#and I have a special interest for the napoleonic era

[thedevilundercover]

I fucking love presentations. If I had anyone to give presentations to, I’d give one about Gothic-revival architecture because dhsjsjhw it’s so pretty.

And I saw somewhere that Wayne manor was built in the mid-1800s and I just jumped for joy lmao.

I’m a huge fucking nerd, but so are y’all because you really want to see me make a bunch of floor plans so—

[lansolot]

i actually read about how lannes and murat were quite close at times a little while ago! their relationship and how close they were are both very interesting to read about

did anyone get along ever

[themundanemudperson]

Temeraire?? Dragons?? Please do share what it is!

YAYYYY TEMERAIRE INFO DUMP TIME!!!

This series is historical fiction with fantasy in it! Combining all of my interests into one lol. It spans 9 books!

So, it takes place during the Napoleonic era, except dragons exist. In Europe, they're used for warfare, in the army. They have their very own aerial corps. How dragons work is that they hatch from eggs, and a captain is assigned to them. If the dragon accepts the captain, then they have a special bond. The dragon lives for a lot longer than a human, so it's a captain's job to get an heir for the dragon, so they're passed down through family lines.

The worldbuilding is super cool in this series, because the author explores how different cultures would treat dragons, from Europe, to Asia, to Africa to the Americas. It's really cool

The series focuses on captain William Laurence, of His Majesty's Navy. Originally, he's a sea captain, and the capture a French ship (because Napoleonic War). They find a dragon egg on there, which is a problem.

People (in Europe) see having a dragon as really bad, because a captain's bond with a dragon means they can't really interact with normal society, as the dragon comes first (they don't have enough dragons for war, so every one is valuable). And someone has to bond with the dragon because the egg is hatching, and they can't afford to waste it

So, after drawing straws, some guy on the ship (not Laurence) is made to try to bond. But when the dragon hatches, he doesn't like that guy! Laurence steps in, and he bonds with it instead, because of Honour and Duty (a recurring theme with him)

Now Laurence has to navigate transitioning from being a navy captain to an aerial one, when the culture is very different, alongside his dragon (Temeraire!!!!!!!! My beloved!!!!!!!!)

Then there's also the overhanging threat of Napoleon......... >:)

I really love this series a lot (as you can probably tell from the word vomit lmao). The worldbuilding, like I mentioned earlier, is super cool. The relationships in this book are so good too! There are so many excellent platonic relationships, between the dragons and their captains, as well as between the dragons themselves, and amongst the captains. And on top of all that, I get to nerd out about history with it!

The characters are also such well-fleshed out ones. Laurence goes through a lot of character development, but he is, at his core, the same man, who brings his sense of honour and duty to everything he does. He's the epitome of what the true English gentleman should be. Unfortunately for him, The government doesn't want his morals involved in their war :)

So yeah! Temeraire is great, and I can't recommend it enough

[zenia62]

Happy Birthday Daendels!! ✨️

I've been waiting for this day since last week 😭 Words can't explain how much I adore him 😫 He had helped me through my worst time, gave me new interest n many more. I remember first hearing his name in Grade 3 during history class. I used to hate him so much bcs everyone kept saying "He's bad, he killed so many people!" n I believed them. But during early pandemic, all of this turns out to be wrong n that he actually paid the workers but were corrupted by the local leaders. Keep in mind tho during this time I was on my crazy years 💀 its embarrassing to say it but basically I was in the era of where I hated the Netherlands so much that I refused to eat or do anything that was related to them. Safe to say that I'm no longer like that anymore haha 😆

Fast forward where I started grade 8, I started to drift away from my crazy mindset n got interested in the governor-general of the Dutch East Indies. Fun fact, I was intially interested in Johannes van den Bosch, one of the govenor-general that was also popular in Indonesia. I often make this gacha club group abt the governor-general consisting of 8 popular figure n one of them are Daendels. At first, I wanted to make their personality to be very accurate so I planned to research them one by one but guess what? That's when I got interested by Daendels 🫢

Eventually time passed n its been 4 almost 5 years since I first started researching him. But I took 2 years of hiatus bcs of a problem in school 😮‍💨 Js around this year is when I started to come back learning more abt Daendels. Even when I'm taking hiatus, my interest on him never disappeared somehow. Something abt him is unique. I always ask why to myself, now I think it's more abt on how he was treated by others. I could relate abit to him sometimes.

Daendels always had so many enemies. I feel like he have more of them than actual friends. His personality might not be the best, I have to admit he always strive for powers n respect, his anger issues is probably the main reason why he was hated alot. His life quite complicated in a way, so does his personality. But in my opinion, he deserves what he wants. He achieve many things in his life, gave everything he had n yet I often found him being overshadowed by others instead. His braveness is what makes him special. Some say he is as brave as Ney n a little bit smarter than him. Surprisingly, throughout the 20 ish battle he fought, he was never wounded despite always being in the front line. He took good care of his soldiers aswell. The discipline that he put on his soldiers can be quite harsh but he js want the best from them. I'm actually quite surprised that he's always against looting since those things can be very common back in the days. Perhaps he had his own reasons 😶 Lastly, his loyalty towards Napoleon were amazing, but sadly Napoleon himself doesn't seemed to care that much abt him.

In my opinion, Daendels deserved the rank of Marshal. I get that he have that title for only a couple of years but even after the Marshal of Holland title was abolished, he still deserves them. They only compesate him by giving him the legion of honor which I feel like it's not enough for him. Maybe the main problem is that Napoleon never knew him in person so he only see him through what his marshals told him which are probably bad since Brune n Augereau despise him.

At the end, I really wish I could've done more to show how much he meant to me. I wish I could visit his grave but it's far away. I made a promise to myself that one day, I should visit his grave in Ghana at least once before I die. His death made me cry ngl. Imagine suffering so much, no doctors can help him anymore, his two childrens there can only watch him as he took his last breath. Even then, his body wasn't even brought back to the Netherlands. Either it was his wish or no, I believe he deserved to at least be burried in the country he was born.

Thank you Daendels for everything. I hope you are happy now with your family up in heaven 🌙

Note :

Art was made by Devinobita. I commissioned this a month ago. Also by the time this post was posted, I'm kinda ill so posts might not be as consistent as usual. Sorry everyone :(

[variousqueerthings]

also, to be that guy who's obsessed with the mythologisation of dr james barry for a second (it's been awhile on this blog I feel), I was interested in how casanova the tv show felt like a deliberate play with myth through the framing and the anachronisms and the lighting and the blocking and and and -- and how casanova himself is a heavily mythologised person, to the point that my partner asked me if he was real before we started

I feel like there's a similarity in ideas in dr james barry and casanova -- they were both adored and reviled, talked up and talked down depending on the agendas of whoever was spreading their tale, both with larger-than-life personas and adventures that seemed to teeter out in the later years as the traits that served them in youth (brashness, stubbornness, laissez-faire attitude around money, very specific ideas around how to live that didn't mesh with the laws and morals of society around them, a genius that in youth is considered prodigy-like... etcetc) (the details, of course, are different) became something that others were embarrassed about/didn't respond to as they aged and lost their connections

(also this is tv-show, so I don't know until I read the diaries, but they both seemingly had a manservant with whom they were very close/came with them on their various journeys)

casanova has the distinction of having a set of diaries that allow one to peruse primary material at ones leisure, so despite being someone whom one might only know from a particular re-telling or history book or even just as an idea, there is some power in being the main teller of his own story

which dr james barry of course doesn't really have. I feel like I read somewhere that he had more private letters that were lost at sea (which whenever I have that memory of having read that, I squint and wonder if I'm not participating in the mythologisation myself), but certainly the majority of what we think we know about him is either from others' opinions of him or just plain wrong/written after his death

in my head though, I think out of the many many biography-type movies and tv shows I've seen, the casanova show might be the closest to something I'd imagine for barry -- not for the same story, of course (the years of their lives also barely overlapped, but my special interest brain did note that early napoleonic and post-napoleonic era), but for the presentation. the idea of indulging in the fantasy, of the playing with anachronism, of an interaction with present (our present) and past. and mostly of fun

I think in a lot of the narratives around barry, it's often hard for me to see someone I think would live the life that he lived -- who had fun, who made deliberate, conscious choices that he enjoyed making, who was very passionate about his ideals and medicine and who -- like casanova -- was very much his own man. they're so often so preoccupied with ideas of deception and being found out and imagined projected cisgender anxieties. they often lack fun, and when they do insert their modern lens (in whatever time whatever thing about him was created), it's not to bridge the gap between us and him, to imagine who he'd potentially be if he lived now, it's to inject their personal ideas about what is morally correct to them onto a symbol

and yeah, at this point dr barry is more figure than man, as happens generally to historical people, especially those we remember for Highly Specific Things (like casanova, like barry), and I think it'd be interesting to really engage with that, to go deep into the world barry lived in, and to make him a figure who was cognizant of that world and the structures he was defying, who felt good about the choices he made

there's a certain idk... thematic overlap between the two figures. and that was something I really really enjoyed while watching this

[kaxenart]

Honestly the hardest part of deciding how Special Little Guy Status is achieved is who the fuck pays for it.

Though since the war is 100% over corporate interests, maybe soldiers get a little something extra if the ruling caste thinks they're cute, like dogs at the animal rescues that let you sponsor specific animals instead of general donations. And you never know what the person willing to drop $100/month on dogs they haven't even met like.

Like all of these soldiers can't possibly be equally stupid guys going into debt for Cool Shit (albeit, a good gun will also raise one's chances of Not Dying).

….then again, I am reminded of the Napoleonic era trooper who went into debt because he wanted to be a fancy horse boy (spent more money on kit and getting fined for misbehavior than he got paid over the same amount of time) and that this was not an abnormal problem to have.

This is a corpo sci-fi future, but also I will slam the entire Napoleonic era in there, I guess!!! Space Prussians are a tried and true visual trope anyhow xD

The government invites you to Sponsor-A-Soldier™! Your generous support unlocks customization options, give you unencrypted access to their personal communications, and allows you to to place bets on them in our Military Futures Market!

