When tackling what we could refer to as the « Napoleon Galaxy », we cannot but be amazed that this historical persona of such world impact and with such a unique reputation has been so seldom analyzed by astrologers.

Let’s consider the fabulous destiny of this second son from a minor and impoverished nobility, who became an army officer at 16, a general at 25, Chief of State of France at 30, emperor at 35, who dazzled the world through his military genius, and who conquered Europe with his glorious Great Army. No less imposing was he as a statesman, who structured a modern society, like Charlemagne had done before.

Among various side events we may also want to note his coronation by the pope himself in Paris and his second marriage with a descendant of Charles the Fifth … Even his fall from grace strikes one’s imagination and increases the glory of his life story. Here are the ready-made scenes that will feed lithographs and posterity: the triumphant flight of the ‘eagle’ who fled the island of Elba « from belfry to belfry to the Towers of Notre Dame », the funerary apotheosis of Waterloo and the exile from Europe.

As a crowning glory, there came the exile of the fallen emperor, alone on a faraway rocky island and shackled to his warden, the martyr’s fate on a par with the crowning of the Memorial, while the young romantic crowd, yearning for larger than life heroes, quickly turned him into a living god! And since that time, always admired as much as he is deviled, respected as much as he is hated (some going so far as to like Bonaparte and refuse Napoleon), the passionate feelings keep piling up at the feet of his monument.

One need only consider how many works of art have been dedicated to Napoleon: countless movies, so many music pieces from Beethoven to Schoënberg, numerous paintings (in “Le Louvre museum, « Le Sacre » -- the painting of Napoleon’s crowning -- is the most popular piece after the « Joconde » and « more books have been published on Napoleon than there have been days since his death » (Jean Tulard).

If a modicum of intellectual curiosity should move an astrologer to examine a specific celestial figure, would there be a more tempting historical figure than this one? Had his chart been commonplace, it would have been enough to undermine astrology, but there again we have evidence standing out more clearly than ever: an exceptional celestial configuration for an exceptional character and an exceptional destiny. That expectation is not let down in the least, to the extent that – his cosmographic monument being so evidently superior – the chart of Napoleon alone becomes a model of the astrological matter, and can be promoted to the rank of archetype.

The more outstanding the man the stronger the indexed value which goes with it; the filtering of the relatedness between the meaning and what is meant making all the purer the astral-print of the individual. In this « Napoleon in the hand of gods », let’s not avoid the conventional napoleonian rhetoric, since this reversibility benefits from the metaphoric picture. Such as the new emperor Phoebus driving the Sun’s chariot in his journey from East to West, himself with the Sun in its own sign, culminating, Napoleon is under our very eyes.

If he ever hopes to succeed in this initiatory journey as a live testimony to the reality of the art of Uranus, the interpreter cannot however avoid the criticism of a partisan reading, particularly with such a character. One should not however crystallize the picture of a « homo napoleonicus” which comes through from the centre of his astrological chart. One should accept the emphatic dissertations of those who make a hero of him compared with others’ disenchanted expressions, everyone perceiving the man through his (her) own senses.

But, as Georges Blond ackowledges: « Solar spots don’t prevent the sun from shining ».

 

The Birth of Bonaparte

and the astrological approach

 

 

First, let’s get a good start through a starting point that cannot be refuted: what do we know of his birth, and do we know the exact birthtime?

We need to spend some time over this critical question, because the answer took a long time to surface and put to the test many an astrologer, which may explain why no thorough interpretation of his chart has ever been tempted. Truth is that legend itself has taken over his birth. All the way to fantasies with various origins: Greece, Scotland, Brittany, and, of course, that of a royal root (heir to the Bourbon family) …The most persistent fantasy was to make him the illegitimate son of the Count of Marbeuf, the king’s representative in Corsica, born on the 5^th of January 1768 on the governor’s domain, in Brittany near Ploërmel.

