Happygal (who is on the phone to me) presumes that in terms of a French desire for Napoleonic figures, they mean someone that anyone larger than a leprechaun can look down on.
Apart from that, we can presume from this article that the French are totally crazy. Especially their government.
Regards, Ivan
![](http://www.firewalkwithme.net/images/gb.gif)
1 posted on
02/17/2003 3:36:10 PM PST by
MadIvan
To: kayak; LET LOOSE THE DOGS OF WAR; keats5; Don'tMessWithTexas; Dutchy; Focault's Pendulum; Clive; ...
Bump!
2 posted on
02/17/2003 3:36:25 PM PST by
MadIvan
To: MadIvan; mhking; Miss Marple
There is not a day that goes by without me inhaling the perfume of the discreet violet the flower that symbolised loyalty to Napoleon.Get the rubber room ready.....this guy is a loon.
3 posted on
02/17/2003 3:41:54 PM PST by
Dog
To: MadIvan
BUMP
4 posted on
02/17/2003 3:44:12 PM PST by
RippleFire
(Hold mein bier!)
To: MadIvan
My God, Ivan, I think I fianlly understand why the French love Saddam Hussein so - they're just as insane as he is.
5 posted on
02/17/2003 3:44:14 PM PST by
CFC__VRWC
To: MadIvan
Happygal (who is on the phone to me)Name dropper. :-)~
To: MadIvan
I've read that Napoleon's pursuit of glory led to the death of one million Europeans. Fitting that this fool celebrates him.
To: MadIvan
What we have called the "British tradition" was made explicit mainly by a group of Scottish moral philosophers led by David Hume, Adam Smith, and Adam Ferguson, seconded by their English contemporaries Josiah Tucker, Edmund Burke, and William Paley, and drawing largely on a tradition rooted in the jurisprudence of the common law. Opposed to them was the tradition of the French Enlightenment, deeply imbued with Cartesian rationalism: the Encyclopedists and Rousseau, the Physiocrats and Condorcet, are the best-known representatives. [...]
Though these two groups are now commonly lumped together as the ancestors of modern liberalism, there is hardly a greater contrast imaginable than that between their respective conceptions of the evolution and functioning of a social order and the role played in it by liberty. The difference is directly traceable to the predominance of an essentially empiricist view of the world in England and a rationalist approach in France. The main contrast in the practical conclusions to which these approaches led has recently been well put, as follows: "One finds the essence of freedom in spontaneity and the absence of coercion, the other believes it to be realized only in the pursuit and attainment of an absolute collective purpose"; and "one stands for organic, slow, half-conscious growth, the other for doctrinaire deliberateness; one for trial and error procedure, the other for an enforced solely valid pattern." It is the second view, as J.L. Talmon has shown in an important book from which this description is taken, that has become the origin of totalitarian democracy.
The sweeping success of the political doctrines that stem from the French tradition is probably due to their great appeal to human pride and ambition. But we must not forget that the political conclusions of the two schools derive from different conceptions of how society works. In this respect the British philosophers laid the foundations of a profound and essentially valid theory, while the rationalist school was simply and completely wrong.
- F.A. Hayek, "The Constitution of Liberty"
8 posted on
02/17/2003 3:47:42 PM PST by
jdege
To: MadIvan
That Napoleonic stuff is hilarious. But that is all the French have. The big elephant in the room is France's appeasement of Hitler and the French army's collapse in May 1940. If I had that level of shame in my history, I would go back to Moses for glorification!
11 posted on
02/17/2003 3:52:50 PM PST by
LarryM
To: MadIvan
While smelling his violets, M. Villepin should remember Napoleon was of Italian (Corsican) descent, not French.
Perhaps this perfumed papillon should be sniffing garlic instead.
Leni
13 posted on
02/17/2003 3:54:36 PM PST by
MinuteGal
(Escape to FReeper Island on "FReeps Ahoy" cruise. Register today or weep later!)
To: MadIvan
14 posted on
02/17/2003 3:57:08 PM PST by
Cicero
To: MadIvan
Napoleon symbolizes everything that is wrong with the French. Although he was certainly one of the great military geniuses of all time, Napoleon simply refused to train his subordinates so that they could operate independently of him. In effect, Napoleon believed absolutely in central command and control through one man -- him. As a result, in order for French troops to be victorious, Napoleon had to be on the scene. And this unwillingness to properly train subordinates so that they could general on their own eventually led to the defeat of the French because Napoleon simply wore out. Even he could not be at all places at all times.
After the Napoleonic Wars ended, the Germans saw how harmful it had been to the French that Napoleon had been unwilling to properly train his people and to then provide them with the support and authority they in order need to win. The German response was to create one of the most successful instititutions of the 19th century, which was the German General Staff. And the reason the German General Staff was so successful was the that its creators saw first hand how important it was to identify and then properly train officers who could carry out operations on their own.
To: MadIvan
I was watching Ollie North doing War Stories last night on Fox. When the allies invaded North Africa our first opposition was the French Navy at Casa Blanca. They scuttled their ships and surrendered within hours and have been blaming the American citizen Humphry Bogart ever since.
To: MadIvan
Happygal (who is on the phone to me)
![](http://www.mokume.com/images/18yelredsttw.jpg)
19 posted on
02/17/2003 4:12:19 PM PST by
tictoc
To: MadIvan
To: MadIvan
No Frenchman will ever reach Napoleonic levels of greatness. Of course that's due to Napoleon not being French but rather a Corsican.
26 posted on
02/17/2003 5:01:50 PM PST by
fso301
To: MadIvan
29 posted on
02/17/2003 5:32:33 PM PST by
Marines981
("GOD, Marines, and Country")
To: MadIvan
" we can presume from this article that the French are totally crazy"Amongst other things, and there's a wealth of those.
33 posted on
02/17/2003 6:42:37 PM PST by
spunkets
To: MadIvan
MadIvan: Being here in Brussels, my signature coffee cup at work is a Napoleon mug from Waterloo. Been out to the Prince of Oranges "Mountain" recently with the Boy Scouts who celebrated the first edition of their Historical Battle Trail - providing on the ground walk and history of the battle - kids camp out and get a beautiful patch to keep, plus the memories:)
This was a tragic battle, full of miscalculations, and to the victor went the perspective on Victory - Wellington was lucky to have written his place in history as the winner in this battle as a coalation of the willing was required to defeat Europe's first little corporal; however, it is very true that Napoleon was soundly defeated and the Old French Guard died valantly in defense of their beloved leader who slipped away in a carriage just a few meters from capture at the end of the day; truely a Frenchman to end, the little general fled unlike his German counterparts 150 years later who chose to meet their makers despite their distaste of Nazism, and many of whom took their own lives....
39 posted on
02/17/2003 8:27:24 PM PST by
Jumper
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