Mech combat might also be popular because it's a lot more appealing to watch on video, compared to a normal grunt getting turned into gibblets.

Also my friend tells me cosmetics are useful in real life casualty calculations, so I am gonna go Cosmetics Are Useful Actually™

That and a specialized mech is easier to spot in the fog of war, so it probably appeals to people watching for fun.

Being the Specialest Little Guy like.... you're both a target and intimidating AF, so good luck on having the skill set to deal with that.

[diagnosed-anxiety-disorder]

☆☆ Welcome to my Blog ☆☆

★ 〔carrd〕 ★ 〔ArtFight〕 ★ ★ Napoleonic Bubble discord link ★ ★ Spam Alt: @xin-thorns ★

Hya! The name(')s Hya「cinth」 / Elton / Lucien ╰┈➤ he/vae ✩ minor ✩ transmasc aroace ✩ 我会说一点点中文，但是不好。我以前在学校学中文。

I'm an artist + musician! ╰➤ I do traditional and digital art! My ipad likes to breakdown on me sometimes so I also resort to ol' reliable (sketchbook). Not the best at taking pictures of my art but I do my best 👍 I'm self-taught so my anatomy is not great, but I'm trying! On special occasions I paint or do watercolour :> I get burnout pretty easily so if I don't upload for a bit that's why ._. ╰➤ My main instrument is the piano (10+yrs) but I play violin in my school's orchestra. I also taught myself the ukulele and I know a minutiae of guitar. Sometimes the drama department kidnaps me for their musicals! I think I genuinely listen (or will listen) to any genre of music and I'm proud of that. Country, death-metal, classical, hyperpop, I'll love it. I WILL EAT ALL OF YOUR MUSIC RECOMMENDATIONS!!!

Feel free to put stuff in my ask box! [I CRAVE INTERACTIONS]

tags + interests underneath the Keep Reading !

Interests: (past + present) (theyre all over the place)

★ Classical Music ★ Conrad Veidt (Cesare + Gwynplaine) ★ David Tennant Media ★ Dungeons & Dragons ★ Helldivers II ★ I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream ★ Junji Ito ★ Les Misérables (25th Concert) ★ Napoleonic Era ( Lannes & Junot <3 ) ★ Omori ★ Saw (I-IV) ★ Shadow the Hedgehog Real-Time Fandub ★ Tarot Cards ★ TF2 + Emesis Blue ( BLU MEDIC <3 ) ★ The Phantom of the Opera (25th) ★ Will Wood (and the Tapeworms) + (whatever is on my carrd)

Tags:

#funny hyahya ╰➤ ( funny shitposts and whatnot ) #huemusic ╰➤ ( me playing music :D ) #hyacinthart ╰➤ ( all the art im proud of :D ) #hyagaming ╰➤ ( gamer time ) #musik musik musik i call this musik ╰➤ ( musician life related posts, tbh crying over music theory ) #napoleon bonapainting ╰➤ ( all posts about my painting of Napoleon Crossing the Alps) #napoleonic bubble ╰➤ ( about the napoleonic discord server I own )

I just wanna say that the thought process for my url was "What's something about me that's never going to change and it'll be apart of my identity for a good amount of time?" so I came up with diagnosed anxiety disorder because anxiety-disorder was taken 💀 I also think it's funny

[josefavomjaaga]

Hi! Can I ask you some silly questions? (it's very long so I'm sorry in advance🥲):

I just started reading about the Napoleonic era, and one thing bothers me is how did the marshals, or generals, or whoever under Napoleon's court, got their titles. Every books I read they just said "...and he was made the Duke of [insert land]" and move on. I'm aware that they earned it through military achievements, but is there any specific requirements to be met here? Why some got even Prince titles and did they have any distinctions from Dukes? Also, did they have to do anything with the land they got their titles from?

Thank you for the question! I will try to answer to the best of my knowledge but I cannot stress enough that this knowledge will not go far. I’m not a historian, and when it comes to the details of politics and administration, it does not take long for me to be out of my depths. But maybe somebody else can add more information. Because I think the question is rather interesting, with Napoleon installing a new aristocracy so soon after the Revolution had taken care to abolish the old.

In general, the new nobility received their titles the same way the old nobility had: it was granted by the monarch, in Napoleon’s case through an imperial decree. So, the main requirement if you wanted a nobility title was to be in Napoleon’s good graces, or to be friends with somebody who was and could put in a good word for you. The marshals, generals, politicians, surgeons, bankers and whoever else was added to the bunch all received their »lettres patentes«, basically their certificate that stated they now were a duke, count or baron, and that was that.

The ranking, from highest to lowest, was: prince – duke – count – baron – chevalier.

I understand that at least some of the higher titles did come with some requirements. The family had to have a »majorat«, a set of properties, usually a castle, real estate and a certain amount of values, that had to be passed on in its entirety to the next title holder. As the marshals usually did not have the required amount of wealth, many castles and much money actually came from Napoleon.

In general, the titles »Duc de Frioul«, »Duc de Montebello« etc. were honorary titles, i.e., really only names. They did not give their owners any special rights in the city or region they were named after – except in some cases for the princes.

Berthier, prince de Neuchâtel (also prince de Wagram)

Bernadotte, prince de Ponte Corvo

Talleyrand, prince de Benevent

Unlike in the domains of the former HRE, in France the term »prince« could designate the sovereign head of a country (in the HRE, »Herzog«, = duke was the lowest title for a sovereign, with prince merely designating somebody who belonged to a ruling house, afaik). So, the princes above actually owned a (usually rather small but technically to some degree independent) principality in the places they were named after, that they could administer, give laws in etc.

I’m not sure if it was the same for the later princely titles:

Davout, prince d’Eckmühl

Masséna, prince d’Essling

Ney, prince de la Moskowa

As the places they are named after did not belong to Napoleon’s empire, I presume their principalities were formed elsewhere. In a similar way Napoleon in early 1810 briefly planned to scrap together a »principality of Raab« for his stepson Eugène that surely would not have been in Hungary.

And then there’s Lannes, who is always special 😊. I understand he actually was gifted with a principality in Poland, but somehow never bothered to go through the stupid paperwork to also receive the title of »prince de Sievers«.

In addition, there are also the imperial princes (members of the imperial family) and the grand dignitaries of the empire who also held a – non-hereditary! – title of prince while they were in office. But I’ll leave those aside. I find this all complicated enough.

Back to the marshals: Originally, only two of them were princes, Berthier and Bernadotte. As to the duke titles, they fall in two categories: some are named after a specific military feat of the title holder, and some are just generic.

Davout: Duc d’Auerstädt (needs no explanation, I guess)

Kellermann: Duc de Valmy (battle of Valmy 1792)

Lannes: Duc de Montebello (battle of Montebello 1800)

Lefebvre: Duc de Dantzig (siege of Danzig in 1807)

Masséna: Duc de Rivoli (battle of Rivoli 1796)

Ney: Duc d’Elchingen (battle of Elchingen 1805)

You could add to that number Marmont’s title of Duc de Raguse, because while Marmont did not win any specific battle, he resided in that city and governed the region, so it did have something to do with him.

Whereas, to my knowledge, most other marshals had no particular relation to the place they were named after. I’m not sure how the names were assigned to the newly declared dukes, maybe Napoleon just opened an Atlas or dropped a pencil onto a map. In the case of Soult (Duc de Dalmatie), that duke never as much as set a foot into Dalmatia. And he was highly disappointed not to have been named »Duc d’Austerlitz« or at least »Duc de Pratzen«, after his corps had contributed so much to the victory there.

Speaking of disappointments: Masséna in turn wanted to be named »Duc de Zurich«, as he rightfully saw that battle as his greatest military feat. But it seems Napoleon only handed out titles for battles that had some relation to him. When Masséna won Zurich, Napoleon unfortunately had been in Egypt, so … sorry, André.

That’s all I can come up with as of now – if you have more questions, please ask away! If I cannot answer, I’m pretty sure the marshalate fandom can. 😊

Thanks once more!

[thebaffledcaptain]

(History asks) 7, 14, 21!

Thank you for the ask my friend!

7. Favorite historical dressing, uniform or costume?

Oh goodness…. it’s hard to pick just one. However I’ll stick with what I know and settle for the 1787 pattern British Naval uniform.

I know a lot of people prefer the Napoleonic-era uniforms, which are a close second for me, but I love the late-18th century silhouette. The white lapels! The standing collar! The turned-back cuffs! For me this is the sweet spot between the relative minimalism of the early uniforms and the borderline exuberant use of lace in the 19th century.

14. Why you are interested in history?

Somehow I find that hard to explain even to myself... I think a part of me just likes stories, a part of me likes knowing how things happened, and a part of me just feels deeply drawn to the past, somehow more so than the present. I hope no one ever mistakes my love for my time period as anything other than love—I don’t embrace all the ideology that came from it, I don’t romanticize it as the good old days, I don’t want to live there. But I do love it, deeply, and I feel its presence in my daily life, if that makes any sense: sometimes I’ll look at a river bank and see it 250 years ago, I’ll inhale an autumn wind that feels distinctly antique. Knowing about it is something comforting to me, and I tend to think of my period in history as a very relevant part of my life (but I think that's all the special interest talking). I don’t claim to be one of those people born in the wrong century but I do feel like a part of my heart is there. If past lives were something I believed in, maybe I had one there, but whatever it is, I feel like I left a part of my soul there.

