Folk-Tales of Napoleon

Folk-Tales of Napoleon

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Folk-Tales of Napoleon
by Honoré de Balzac and Alexander Amphiteatrof This eBook is for
the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.net
Title: Folk-Tales of Napoleon The Napoleon of the People;
Napoleonder
Author: Honoré de Balzac and Alexander Amphiteatrof
Release Date: February 25, 2004 [EBook #11278]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK
FOLK-TALES OF NAPOLEON ***

Produced by David Starner, Bill Walker and PG Distributed
Proofreaders

FOLK-TALES OF NAPOLEON
NAPOLEONDER From the Russian
THE NAPOLEON OF THE PEOPLE From the French of Honoré de
Balzac
Translated With Introduction By GEORGE KENNAN

1902
CONTENTS
NAPOLEONDER THE NAPOLEON OF THE PEOPLE

INTRODUCTION
Most of the literature that has its origin in the life and career of a great
man may be grouped and classified under two heads: history and
biography. The part that relates to the man's actions, and to the
influence that such actions have had in shaping the destinies of peoples
and states, belongs in the one class; while the part that derives its
interest mainly from the man's personality, and deals chiefly with the
mental and moral characteristics of which his actions were the outcome,
goes properly into the other. The value of the literature included in
these two classes depends almost wholly upon truth; that is, upon the
precise correspondence of the statements made with the real facts of the
man's life and career. History is worse than useless if it does not
accurately chronicle and describe events; and biography is valueless
and misleading if it does not truly set forth individual character.
There is, however, a kind of great-man literature in which truth is
comparatively unimportant, and that is the literature of popular legend
and tradition. Whether it purports to be historical or biographical, or
both, it derives its interest and value from the light that it throws upon
the temperament and character of the people who originate it, rather
than from the amount of truth contained in the statements that it makes
about the man.
The folk-tales of Napoleon Bonaparte herewith presented, if judged
from the viewpoint of the historian or the biographer, are absurdly and
grotesquely untrue; but to the anthropologist and the student of human
nature they are extremely valuable as self-revelations of national
character; and even to the historian and the biographer they have some
interest as evidences of the profoundly deep impression made by
Napoleon's personality upon two great peoples--the Russians and the
French.
The first story, which is entitled "Napoleonder," is of Russian origin,
and was put into literary form, or edited, by Alexander Amphiteatrof of
St. Petersburg. It originally appeared as a feuilleton in the St.
Petersburg "Gazette" of December 13, 1901. As a characteristic

specimen of Russian peasant folk-lore, it seems to me to have more
than ordinary interest and value. The treatment of the supernatural may
seem, to Occidental readers, rather daring and irreverent, but it is
perfectly in harmony with the Russian peasant's anthropomorphic
conception of Deity, and should be taken with due allowance for the
educational limitations of the story-teller and his auditors. The Russian
muzhik often brings God and the angels into his folk-tales, and does so
without the least idea of treating them disrespectfully. He makes them
talk in his own language because he has no other language; and if the
talk seems a little grotesque and irreverent, it is due to the low level of
the narrator's literary culture, and not to any intention, on his part, of
treating God and the angels with levity. The whole aim of the story is a
moral and religious one. The narrator is trying to show that sympathy
and mercy are better than selfish ambition, and that war is not only
immoral but irrational. The conversation between God, the angels, and
the Devil is a mere prologue, intended to bring Napoleon and
Ivan-angel on the stage and lay the foundation of the plot. The
story-teller's keen sense of fun and humor is shown in many little
touches, but he never means to be irreverent. The whole legend is set
forth in the racy, idiomatic, highly elliptical language of the common
Russian muzhik, and is therefore extremely difficult of translation; but
I have tried to preserve, as far as possible, the spirit and flavor of the
original.
The French story was first reduced to writing--or at least put into
literary form--by Honoré de Balzac, and appeared under the title of
"The Napoleon of the People" in the third chapter of Balzac's "Country
Doctor." It purports to be the