This book found its origin in the author's PhD thesis and was to remain a work of reference, both in positive and negative terms, for all those studying the Napoleon myth and Napoleonic historiography.
Philippe Gonnard took a single starting point: namely that the Napoleonic legend, broadly speaking the interpretation of the events as propagated by public opinion and historical writings, was forged by Napoleon himself in exile on St Helena, via the dictation of his memoirs and the remarks made to his companions in misfortune, which those companions later wrote down.
The legend can therefore be summed up in four general themes:
– Napoleon was the confirmed and unbiased representative of the principles of 1789
– Napoleon, a believer in liberal ideals, was only a dictator out of necessity
– Napoleon, because of his desire for peace, was continuously forced into armed conflict with Europe in coalition against him
– Napoleon supported and proclaimed the principle of nationalities
According to Philippe Gonnard's theory, all these ideas were developed first by Napoleon and then appear in the accounts by his companions and the journals written by witnesses to his exile. Historians (or rather those of the 19th century – the book was first published in 1906) were not able to go beyond the words of the master and to reflect upon the history of the period, the events, the reasons for them and their consequences with an adequately open and critical attitude.
Gonnard makes parallels between the English and French accounts, placing special emphasis upon Las Cases' Memorial, in order to show how Napoleon in his on lifetime sculpted his own commemorative monument. Even the fiery and sarcastic general Gourgaud, who wrote his diary for his own reading and without one eye on posterity, can be caught becoming the fallen emperor's mouthpiece.
Finally, the book also provides remarkable biographical sketches of the protagonists (Montholon, Las Cases, Gourgaud, Antommarchi, O'Meara, Cockburn, Glover Lady Malcolm, Sturmer, Balmain inter alia) in the tiny Longwood and St Helena world, perched on a rock, lost in the middle of South Atlantic.
Title: Les origines de la légende napoléonienne : l'oeuvre historique de Napoléon à Sainte-Hélène
English title: The exile of St Helena: the last phase in fact and fiction
Author: Philippe Gonnard
Publisher, year of publication (French version): Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1906
(Second French edition, facsimile, published in 1976 by Slatkine)
Publisher, year of publication (English version): London: William Heinemann, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1909