21. Favorite historical game?

That's actually such a great question and I wish I had more experience with which to answer—I do remember enjoying "game of graces." Simple concept, of course, but somehow catching stuff never gets old. I am choosing to interpret the question this way in the chance that this refers to a game *about* history simply because I wouldn’t have an answer otherwise…

[dentesbattalion]

Hello! You can call me Angelo:) I'm 18 and about to head into university to study a bachelor of arts major in history! This is my side blog that I'm hoping to start as an archive for my autism rambles (history++)! I cover mostly early American politics + some other eras/areas. I do not condone the historical figures' actions. They are real people whom have walked this earth. I simply find them extremely fascinating. Here are the historical figures I will mostly post about. Bold are special interests. - Alexander Hamilton - Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette (tag will be shorted to Lafayette) - John Laurens & family - John André - George & Martha Washington - Thomas & Martha Jefferson - James & Dolley Madison - James Monroe - Nathan Hale - Benjamin Tallmadge - Napoleon II

fingers crossed that I finally figured out how tumblr markdown works after several years. anyways! love you guys, hopefully i can post my rambles and you guys will like them! edit: nvm tumblr markdown hates me fr

[mediaevalmusereads]

Anti-Christ: Two Thousand Years of the Human Fascination with Evil. By Bernard McGinn. Columbia University Press, 1994.

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Genre: religious history, theology

Part of a Series? No.

Summary:  McGinn demonstrates how Antichrist has often reflected the human need to comprehend the persistence of evil in the world, and examines how it has haunted popular imagination in both the form of individuals--such as Nero, Napoleon, and Saddam Hussein--and groups--Jews, heretics, Muslims.

***Full review below.***

Content Warnings: discussions of antisemitism and anti-Islamic belief

Since this book is non-fiction, my review is going to be structured a little differently than usual.

McGinn’s book is a historical survey, tracing the origins and evolution of the antichrist legend from ancient history to the modern day. Using a number or primary sources ranging from Biblical commentaries, political propaganda, letters, histories, plays, and poems, McGinn argues that antichrist has, over time, been used to embody various anxieties and theological views about evil and the end of the world. Though this book does not cite every appearance of the antichrist in literature, it selects a good representative body of work that shows how different historical eras contributed to the evolution of the antichrist legend.

I very much appreciated the wide scope of this book and was delighted by the way McGinn could cover such a broad historical scope yet still make each chapter feel incredibly detailed. It's very clear that McGinn has done a lot of research and has methodically presented what he feels best represents each era he writes about; as a reader, it's hard not to be incredibly impressed.

I think McGinn's strongest chapters are the early ones in which he covers Jewish literature and developing Christianity before the Middle Ages. This isn't to say his later chapters are bad, but I did get the sense the McGinn was writing in his wheelhouse early on, as those chapters felt much richer and varied in the way they approach history and literature. Later chapters also tend to focus almost exclusively on (Western) Europe, and while I understand that Europe is kind of a hotbed of Christian development and conflict, I was still a bit curious as to how non-European Christianity was handling the legend of the antichrist. Maybe Europe is a special case in that it took a particular interest, so I don't know how valid this critique is.

All that being said, I don't think I'd recommend this book to casual readers. Though the scope is large, McGinn doesn't waste time explaining much historical context, so you have to go in with at least a basic understanding of Christian history. This isn't to say this is a failing for McGinn; rather, I don't want to give the impression that this academic book is "pop history."

TL;DR: Anti-Christ is a fascinating survey of the history of the anti-Christ legend from about 50 BC to the late 20th centuries. Readers with a scholarly interest in the history of Christianity and theology will surely appreciate this book, and I can't recommend it enough for anyone wanting to do work on apocalypticism.

[leonscape]

@saltedcelery thank you for asking some questions!

✏️ Do you write every day?

no, sadly i don’t. i try to write everyday, but it doesn’t always go as planned because of school stuffs and house stuffs. and sometimes i just don’t feel motivated to write. but i think that writing everyday would probably lead to burnout (unless it’s a journal).

🤔 answered here.

🧠 What’s an idea you have that you can’t quite call a WIP yet?

the ikemen vampire fic i was thinking about. it never got its own special file cabinet in my brain it’s still just floating around in the void of ideas. it’s possible i might actually commit and write it all down but it’s not a one shot so it’ll take some planning. unlike the ikesen fic idea i had, i haven’t really chosen names or really settled on any specific details. but essentially, it’s about a girl from the sengoku era that becomes a vampire and ends up at le comte’s mansion. she befriends le comte’s son (or leonardo’s i haven’t decided who i should give children to lol) but she learns how to live a simple life and she learns how to see the beauty in the world through the different mediums of art. but a small little twist: kinda like how napoleon was a different kind(?) of vampire, she’s also different; her eating habits require the blood of a vampire instead of human. it’s kind of taking a bit of inspiration from isaac as well if you know what i mean. and also i thought it would be interesting if she was sort of bonded to comte as well? like if she ever met vlad and he tried to mind control her, he can’t because her loyalties belong to her sire.

there’s still a bit more questions i haven’t answered but y’all could ask anything if you’re curious about a certain thing 🦁💕

[ladyanthropologie]

Bonjor mes amis! Ça va?

LadyAnthropology once again travels across the pond, this time to FRANCE!

Once again, I am studying abroad, this time in France. I have always loved the French language and culture. The country is beautiful, the language elegant, the food exquisite - or so I hear. I have spent the last year learning the French language and have the wonderful opportunity to spend over a month in France, learning and seeing all I can.

We start our trip in Paris, then we travel to Normandy, and then to La Rochelle. I have heard great things about this program and everything that is planned so it's safe to say I'm excited.

France is one of the first countries to pioneered fencing as a sport and have an interesting history with patriotism and nationalism. Their culture is thought to be as elegant and classy as their language. I have two recent exposures to anything related to France. One is the children's TV show Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Chat Noir, sometimes just called "Miraculous Ladybug". This show is set in Paris and follows the adventures of two teenagers as they transform into superheroes and fight supervillains while trying to balance their social and school life. It's originally broadcasted in France, so the language is originally French (which makes the NYC Special funny because the English dub of course has them all speaking English when the script clearly is supposed to show the language barrier between French and English speakers). The show first aired in 2015 and season 5 recently premiered in October of 2022. Another exposure that a lot of people probably had but don't realize is the recent live action re-make of The Little Mermaid. While the original 1989 animated version was set in/around Denmark (most popularly believed), this 2023 re-make was set in the Caribbean, the Caribbean was first colonized by Spain and quickly followed by France. This upcoming Fall, specifically in October/November, I will have the absolute pleasure of being involved in the musical Once on This Island, which is set in the French Antilles. It's called out in the musical that it's set in the 19th century, 4 generations after the Napoleon Era. I highly recommend checking it out, it's fun, beautiful, and entertaining.

There are other media like An American in Paris, Moulin Rouge!, Anastasia, and more.

If you're new, I have a previous blog titled: "A London Adventure!", chronicling my time in London, UK, last summer. That blog was a combination of a class requirement and myself wanting a way to look back on my travels. A blog is not required this time, so the posts will look a bit different as I don't have certain things, I need to put in them. I highly recommend checking it out, if you haven't already.

Here, I'm going to talk about my travels, places and things I have seen, food I've tried, and more. I will also briefly talk about what I learned in class that day (French is difficult to learn, it's a fast language and I have trouble with hearing).

I am going to do my absolute best to learn as much as I can. I've decided that when I apply to graduate programs, I will apply for both Theatre and for Cultural Anthropology. If I get accepted into a Cultural Anthropology program, I want to focus my attention on the Polynesian Islands and the Caribbean. The French colonized some of these regions and as such French is a language spoken on some of these islands in addition to their native language. My goal is to help create a bridge between the different cultures and people of the world and learning French is just one of the first steps towards that goal.

[thetruearchmagos]

Just gonna park your notes here too;

Now, let's see...

So about ranks, I am fully stealing the British Army ranking because I cannot figure this out on my own.

Hey, I stole theirs too!* That at least makes all this a little easier for me, US ranks (current and historical) got really quite complex to be honest. A side note I'll leave here is that the Brits tended to use 'Regiment-specific' ranks for quite a few units, as shown here;

It wouldn't be unusual for someone in Alyss's position, or unit, to get some form of odd title, if that's something you'd be interested in and wouldn't mind having to keep track of.

Moving onto 'special skills', your definitely in a better position to judge the utility of your fire magic than I am, but from we've talked about by now the specialist shock troop idea does make sense. I wanted to note, however, that the term 'fire team' and its associated unit has absolutely zero connection to the actual use of fire as a weapon, a la flamethrowers.

The story of fire teams are is, well, long. Very long, and also really hard to find sources for that I'm too confident in. So, I'm not going to talk too much about that, aside from briefly explaining how they operate. Basically, fire teams are a modern-ish invention that came about as a result of the invention of portable automatic weapons, which meant that fewer troops would be needed to give a unit a similar level of 'firepower'. This enabled these 'shrunken' units to theoretically act with greater independence from each other and their superior formations. Such increased lethality isn't the only precondition, however; a professional, trusted, and competent cohort of low-level junior leaders is key to making sure such units can work effectively towards a common objective instead of merely being defeated in detail, as such 'splintering' of a force, as opposed to concentrating it, risks.

Which, in a roundabout way, leads me to the next point here. Setting aside the almost inevitably aristocratic higher officer ranks, I think the part I'm looking at more is 'downstream', at the lower leadership ranks. Now, depending on a range of factors including whether you'd like to include Purchasing of Commissions as a prerequisite to officership, how aristocratic junior officer ranks might be can still vary without making the upper brass any less blue blooded, though noble-heavy junior officers are still likely. This being the WW1 era, by the way, the example of Guards units with royal affiliations being particularly heavy concentrations of esteemed noble sons might be something worth looking at, if you're curious.

How this connects to the 'fire team' bit could be expressed in terms of how 'centralised / decentralised' authority in the Ritanian Army is. In a simple sense, kilometres long Napoleonic era line formations were generally centralised under their general's authority, while the small trench raiding parties of WW1 were decentralised, given the freedom to move, fight, and bypass where their immediate leaders saw fit as long as they kept their superior's instructions in mind. Decentralisation allows for flexibility, and for decisions to be made quickly and in accurate response to the situation on the ground, but relies on junior personnel being empowered and trained to take on this responsibility, and senior leaders trusting them enough to not micromanage. What, exactly, the 'average' Ritanian NCO, or those specialists like Alyss, would actually be able to do on their own, then, depends on this sort of cultural environment built up within their respective corners of the Army.

