It seems that there was here a nice quote from Gogol? Was it removed?
In this discussion I take
part of Lordbest.
The revolution and the society in move is a terrible thing, like an avalanche (do you feel this).
Who can ride an avalanche?
Indeed, ``Bonaparte mainly fought for one thing: Bonaparte". It is not so bad as one can imagine
(Stalin fought for himself? No!).
Napoleons achievements were due to the fact that
his goals were endossed by the society.
I think that many people now cannot appreciate Napoleon because they transpose modern
paradigm with such concepts as
democracy, totalitarism etc. to that period.
Postfeodal structure of Europe was
obsolete and
had no chance to survive.
It
had a destiny to be destroyed in bloody wars with or without Napoleon.
The
history has chosen him to accelerate the process...
Can you imagine what a charisma
had Napoleon? Gaspar Monge, a great mathematician (and
by the way, the Navy minister), infitely devoted to revolution, was charmed by Bonaparte to such extent
that followed all
his adventures. He was a tough guy.
On a way back from
Egypt, it was an episode when Monge, as the
most reliable and decisive person, took a position with a gun to exploded the ship and avoid a capture.