the idea of Napoleon
emigrating during the
Reign of Terror. In volume 1's
The Last Crusader by
Bill Fawcett, he joined the
Church and became a Cardinal in
Rome; by the early 1810s he is a spiritual leader of the Allies who seek to overthrow the French Republic. In volume 2's
Empire by
William Sanders, he
formed an independent Empire based in
Louisiana; with his lieutenants
Andrew Jackson and
Davy Crockett he fights a valiant but doomed war against the British, vaguely analogous to the
War of 1812. • Napoleon is a character in ''Treason's Tide
by Robert Wilton, published in February 2013 by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books; it is set during the summer of 1805. This novel was originally issued in June 2011 as The Emperor's Gold''. • In the alternate history novel
Napoleon in America (2014) by Shannon Selin, Napoleon escapes from St. Helena and winds up in the
United States in 1821. •
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by
Susanna Clarke takes place partially during the Napoleonic Wars, and features Jonathan Strange fighting in Spain, and also plaguing Napoleon with nightmares. Lord Wellington also plays a large part in this novel. •
Javier Sierra's novel
La Pirámide Inmortal deals with an apocryphal story about Napoleon spending a whole night in the
Great Pyramid of Giza. • Mary "Jacky" Faber, in the
Bloody Jack series of novels, meets Napoleon in
My Bonny Light Horseman, having infiltrated Napoleon's armies as a British spy. • Napoleon appears as a minor character in the
Grimm novel
The Icy Touch. • In ''The Queen's Fortune: A Novel of Desiree, Napoleon, and the Dynasty that Outlived the Empire'' (2020), by
Allison Pataki, Napoleon plays a prominent role in the story of his first fiancée,
Désirée Clary. • In
Grandville (2009–2014) by
Bryan Talbot, France won the Napoleonic Wars and invaded
Britain, and the world is populated mostly by
anthropomorphic animals. Britain eventually regains its independence after a long campaign of civil disobedience and anarchist bombings, the
Bonaparte Dynasty rules the empire until Emperor Napoleon XII is killed by Detective Inspector Archibald LeBrock of
Scotland Yard when he discovers the Emperor is part of a conspiracy to reconquer Britain in order to steal its oil. ordering Napoleon into exile In film: •
The Furies: T.C. likens himself to Napoleon and keeps a
bust of him in his office. •
The Swan: Beatrix is mortified to find Napoleon's name on Nicolas's blackboard; he later proposes a toast to Napoleon. ==Computer and video games==