And there, then, we can segway to your question;

So what are the actual duties of a sergeant? What would they do in the field, in battle, during rest periods, ect?

This is, well... a long story. Two stories, technically; the 'battlefield' duties of a Sergeant / their near equivalents, and their 'out of battle' job.

Oh, and when I say near equivalents, I meant this;

There's some subtle differences between how the US and UK do it (looking at you American-style Warrant Officer), and I'd imagine the army buddies you mentioned would be referring to the former. This could lead to a tangent about the difference between a Junior and Senior NCO, but I'm gonna save myself the effort and use this excerpt from this Military dot com article on enlisted ranks in the current US Army, which I can recommend.

The quick answer here as I understand it is between NCOs who lead junior enlisted, and NCOs who 'advise' officers / headquarters, with the caveat that 'advising' a green-as-grass lieutenant is a bit different that doing the same for a hopefully seasoned major.

I'll start by briefly explaining the historical duties given to sergeants in around the 19th Century and going into WW1, then give an overview of their current duties where they differ. You can pick and choose where you see fit.

Starting with that earlier time period, the combat duty's of NCOs were a lot more limited than in more modern militaries. Barring certain specific contexts which placed a premium on small-unit actions, sergeants and their immediate junior officers would primarily be expected to make damn sure that their senior commanders' orders were carried out by their own units, the 'platoons' within a larger 'regiment' for example. This being the era of muzzle-loaders, this often involved minding the drill (loading, firing, kneeling, etc.) and dressing (position in the line) of their soldiers, keeping them separate and preventing any sudden breaks in morale under intense pressure. This is hard work, especially under fire, but is arguably simpler than more modern NCOs and junior officers, since a platoon of a few dozen won't matter much individually in the face of, say, the amassed ten thousand charging Imperial Guard at Waterloo.

It is, however, outside of battle and 'in camp' that the existence of long serving NCOs makes itself invaluable. And note the emphasis on 'long serving' here, and 'professional' above; NCOs, being the senior most enlisted there are with at least a decade of service under the belt, serve as repositories of institutional knowledge built up over years of a military's experience, and the primary means by which that knowledge and culture are inculcated within new recruits once they join their units.

Many things changed between the era of gunpowder and guided bombs, but this principle has largely remained. From basic weapon handling and safety discipline to how to properly pack a sack, sergeant simply know stuff, and its much easier to have them on hand to train the next generation face-to-face, constantly, than to be forced to constantly relearn and relearn the same lessons. Compare this to the (arguably simplified) 'Soviet bloc' system of conscript armies with conscripted NCOs, who served only as long as their peers did. Their sergeants couldn't hope to live up as 'role models' for their ostensibly junior peers because it's not like they necessarily knew much better, or had the accumulated confidence and credibility to carry out this task.

In addition to the 'functional' knowledge that NCOs carry on, they also play a key role in maintaining an Army's professional culture and values. This isn't always a good thing, mind you, but the whole concept of 'esprit de corp' relies on a close knit, shared identity across the 'community' that any military unit fundamentally is. NCOs, being both 'fellow soldiers' and respected figures of authority, are the 'face' of that identity most apparent to their junior soldiers, and how they carry themselves can do a lot to shape their morale and attitudes towards the institution. To cap this portion off, the most senior NCOs, those who've moved past 'soldier leadership' to positions in proximity to officers, will have the additional duty of making damn sure their commanders are made well aware of enlisted concerns and needs in their own planning, essentially acting as the 'voice' of these soldiers amongst the officer corps.

Finally, I'll turn to the more specific tasks of modern NCOs. In addition to the 'camp' tasks outlined above, the modern Sergeant has been given a degree of responsibility well beyond anything their historical counterpart would have had. This ties in with what I mentioned earlier about the trend towards 'decentralised' warfare, where ever smaller units get access to ever larger 'capabilities', although much more constant factors such as complex terrain and 'unconventional' forms of warfare have also had a part to play.

These days, most modern armies consider the lieutenant-led platoon to be the smallest unit truly capable of independent action. This would almost never have been considered possible back in the day, but the structure of modern platoons is designed to incorporate a fairly wide variety of weapon systems into its organisation. Since a lot more focus gets placed on the level of unit immediately above an NCO's jurisdiction, instead of several tiers higher, their individual skill and leadership counts for a lot more, both acting in concert with the whole platoon and when broken off to act independently from their officer lieutenant, a possibility historical armies would barely countenance.

One last note on this. Going back again to the senior NCOs, who as above aren't going to be leading troops in battle, within a unit's headquarters I've broadly gotten the sense that a lot of their duties revolve around keeping things running smoothly in the rear, such as by overseeing casualty management and the resupply of fighting units at the front. Also, since they're already at the HQ, assuming basically every other officer present is dead it might fall to them to take charge and get a hold on things. By that point, though, the unit in question is probably a little beyond salvaging.

The last thing I have to say here is a small correction to what you've mentioned in your notes, which I'm a little curious about since you said they were brought up by someone from the Army.

You see, a 'squad'...

is a very small unit, and for what it's worth the Brits call it a 'section' usually. Officers don't lead squads, with even the junior most officer, a Second Lieutenant in the UK, commanding a platoon; instead, squads are commanded by junior NCOs, in this case a US Army Staff Sergeant.

Captains are, more or less, the senior-most of the 'kinda junior' officers, below the so called 'Field Grades' which start at Major (like Goyan!).

They command Companies, which are usually two legs up from a Squad in any usage I'm aware of. You would be correct in saying that there is an NCO present to advise them, though, and that article I mentioned earlier phrases their relationship this way;

Which about corroborates your description. For a little context, the age and seniority difference between a Captain and their 'company sergeant' is probably less substantial than that between a Lieutenant and their 'platoon sergeant', and as far as 'book smart' goes that's mostly in terms of the requirement for a college degree to commission in the US and the fact they'll have attended numerous officer schools by the time they take command. NCOs also have their own schools, of course, but you're right that a lot of what they have to offer is 'accumulated experience on the job'.

And with that... I need lunch.

Alright I have been working on this off and on for months. I need help. I want to decide what rank Alyss had in the Ritanian Army because I have a scene in mind but it depends on her rank how it goes. So, Alyss is from the working class, but has considerably more education than the average person. She enters the army with some weapons training, primarily shooting and polearms from the Church, she can read, write, and do math easily, and she has fire magic which is basically like martial arts training. I am going to assume that she enlists as just a private, but probably gets promoted at least once in the two years of fighting she is involved with. Would it be reasonable for her to be promoted early on to Lance Corporal for her clerking abilities, and possibly up to Corporal? I have no sense for how these things work. You are the expert I know.

HAHAHAHahahahaha yesss!!!

You, have come to the right blog!

Now, I foreshadowed a pretty hefty worldbuilding process to you earlier, but just in case things get in the way of that rabbit hole I wanted to come up with a short-ish, succinct-ish answer to your immediate question. That question being, as far as I can tell;

What 'rank' within the Ritanian Army would Alyss, a skilled commoner, attain by the end of a military career featuring at least 2 years of wartime combat service?

The answer that you seem to have now is 'Lance Corporal, maybe Corporal', and my reply would be that said ranks, or more accurately their equivalents in the Ritanian Army as you'd have it, are absolutely possible, given the details I outlined above.

Truth be told, there's a lot potentially going in favour of pushing her towards 'seniority' in general.

Don't You Know There's A War On?

If there's one thing that's sure to bring about rapid and unexpected career progression in the military, it's war!

Honestly, this accounts for about 90% of why I'm so firm in approving the ranks you've put forwards; if Alyss is even remotely competent, and lucky, there's a non-zero chance she attains both those ranks within the first year. (Lance) Corporal isn't exactly the big leagues, and if the pre-War soldiers holding those ranks in Alyss's unit get bumped off and she shows any talent at all, you could absolutely see her get field promoted to fill the slots mid-battle, albeit within a much-reduced unit. After that, it's a matter of not joining your predecessors.

On this topic, by the way, I recalled a lovely piece of historical trivia that had much to do with young bucks hungry for promotion, this time in the Royal Navy;

(She Has A) Special (Set Of) Skills

A subject I'd absolutely love to delve into the is the broad increase in the ratio of specialists and special skills VS 'the general infantry' in most militaries as they progress technologically. How exactly specialists function in Ritania depends on a lot of things, its state of technology (and magic!) among them, but a general rule is that the fewer people exist in the relevant 'pool' of potential people who could be promoted, the more likely specific (competent) person in it is to get promoted.

If, for example, the Army decides it needs to rapidly expand its corps of 'whatever Alyss's speciality is' (flame-troops, or something, right?) then all the people already in it might get bumped up and given the authority to whip new recruits into shape. On the other hand, if this is the sorta job that gets an above average number of people killed, then the rate of career progression for those still alive is correspondingly faster.

Miscellaneous

Outside of these two factors, there's a whole grab basket of stuff that might potentially work in Alyss's favour. One of them, again, is how relatively low the ranks you specified are; they're called 'junior Non-Commissioned Officers' for a reason, after all. To be quite honest, in two years and with my pretty optimistic guess at her competence I'm surprised she didn't make Sergeant (or equivalent). For comparison, here's something I found on the - peacetime! - US Army for promotion to Corporal, which for them is the 4th enlisted rank from the bottom.

A bit over two years in a 'modern' style of Army, and given what I mentioned above I think cutting down the timeline would be perfectly believable.

There's also some of her pre-Enlistment traits that you brought up. I'm a little suspect on whether most of them would impact her rate of advancement much, since they appear more likely to influence her actual vocation upon joining rather than what happens once she has. After that, a lot of them are likely to never be used or trained on, though that depends on just how specialised the Ritanian Army actually is, which is... something I'd love to talk about.

