NAPOLEON AS A JOURNALIST

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 121, 15 February 1919, Page 3

NAPOLEON AS A JOURNALIST

"Napoleon Journaliste" is an interesting study of Napoleon's work as a journalist, though it arouses,hopes which the author, M. Perivier, has not entirely fulfilled. It ia now universally 1 admitted that Napoleon' was a master of language as of the art of war. Like Caesar, lie did not waste words. He hated rhetoric; ho went straight' to the point; he was direct; he "reduced thought to its simplest expression." Most of the famous French critics have dwelt on his style as though there were something marvellous in it, whereas it was in fact the expression of his character, inevitable as his greatness. He was angry—justifiably angry—when documents were printed in Paris, "supposed to come from me, in which 1 am made to write like a cobbler.". As "'lucre lias said, "in the great.man of action there is that which gives greatness to writing, there is thought; ana there is also that -"which gives t*o touch $T sublimity, a soiil." Any studont of Nnpoloon can recognise at onco the. words and phrases which came from tlio Emperor. He had a veritable iiistinct for journalism, and in his century he was one of tho two men the power of newspapers, jtetternich was the other. When Napoleon made of the "Moniteur," under his own direction, a most formidable weapon, Motternich projected an Allied "Moniteur" which was day after ddv to repjy._ So curious was Napoleon to know what v,as said of him that ho insisted upon his serretaries translating to him tho. most violent abuse, often wnen lie was in Tils bath, in which, as, all tho world knows, it was often his habit to lie for an hour or more, turning on the hot water till the temperature ros§ to such a point that they were enveloped in-steam and could scarcely read for it.

It is one. of tho misfortunes -of -history that a large' number of proofs, marked witli corrections in Napoleon's own writing, were' destroyed in 1858 by a fire dn the "Moniteur" office, before they had been fully examined or published. One of Napoleon's many ideas was that of n newspaper which only he should read, stating for him brutal truths. He carried it out by commissioning a writer, now forgotten but eminent in his time, Fiovee, to send him reports on public opinion. It is to the honour of both those concerned in that affair that 'neither abused his position. Napoleon was ready to read even when the facts were painful.

Fievee.with great tact and honesty, was not afraid to tell tho truth, and never nsed his journal to injure others or seek personal advantage— H.W.W., in tho Daily Mail,"