Literacy, then, might help, but that depends on both how prevalent literacy is across society, and whether or not the duties expected of an 'enlisted leader' would need that skill. Off the top of my head, I recall that one reason for aristocratic officer corps was that literacy was concentrated to that class only; if so few other 'rank' soldiers could be expected to be literate, an Army might just not bother to create pathways to allow them to get into a position where literacy was needed. Of course, if the case is not that extreme, but still one where literacy is limited, then it'd be the sort of trait that a professional Non-Commissioned Officer would need, and thus one looked for in troops. All of that, then, is one way in which the character and substance of a military is heavily dependent on the society that it exists within, a subject beyond the purview of this ask!

Though I will say, I can't imagine 'clerking' working out well for fast promotion, unless you meant 'administrative and organisational talent' more than 'actually being a full time adjudant or staff officer'. That whole track of the profession of arms is a crucial and fascinating one, but you don't often here tales of glory or heroic career arcs coming from those quarters; 'desk jobs' don't get half as much love as they deserve.

The Unknown... For Now!

With my answer in the 'Affirmative!' already given and explained, right now I'd just love to get into the weeds of all this even deeper and worldbuild the everloving crap out of the Ritanian Army and its career advancement process. Here's two questions I came up with that might help with articulating the actual promotion system Alyss would be going through;

Who gets to decide, and 'write down', a promotion? Are they exclusively processed by the Army's central personnel department, handed out by senior or direct commanders of a certain rank and office, or something with inputs from both? At higher ranks, it's not unusual for civilian leadership to oversee this process, but the average enlisted doesn't need to care about that.

What does it take to 'get' promoted? More specifically, is it a subjective process dependent on specific individuals decisions and perspectives, or a rigorous, standardised process with inflexible rules? Keeping in mind, of course, that it is ultimately people who execute such rules.

To end off this answer, which might I add was an absolute joy to write, I'd like to ask for two clarifications;

First of all, do you have a rank structure in mind already? Your use of Lance Corporal and Corporal suggested something pretty in line with how it's been IRL since Napoleon, but couldn't hurt to ask. I'm a bit of a sucker for unusual rank structures - screwing around with the Officer-Enlisted distinction always seemed cool, but as I mentioned above that'd be a whole discussion for another time.

Secondly, and on that topic... would Alyss have made a good officer, or in fact, been able to become one? Taking it very loosely, that is. Is Ritanian officership class-restricted? Literacy, like I mentioned, is the sort of quality that is exceptionally beneficial for long-service leaders. Of course, there might be a whole host of reasons personal and external which make this particular question moot - in which case, I'd love to hear them!

And with that... I'm done!

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: I enjoyed reading your posts about Napoleon’s death and it’s quite timely given its the 200th anniversary of his death this year in May. I was wondering, because you know a lot about military history (your served right? That’s cool to fly combat helicopters) and you live in France but aren’t French, what your take was on Napoleon and how do the French view him? Do they hail him as a hero or do they like others see him like a Hitler or a Stalin? Do you see him as a hero or a villain of history?

5 May 1821 was a memorable date because Napoleon, one of the most iconic figures in world history, died while in bitter exile on a remote island in the South Atlantic Ocean. Napoleon Bonaparte, as you know rose from obscure soldier to a kind of new Caesar, and yet he remains a uniquely controversial figure to this day especially in France. You raise interesting questions about Napoleon and his legacy. If I may reframe your questions in another way. Should we think of him as a flawed but essentially heroic visionary who changed Europe for the better? Or was he simply a military dictator, whose cult of personality and lust for power set a template for the likes of Hitler? 

However one chooses to answer this question can we just - to get this out of the way - simply and definitively say that Napoleon was not Hitler. Not even close. No offence intended to you but this is just dumb ahistorical thinking and it’s a lazy lie. This comparison was made by some in the horrid aftermath of the Second World War but only held little currency for only a short time thereafter. Obviously that view didn’t exist before Hitler in the 19th Century and these days I don’t know any serious historian who takes that comparison seriously.

I confess I don’t have a definitive answer if he was a hero or a villain one way or the other because Napoleon has really left a very complicated legacy. It really depends on where you’re coming from.

As a staunch Brit I do take pride in Britain’s victorious war against Napoleonic France - and in a good natured way rubbing it in the noses of French friends at every opportunity I get because it’s in our cultural DNA and it’s bloody good fun (why else would we make Waterloo train station the London terminus of the Eurostar international rail service from its opening in 1994? Or why hang a huge gilded portrait of the Duke of Wellington as the first thing that greets any visitor to the residence of the British ambassador at the British Embassy?). On a personal level I take special pride in knowing my family ancestors did their bit on the battlefield to fight against Napoleon during those tumultuous times. However, as an ex-combat veteran who studied Napoleonic warfare with fan girl enthusiasm, I have huge respect for Napoleon as a brilliant military commander. And to makes things more weird, as a Francophile resident of who loves living and working in France (and my partner is French) I have a grudging but growing regard for Napoleon’s political and cultural legacy, especially when I consider the current dross of political mediocrity on both the political left and the right. So for me it’s a complicated issue how I feel about Napoleon, the man, the soldier, and the political leader.

If it’s not so straightforward for me to answer the for/against Napoleon question then it It’s especially true for the French, who even after 200 years, still have fiercely divided opinions about Napoleon and his legacy - but intriguingly, not always in clear cut ways.

I only have to think about my French neighbours in my apartment building to see how divisive Napoleon the man and his legacy is. Over the past year or so of the Covid lockdown we’ve all gotten to know each other better and we help each other. Over the Covid year we’ve gathered in the inner courtyard for a buffet and just lifted each other spirits up.

One of my neighbours, a crusty old ex-general in the army who has an enviable collection of military history books that I steal, liberate, borrow, often discuss military figures in history like Napoleon over our regular games of chess and a glass of wine. He is from very old aristocracy of the ancien regime and whose family suffered at the hands of ‘madame guillotine’ during the French Revolution. They lost everything. He has mixed emotions about Napoleon himself as an old fashioned monarchist. As a military man he naturally admires the man and the military genius but he despises the secularisation that the French Revolution ushered in as well as the rise of the haute bourgeois as middle managers and bureaucrats by the displacement of the aristocracy.

Another retired widowed neighbour I am close to, and with whom I cook with often and discuss art, is an active arts patron and ex-art gallery owner from a very wealthy family that came from the new Napoleonic aristocracy - ie the aristocracy of the Napoleonic era that Napoleon put in place - but she is dismissive of such titles and baubles. She’s a staunch Republican but is happy to concede she is grateful for Napoleon in bringing order out of chaos. She recognises her own ambivalence when she says she dislikes him for reintroducing slavery in the French colonies but also praises him for firmly supporting Paris’s famed Comédie-Française of which she was a past patron.

Another French neighbour, a senior civil servant in the Elysée, is quite dismissive of Napoleon as a war monger but is grudgingly grateful for civil institutions and schools that Napoleon established and which remain in place today.

My other neighbours - whether they be French families or foreign expats like myself - have similarly divisive and complicated attitudes towards Napoleon.

In 2010 an opinion poll in France asked who was the most important man in French history. Napoleon came second, behind General Charles de Gaulle, who led France from exile during the German occupation in World War II and served as a postwar president.

The split in French opinion is closely mirrored in political circles. The divide is generally down political party lines. On the left, there's the 'black legend' of Bonaparte as an ogre. On the right, there is the 'golden legend' of a strong leader who created durable institutions.

Jacques-Olivier Boudon, a history professor at Paris-Sorbonne University and president of the Napoléon Institute, once explained at a talk I attended that French public opinion has always remained deeply divided over Napoleon, with, on the one hand, those who admire the great man, the conqueror, the military leader and, on the other, those who see him as a bloodthirsty tyrant, the gravedigger of the revolution. Politicians in France, Boudon observed, rarely refer to Napoleon for fear of being accused of authoritarian temptations, or not being good Republicans.

On the left-wing of French politics, former prime minister Lionel Jospin penned a controversial best selling book entitled “the Napoleonic Evil” in which he accused the emperor of “perverting the ideas of the Revolution” and imposing “a form of extreme domination”, “despotism” and “a police state” on the French people. He wrote Napoleon was "an obvious failure" - bad for France and the rest of Europe. When he was booted out into final exile, France was isolated, beaten, occupied, dominated, hated and smaller than before. What's more, Napoleon smothered the forces of emancipation awakened by the French and American revolutions and enabled the survival and restoration of monarchies. Some of the legacies with which Napoleon is credited, including the Civil Code, the comprehensive legal system replacing a hodgepodge of feudal laws, were proposed during the revolution, Jospin argued, though he acknowledges that Napoleon actually delivered them, but up to a point, "He guaranteed some principles of the revolution and, at the same time, changed its course, finished it and betrayed it," For instance, Napoleon reintroduced slavery in French colonies, revived a system that allowed the rich to dodge conscription in the military and did nothing to advance gender equality.

At the other end of the spectrum have been former right-wing prime minister Dominique de Villepin, an aristocrat who was once fancied as a future President, a passionate collector of Napoleonic memorabilia, and author of several works on the subject. As a Napoleonic enthusiast he tells a different story. Napoleon was a saviour of France. If there had been no Napoleon, the Republic would not have survived. Advocates like de Villepin point to Napoleon’s undoubted achievements: the Civil Code, the Council of State, the Bank of France, the National Audit office, a centralised and coherent administrative system, lycées, universities, centres of advanced learning known as école normale, chambers of commerce, the metric system, and an honours system based on merit (which France has to this day). He restored the Catholic faith as the state faith but allowed for the freedom of religion for other faiths including Protestantism and Judaism. These were ambitions unachieved during the chaos of the revolution. As it is, these Napoleonic institutions continue to function and underpin French society. Indeed, many were copied in countries conquered by Napoleon, such as Italy, Germany and Poland, and laid the foundations for the modern state.

Back in 2014, French politicians and institutions in particular were nervous in marking the 200th anniversary of Napoleon's exile. My neighbours and other French friends remember that the commemorations centred around the Chateau de Fontainebleau, the traditional home of the kings of France and was the scene where Napoleon said farewell to the Old Guard in the "White Horse Courtyard" (la cour du Cheval Blanc) at the Palace of Fontainebleau. (The courtyard has since been renamed the "Courtyard of Goodbyes".) By all accounts the occasion was very moving. The 1814 Treaty of Fontainebleau stripped Napoleon of his powers (but not his title as Emperor of the French) and sent him into exile on Elba. The cost of the Fontainebleau "farewell" and scores of related events over those three weekends was shouldered not by the central government in Paris but by the local château, a historic monument and UNESCO World Heritage site, and the town of Fontainebleau.

While the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution that toppled the monarchy and delivered thousands to death by guillotine was officially celebrated in 1989, Napoleonic anniversaries are neither officially marked nor celebrated. For example, over a decade ago, the president and prime minister - at the time, Jacques Chirac and Dominque de Villepin - boycotted a ceremony marking the 200th anniversary of the battle of Austerlitz, Napoleon's greatest military victory. Both men were known admirers of Napoleon and yet political calculation and optics (as media spin doctors say) stopped them from fully honouring Napoleon’s crowning military glory.

Optics is everything. The division of opinion in France is perhaps best reflected in the fact that, in a city not shy of naming squares and streets after historical figures, there is not a single “Boulevard Napoleon” or “Place Napoleon” in Paris. On the streets of Paris, there are just two statues of Napoleon. One stands beneath the clock tower at Les Invalides (a military hospital), the other atop a column in the Place Vendôme. Napoleon's red marble tomb, in a crypt under the Invalides dome, is magnificent, perhaps because his remains were interred there during France's Second Empire, when his nephew, Napoleon III, was on the throne.

There are no squares, nor places, nor boulevards named for Napoleon but as far as I know there is one narrow street, the rue Bonaparte, running from the Luxembourg Gardens to the River Seine in the old Latin Quarter. And, that, too, is thanks to Napoleon III. For many, and I include myself, it’s a poor return by the city to the man who commissioned some of its most famous monuments, including the Arc de Triomphe and the Pont des Arts over the River Seine.

It's almost as if Napoleon Bonaparte is not part of the national story.

How Napoleon fits into that national story is something historians, French and non-French, have been grappling with ever since Napoleon died. The plain fact is Napoleon divides historians, what precisely he represents is deeply ambiguous and his political character is the subject of heated controversy. It’s hard for historians to sift through archival documents to make informed judgements and still struggle to separate the man from the myth.

One proof of this myth is in his immortality. After Hitler’s death, there was mostly an embarrassed silence; after Stalin’s, little but denunciation. But when Napoleon died on St Helena in 1821, much of Europe and the Americas could not help thinking of itself as a post-Napoleonic generation. His presence haunts the pages of Stendhal and Alfred de Vigny. In a striking and prescient phrase, Chateaubriand prophesied the “despotism of his memory”, a despotism of the fantastical that in many ways made Romanticism possible and that continues to this day.

The raw material for the future Napoleon myth was provided by one of his St Helena confidants, the Comte de las Cases, whose account of conversations with the great man came out shortly after his death and ran in repeated editions throughout the century. De las Cases somehow metamorphosed the erstwhile dictator into a herald of liberty, the emperor into a slayer of dynasties rather than the founder of his own. To the “great man” school of history Napoleon was grist to their mill, and his meteoric rise redefined the meaning of heroism in the modern world.

The Marxists, for all their dislike of great men, grappled endlessly with the meaning of the 18th Brumaire; indeed one of France’s most eminent Marxist historians, George Lefebvre, wrote what arguably remains the finest of all biographies of him.

It was on this already vast Napoleon literature, a rich terrain for the scholar of ideas, that the great Dutch historian Pieter Geyl was lecturing in 1940 when he was arrested and sent to Buchenwald. There he composed what became one of the classics of historiography, a seminal book entitled Napoleon: For and Against, which charted how generations of intellectuals had happily served up one Napoleon after another. Like those poor souls who crowded the lunatic asylums of mid-19th century France convinced that they were Napoleon, generations of historians and novelists simply could not get him out of their head.

The debate runs on today no less intensely than in the past. Post-Second World War Marxists would argue that he was not, in fact, revolutionary at all. Eric Hobsbawm, a notable British Marxist historian, argued that ‘Most-perhaps all- of his ideas were anticipated by the Revolution’ and that Napoleon’s sole legacy was to twist the ideals of the French Revolution, and make them ‘more conservative, hierarchical and authoritarian’.

This contrasts deeply with the view William Doyle holds of Napoleon. Doyle described Bonaparte as ‘the Revolution incarnate’ and saw Bonaparte’s humbling of Europe’s other powers, the ‘Ancien Regimes’, as a necessary precondition for the birth of the modern world. Whatever one thinks of Napoleon’s character, his sharp intellect is difficult to deny. Even Paul Schroeder, one of Napoleon’s most scathing critics, who condemned his conduct of foreign policy as a ‘criminal enterprise’ never denied Napoleon’s intellect. Schroder concluded that Bonaparte ‘had an extraordinary capacity for planning, decision making, memory, work, mastery of detail and leadership’.  The question of whether Napoleon used his genius for the betterment or the detriment of the world, is the heart of the debate which surrounds him.

France's foremost Napoleonic scholar, Jean Tulard, put forward the thesis that Bonaparte was the architect of modern France. "And I would say also pâtissier [a cake and pastry maker] because of the administrative millefeuille that we inherited." Oddly enough, in North America the multilayered mille-feuille cake is called ‘a napoleon.’ Tulard’s works are essential reading of how French historians have come to tackle the question of Napoleon’s legacy. He takes the view that if Napoleon had not crushed a Royalist rebellion and seized power in 1799, the French monarchy and feudalism would have returned, Tulard has written. "Like Cincinnatus in ancient Rome, Napoleon wanted a dictatorship of public salvation. He gets all the power, and, when the project is finished, he returns to his plough." In the event, the old order was never restored in France. When Louis XVIII became emperor in 1814, he served as a constitutional monarch.

In England, until recently the views on Napoleon have traditionally less charitable and more cynical. Professor Christopher Clark, the notable Cambridge University European historian, has written. "Napoleon was not a French patriot - he was first a Corsican and later an imperial figure, a journey in which he bypassed any deep affiliation with the French nation," Clark believed Napoleon’s relationship with the French Revolution is deeply ambivalent.

Did he stabilise the revolutionary state or shut it down mercilessly? Clark believes Napoleon seems to have done both. Napoleon rejected democracy, he suffocated the representative dimension of politics, and he created a culture of courtly display. A month before crowning himself emperor, Napoleon sought approval for establishing an empire from the French in a plebiscite; 3,572,329 voted in favour, 2,567 against. If that landslide resembles an election in North Korea, well, this was no secret ballot. Each ‘yes’ or ‘no’ was recorded, along with the name and address of the voter. Evidently, an overwhelming majority knew which side their baguette was buttered on.

His extravagant coronation in Notre Dame in December 1804 cost 8.5 million francs (€6.5 million or $8.5 million in today's money). He made his brothers, sisters and stepchildren kings, queens, princes and princesses and created a Napoleonic aristocracy numbering 3,500. By any measure, it was a bizarre progression for someone often described as ‘a child of the Revolution.’ By crowning himself emperor, the genuine European kings who surrounded him were not convinced. Always a warrior first, he tried to represent himself as a Caesar, and he wears a Roman toga on the bas-reliefs in his tomb. His coronation crown, a laurel wreath made of gold, sent the same message. His icon, the eagle, was also borrowed from Rome. But Caesar's legitimacy depended on military victories. Ultimately, Napoleon suffered too many defeats.

These days Napoleon the man and his times remain very much in fashion and we are living through something of a new golden age of Napoleonic literature. Those historians who over the past decade or so have had fun denouncing him as the first totalitarian dictator seem to have it all wrong: no angel, to be sure, he ended up doing far more at far less cost than any modern despot. In his widely praised 2014 biography, Napoleon the Great, Andrew Roberts writes: “The ideas that underpin our modern world - meritocracy, equality before the law, property rights, religious toleration, modern secular education, sound finances, and so on - were championed, consolidated, codified and geographically extended by Napoleon. To them he added a rational and efficient local administration, an end to rural banditry, the encouragement of science and the arts, the abolition of feudalism and the greatest codification of laws since the fall of the Roman empire.”

Roberts partly bases his historical judgement on newly released historical documents about Napoleon that were only available in the past decade and has proved to be a boon for all Napoleonic scholars. Newly released 33,000 letters Napoleon wrote that still survive are now used extensively to illustrate the astonishing capacity that Napoleon had for compartmentalising his mind - he laid down the rules for a girls’ boarding school on the eve of the battle of Borodino, for example, and the regulations for Paris’s Comédie-Française while camped in the Kremlin. They also show Napoleon’s extraordinary capacity for micromanaging his empire: he would write to the prefect of Genoa telling him not to allow his mistress into his box at the theatre, and to a corporal of the 13th Line regiment warning him not to drink so much.

For me to have my own perspective on Napoleon is tough. The problem is that nothing with Napoleon is simple, and almost every aspect of his personality is a maddening paradox. He was a military genius who led disastrous campaigns. He was a liberal progressive who reinstated slavery in the French colonies. And take the French Revolution, which came just before Napoleon’s rise to power, his relationship with the French Revolution is deeply ambivalent. Did he stabilise it or shut it down? I agree with those British and French historians who now believe Napoleon seems to have done both.

On the one hand, Napoleon did bring order to a nation that had been drenched in blood in the years after the Revolution. The French people had endured the crackdown known as the 'Reign of Terror', which saw so many marched to the guillotine, as well as political instability, corruption, riots and general violence. Napoleon’s iron will managed to calm the chaos. But he also rubbished some of the core principles of the Revolution. A nation which had boldly brought down the monarchy had to watch as Napoleon crowned himself Emperor, with more power and pageantry than Louis XVI ever had. He also installed his relatives as royals across Europe, creating a new aristocracy. In the words of French politician and author Lionel Jospin, 'He guaranteed some principles of the Revolution and at the same time, changed its course, finished it and betrayed it.'

He also had a feared henchman in the form of Joseph Fouché, who ran a secret police network which instilled dread in the population. Napoleon’s spies were everywhere, stifling political opposition. Dozens of newspapers were suppressed or shut down. Books had to be submitted for approval to the Commission of Revision, which sounds like something straight out of George Orwell. Some would argue Hitler and Stalin followed this playbook perfectly. But here come the contradictions. Napoleon also championed education for all, founding a network of schools. He championed the rights of the Jews. In the territories conquered by Napoleon, laws which kept Jews cooped up in ghettos were abolished. 'I will never accept any proposals that will obligate the Jewish people to leave France,' he once said, 'because to me the Jews are the same as any other citizen in our country.'

He also, crucially, developed the Napoleonic Code, a set of laws which replaced the messy, outdated feudal laws that had been used before. The Napoleonic Code clearly laid out civil laws and due processes, establishing a society based on merit and hard work, rather than privilege. It was rolled out far beyond France, and indisputably helped to modernise Europe. While it certainly had its flaws – women were ignored by its reforms, and were essentially regarded as the property of men – the Napoleonic Code is often brandished as the key evidence for Napoleon’s progressive credentials. In the words of historian Andrew Roberts, author of Napoleon the Great, 'the ideas that underpin our modern world… were championed by Napoleon'.

What about Napoleon’s battlefield exploits? If anything earns comparisons with Hitler, it’s Bonaparte’s apparent appetite for conquest. His forces tore down republics across Europe, and plundered works of art, much like the Nazis would later do. A rampant imperialist, Napoleon gleefully grabbed some of the greatest masterpieces of the Renaissance, and allegedly boasted, 'the whole of Rome is in Paris.'

Napoleon has long enjoyed a stellar reputation as a field commander – his capacities as a military strategist, his ability to read a battle, the painstaking detail with which he made sure that he cold muster a larger force than his adversary or took maximum advantage of the lie of the land – these are stuff of the military legend that has built up around him. It is not without its critics, of course, especially among those who have worked intensively on the later imperial campaigns, in the Peninsula, in Russia, or in the final days of the Empire at Waterloo.

Doubts about his judgment, and allegations of rashness, have been raised in the context of some of his victories, too, most notably, perhaps, at Marengo. But overall his reputation remains largely intact, and his military campaigns have been taught in the curricula of military academies from Saint-Cyr to Sandhurst, alongside such great tacticians as Alexander the Great and Hannibal.

Historians may query his own immodest opinion that his presence on the battlefield was worth an extra forty thousand men to his cause, but it is clear that when he was not present (as he was not for most of the campaign in Spain) the French were wont to struggle. Napoleon understood the value of speed and surprise, but also of structures and loyalties. He reformed the army by introducing the corps system, and he understood military aspirations, rewarding his men with medals and honours; all of which helped ensure that he commanded exceptional levels of personal loyalty from his troops.

Yet, I do find it hard to side with the more staunch defenders of Napoleon who say his reputation as a war monger is to some extent due to British propaganda at the time. They will point out that the Napoleonic Wars, far from being Napoleon’s fault, were just a continuation of previous conflicts that arose thanks to the French Revolution. Napoleon, according to this analysis, inherited a messy situation, and his only real crime was to be very good at defeating enemies on the battlefield. I think that is really pushing things too far. I mean deciding to invade Spain and then Russia were his decisions to invade and conquer.

He was, by any measure, a genius of war. Even his nemesis the Duke of Wellington, when asked who the greatest general of his time was, replied: 'In this age, in past ages, in any age, Napoleon.'

I will qualify all this and agree that Napoleon’s Russian campaign has been rightly held up as a fatal folly which killed so many of his men, but this blunder – epic as it was – should not be compared to Hitler’s wars of evil aggression. Most historians will agree that comparing the two men is horribly flattering to Hitler - a man fuelled by visceral, genocidal hate - and demeaning to Napoleon, who was a product of Enlightenment thinking and left a legacy that in many ways improved Europe.

Napoleon was, of course, no libertarian, and no pluralist. He would tolerate no opposition to his rule, and though it was politicians and civilians who imposed his reforms, the army was never far behind. But comparisons with twentieth-century dictators are well wide of the mark. While he insisted on obedience from those he administered, his ideology was based not on division or hatred, but on administrative efficiency and submission to the law. And the state he believed in remained stubbornly secular.

In Catholic southern Europe, of course, that was not an approach with which it was easy to acquiesce; and disorder, insurgency and partisan attacks can all be counted among the results. But these were principles on which the Emperor would not and could not give ground. If he had beliefs they were not religious or spiritual beliefs, but the secular creed of a man who never forgot that he owed both his military career and his meteoric political rise to the French Revolution, and who never quite abandoned, amidst the monarchical symbolism and the court pomp of the Empire, the republican dreams of his youth. When he claimed, somewhat ambiguously, after the coup of 18 Brumaire that `the Revolution was over’, he almost certainly meant that the principles of 1789 had at last been consummated, and that the continuous cycle of violence of the 1790s could therefore come to an end.

When the Empire was declared in 1804, the wording, again, might seem curious, the French being informed that the `Republic would henceforth be ruled by an Emperor’. Napoleon might be a dictator, but a part at least of him remained a son of the Enlightenment.

The arguments over Napoleon’s status will continue - and that in itself is a testament to the power of one of the most complex figures ever to straddle the world’s stage.

Will the fascination with Napoleon continue for another 200 years?

In France, at least, enthusiasm looks set to diminish. Napoleon and his exploits are scarcely mentioned in French schools anymore. Stéphane Guégan, curator of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, which, among other First Empire artworks, houses a plaster model of Napoleon dressed as a Roman emperor astride a horse, has described France's fascination with him as ‘a national illness.’ He believes that the people who met him were fascinated by his charm. And today, even the most hostile to Napoleon also face this charm. So there is a difficulty to apprehend the duality of this character. As he wrote, “He was born from the revolution, he extended and finished it, and after 1804 he turns into a despot, a dictator.”

In France, Guégan aptly observes, there is a kind of nostalgia, not for dictatorship but for strong leaders. "Our age is suffering a lack of imagination and political utopia,"

Here I think Guégan is onto something. Napoleon’s stock has always risen or fallen according to the vicissitudes of world events and fortunes of France itself.

In the past, history was the study of great men and women. Today the focus of teaching is on trends, issues and movements. France in 1800 is no longer about Louis XVI and Napoleon Bonaparte. It's about the industrial revolution. Man does not make history. History makes men. Or does it? The study of history makes a mug out of those with such simple ideological driven conceits.

For two hundred years on, the French still cannot agree on whether Napoleon was a hero or a villain as he has swung like a pendulum according to the gravitational pull of historical events and forces.

The question I keep asking of myself and also to French friends with whom I discuss such things is what kind of Napoleon does our generation need?

Thanks for your question.

[usergreenpixel]

JACOBIN FICTION CONVENTION MEETING 10: BANNER OF THE MAID (2019)

1. The Introduction

Hey, Citizens! I’m back and this is the anniversary review! Yay, we’re 10 reviews young!

Anyway, in order to celebrate the special occasion, I really wanted to pick a special topic that wouldn’t be laced with propaganda and is obscure enough so as not to be well-known in our Revolutionary community!

“Banner of the Maid” fits both categories. It’s a relatively obscure Chinese Strategy RPG game made by Azure Flame Studio. It also mixes characters from the Napoleonic era and the French Revolution (or rather, a lot of historical figures were in both of those) so the Neighbors are once again welcome to join the Convention!

It first appeared on my radar thanks to a fellow Revolutionary and a good friend of mine, @idieonthishill , who has a review of her own! Check it out and show her some appreciation!

https://idieonthishill.tumblr.com/post/659391065047154688/i-recently-completed-another-playthrough-of-banner

The game is available on Steam if you’re using a PC, and that’s where I purchased it, but I heard it can be purchased for some consoles too so it’s fairly easy to get a hold of.

I was hoping to be able to complete this game by today but only managed to beat half of it by now due to some projects piling up at my college so I ended up cheating a bit and caught up on everything via YouTube walkthroughs.

Sorry about that, guys...

Anyway, let’s proceed to the actual review! @idieonthishill , this one is dedicated to you!

2. The Summary

The game begins in 1792, when the Royal Family attempts to flee to Varennes, but then takes a sharp turn into the alternative history because, unlike their real counterparts, here the king and the queen are still somewhat in power due to their PR boosting move of allowing women to be in the military.

In this universe, some women, called Maids, possess certain powers (unique from user to user) and are destined to save France. Our main character, Pauline Bonaparte, is a Maid with the power to inspire troops (in the gameplay this translates to impressive attack boosts) who has recently graduated from military school and, after a baptism by fire during which most of her troops got slaughtered, she travels to Toulon to reunite with her older brother (Napoleon) and help him fight in the War of the First Coalition. In the meantime, she also has to navigate the tricky politics of France of the Frev era...

3. The Story

So far, the story is actually pretty exciting. I must admit that the concept of the Maids is a narrative choice that I haven’t seen before, at least not in Frev media, so the premise alone got my attention.

As you might have deduced by now, this game shows us alternative history and, to the credit of the devs, they’re open and honest about this from the start.

What’s more, they don’t use alternative history as an excuse to spew propaganda left and right and the conflicts of the plot are actually in the gray area in terms of morality.

We meet revolutionaries, royalists, civillians and foreign enemies and they all have something sympathetic about them, which makes for a truly mature and interesting conflict.

Not something people usually expect from an animesque RPG game, but the surprise is welcome nonetheless precisely thanks to its rarity.

The story also an achievement of featuring a romantic subplot that I not only buy, but really enjoy, which is amazing considering how easy it is to screw up romantic subplots and my usual apathy towards those. More on the subplot later though.

Okay, let’s move on and look at the characters.

4. The Characters

Most of the characters are based on historical people and, surprisingly, they are much more accurate than they could’ve been.

Here are a few examples:

Pauline Bonaparte, or rather her version in the game, is a big part of the reason why I’m so hooked on the story thanks to her realistic portrayal.

She is kind, socially awkward, suffering from survivor’s guilt due to the death of her troops in the backstory but also idealistic, naïve and genuinely strong both physically and mentally.

Her protective streak is especially evident in her interactions with her (implied) love interest but so is her awkwardness, probably because it’s supposed to be her first love.

Basically, she is exactly what one would expect from a naïve newcomer thrown into the fires of war but she matured and learns to use her powers as the story progresses.

She is incredibly loyal to Napoleon (which is accurate) and their interactions are just really adorable, especially the one from the first part of the game where he cheers her up during a moment of insecurity by reminding her that she snatched 20 victories from him in snowball fights. Aww...

Another major character I’d like to talk about is Napoleon Bonaparte himself.

Here Naps is an incredibly talented and ambitious soldier (accurate!) and he is always ready to help Pauline, be it via a pep talk or via directly aiding her in battle. He also occasionally transfers new troops to Pauline so his help can be more indirect too.

Unfortunately, like Pauline, here he is bad at social interactions outside the military, which causes issues for his romance with Josephine de Beauharnais (who runs a salon/coffee shop called Malmaison in the game) and in some other cases.

Then there’s General Louis Desaix.

A nobleman who supports the Revolution (accurate!), he was a comrade of Napoleon’s before joining Pauline. He is Pauline’s love interest in the game, but their romance is quite subtle and it’s more of a subtext than anything.

For example, he saves Pauline twice and after the first time the two dance while flying over Paris on a hot air balloon. To me, this is clearly supposed to be romantic, especially with the way Pauline blushes the entire time.

Desaix is also a big protective cinnamon roll in the game but a brave and formidable opponent on the battlefield. He never hesitates to fight for his loved ones and for what he believes in, even at the cost of his life.

(Spoiler alert!)

Sadly, the canon version of the game has him die from an injury after he shields Pauline from an Austrian sniper (Bridget) but there’s a way to save him so don’t worry about it! More on that later though.

There’s also Joachim Murat. Womanizer, braggart, daredevil, dandy and a loyal friend, he has a big ego and a big heart to match (accurate!).

For example, when Desaix is dying, Murat carries him to the camp and keeps telling him to hang on the entire time, which I find really sweet.

Murat also has a unique character ability that had me laughing my ass off the first time I saw it. In the game he wears outrageously bright clothes (accurate!) and this gives him a handy ability to distract enemies and have much higher chances of dodging an attack than most of the cast has.

Way to make use of your clothes!

Also, contrary to popular belief, he is neither stupid nor spineless here, just reckless.

Another character, Jean Lannes, though apparently not as historically accurate as the aforementioned people, can be pretty blunt and rude (accurate!) and, according to the game, those traits frequently get him demoted but he is still loyal and a good friend. In fact, he keeps encouraging Desaix to hang in there too! Aww...

The game also features Josephine de Beauharnais, who is not a bitch and actually quite sympathetic, sketchy and corrupt Mirabeau and Robespierre, who doesn’t support the idea of executing everyone and simply wants a better life for the people.

These three are quite important as characters and I’m glad that most of the pitfalls of writing them aren’t present here.

Unfortunately, at least two characters based on real people are female while historically they were male. Arthur Wellesley (aka Wellington) becomes Anne Wellesley while Nicolas Oudinot is turned into a cute girl called Nicolette.

Honestly, these creative choices were a miss for me but it’s not a major complaint and can be justified by the fact that it’s alternative history.

Another complaint I have is that Anne doesn’t get enough screen time to make her potential as an antagonist truly shine, which is a shame. The same problem shows up with the characters from later chapters as some of them don’t have enough time to develop properly

Otherwise, though, the cast is full of genuinely interesting and somewhat accurate characters, most of whom are walking references and some are more obvious than others.

For example, there’s a possible reference to a Frev manga called “Rose of Versailles” as one of the female characters is called Oscar, which is the name of the female protagonist who was raised as a man.

Another character, a Maid who can talk to animals, is called Cosette, which is most likely a Les Mis reference.

However, some references to real people are more subtle and easy to miss unless you’re an expert in history of the French Revolution and/or Napoleonic Wars.

Let’s take a look at some examples, dear readers!

5. The References

For example, early on in the game, Pauline is shielded from attackers in Toulon by a character called Leclerc, which is the surname of the real Pauline’s first husband.

Leclerc’s sister, Aimée, who is in the military band of Pauline’s army, is also a reference to a real person. For the Neighbors, you probably know her better as Aimée Davout, future wife of Marshal Louis-Nicolas Davout.

Paulette Méric, a friend of Lannes’s in the game, is a reference to his first wife.

D’Eon, a retired spy and one of Pauline’s former instructors, was a real spy who was famous for cross dressing and lived as a woman after retiring. His gender is male in the game but it mentions that, while disguised as a woman, he had quite a few suitors (accurate!).

One of the antagonists, Leonore, is a reference to Eleonore Prochaska, a real Prussian soldier who fought against Napoleon.

A more subtle reference comes in the form of two journals that are instrumental in saving Desaix.

They’re called “Larrey’s Notes” and reference the chief surgeon of Napoleon’s army who was thought of as the best of the best.

He doesn’t appear in the game personally but, according to the Neighbors, he was good friends with Desaix in real life so, in a sweet way, he works a miracle in the game and helps the player save one of his friends! Aww.

There are many more references, of course, but I don’t want to bore anyone by listing all of them so we’ll have to stop here but, since I just mentioned the notes that are an important part of the gameplay, let’s talk about said gameplay.

6. The Gameplay

If you ever played “Rock Paper Scissors”, you’ll notice that the basics are somewhat similar to that game and, even if you don’t remember which unit type beats which, there’s a handy pictogramme on the screen during campaigns that will remind you of it.

Unfortunately, while learning how the game works is easy, the campaigns get progressively harder and harder along the way and, in my case at least, later campaigns can require a lot of trial and error before victory is achieved but it’s rewarding nonetheless.

Occasionally, you will get side missions that, when completed, give you reputation boosts, funds to purchase supplies and help you level up the troops.

In addition, both the main story and the side quests occasionally come with challenges that, if completed, give you some really important bonuses.

The gameplay, like the story and the characters, is also full of easter eggs and most of them are subtle.

But, unfortunately, one crucial part of the gameplay is too subtle, to the point that rookie players might not be able to even find out about it unless they stumble upon instructions or achieve it accidentally.

Remember how Desaix is potentially killed? Well, he is injured in Chapter 16 of the game (thanks, Bridget) and will die unless necessary measures are taken.

To save him, you will need two parts of Larrey’s Notes.

The first part can be obtained if you complete the challenge in the side mission of Chapter 7. The second one is found if the challenge in Chapter 15 is completed. You need to put both journals into Desaix’s inventory and then you need to prevent him from taking any damage in Chapter 16.

This is possible if you avoid being attacked by Heavy Cavalry and the Boss Enemy (Bridget) who pursues Desaix and Pauline to finish them off.

Meeting those requirements is tricky but to me it was all the more rewarding because he did survive during my walkthrough and I got so emotional that I was grinning and giggling like an idiot after realizing that I had just succeeded.

(We, the Revolutionaries, never abandon our own, fictional or otherwise!)

But, if you’re a rookie, it’s easy to think that Desaix’s death isn’t preventable because the game gives no indication of the purpose of the notes or the fact that he shouldn’t take damage, which, if you ask me, is extremely unfair to the players.

(Spoiler alert!)

There are also no indications that he will die, aside from the emphasis on his frail state during that campaign, so the “canon” death itself ends up coming out of the left field. Someone on the dev team must really hate Desaix for some reason...

Heck, I only found out about the death and the way to prevent it by browsing forums on Steam, so I know how hard it is and I really wish that the hints were in the actual game, especially since Desaix is a major character! Not cool, guys, not cool...

A more minor issue pops up in the language. The game was made by a Chinese studio and is therefore only available in Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, and English.

The English version, the one I’m playing because I don’t speak Chinese, has some typos and other translation errors, but, unlike my previous complaint, this one isn’t really annoying and at least the English is good enough to make the game comprehensible.

7. The Visuals

The backgrounds of the game are truly stunning so I don’t have issues with those.

What I do have an issue with, are some of the character designs.

Anime style aside (because I’m not complaining about that per se), quite a few designs for female characters show their breasts (not entirely though, mostly it’s just that the cleavages are too deep), especially in the cases of the Queen and Paulette.

I have no idea why and how the devs decided on this, but it makes it hard for me to take the characters suffering from this seriously because lewd designs in a game that’s not about lewd stuff really annoy me and the game couldn’t been better if none of the female characters were designed that way.

As for the male characters, none of them are lewd (thank Supreme Being!) but they’re inconsistent.

Some men (Napoleon and Murat) are drawn accurately, almost like their designs are stylized portraits, while others (like Lannes and Desaix) are basically anime pretty boys, which is odd and makes me wish that the creators made up their minds and picked only one style for everyone. Oh well.

8. The Conclusion

All in all, the game isn’t without flaws, but I’m really enjoying it so far and I still recommend it.

After all, despite the questionable designs, the typos and so on, the creators clearly did their homework and genuinely did their best to make a good game, which has to be appreciated considering how low the bar is for Frev and Napoleonic media due to all the propaganda our respective communities deal with.

If you’re curious about the game, be sure to check it out on Steam as I believe that projects like this should be supported by our communities.

Well, that’s it for today’s meeting, Citizens and Neighbors! Hope you had a happy Halloween and I hope you have a happy Jacobin Fiction Convention anniversary!

More updates on the next review are coming soon so stay tuned!

Love,

- Citizen Green Pixel