In issues number 27 and 28 of « Sous le Ciel »( Under the sky), the astrologer Gilbert de Chambertrand fell into this trap when he thought he had recognized the character in this mislaid sky. An admirer of the display of the Sun «  setting under the Arc de Triomphe » every year on the day of the emperor’s death, Don Neroman was misled by his collaborator when he repeated this version into « Grandeur et Pitié de l’Astrologie » (Greatness and Pity of Astrology) (Fernand Sorlot, 1949). The interpretative method was still in its trial and error stage, and in this case it was hardly attempted.

 

Buonaparte opened his eyes to the light in Ajaccio on August 15, 1769. His birth has been recorded in the « Book of expenses » of his father, Charles Bonaparte. His baptism act, written in Italian and kept in the records of the cathedral of the town, mentions it without specifying the time.

Today, this truth is so well accepted that the voluminous « Napoleon Dictionary », under the leadership of Jean Tulard, who does not leave a leaf unturned, does not even care to debate his birth

Anyway the problem of the time of his birth remains, which has stumped many French astrologers of the first generation, at the end of the last century. In his « Traité d’Astrologie Pratique » -(“Treatise of Practical Astrology”) (Chacornac 1912) Juvelno misleads his colleagues when he asserts Napoleon was born “at a quarter to ten as mentioned in the Memories of Bourrienne … ». However, he acknowledged that Bourrienne “was not unfailingly reliable”. This same version came to England through the « 1001 Notable Nativities » of Alan Leo, and through the « Text Book of Astrology » of Alfred J.Pearce, with « Modern Astrology”, Coming Events » and « The Horoscope ».

 

Referring to a biography, without mentioning which, Paul Choisnard gives a 9h 50 a.m. birth time in « Langage Astral » (Astral Language) (Chacornac, 1902), though he structured a chart for 10 a.m. in the issue n°4 (July 1913) of « Influence Astrale » (Astral Influence), without any interpretation. For lack of keeping updated about the works of their colleagues, some authors still carry on this inexcusable error, which turns out in their favor (J.Dorsan « Retour au Zodiaque des Etoiles » (“Return to the sideral zodiac”), Dervy 1980, Maurice Nouvel « Mercure et Vénus démasqués » (“Mercury and Venus unveiled”) Pardès 1991)…

  

Napoleon Bonaparte’s Act of Baptism. Archives of Ajaccio (Photos Tomasio)

 

If, in his “Encyclopédie Astrologique Française” (French Astrological Encyclopedia) (Niclaus 1936), Janduz is still fooled by this presentation, though Eudes Picard has already raised the «  Napoleon issue» in his « Astrologie Judiciaire » (“Judiciary Astrology”) (Leymarie 1932) where he initiates the debate: « Let’s hope that this birth time – 9H45 a.m.- is not listed in the « Errors » of Bourrienne. We must acknowledge however that the chart built around that birth time does not reflect the extraordinary glamour that rose from the prodigious stature of Napoleon ».

There follows a version which he ascribes to Alvidas in Vol.11, Key of Life : « The time chosen by Alvidas (11h31) seems more appropriate to the destiny of the Emperor. It is close to midday, the time of kings and, in all likelihood, it is not close enough ». So a third chart is drawn for 11H57 … In spite again of the lack of justification, the courageous astrological logic will prevail with a birth time of 11H30 presented by H.Beer in his « Introduction à l’Astrologie » (“Introduction to Astrology”) (Payot 1939).

A clarification is given by Guy Fradin in an article « Napoleon’s birth » published in « Astrologie Moderne » (“Modern Astrology”) n°13 (First term 1955), an issue from the International Center of Astrology, Paris. Having discounted the incorrect trails, he goes back to the baptismal act and recommends « around eleven in the morning » through a convergence of testimonies, among which a document from the counselor T.Nasica, a judge in Ajaccio from 1821 to 1829 : « Memoirs on infancy and youth of Napoleon till the age of 23 ; preceded by an historical document on his father » Paris 1852.

 

In fact, it would be more accurate to say « in the eleventh hour ». This would bring us closer to the “unofficial” source of the « Memorial of Sainte Hélène » of Las Cases, with the advantage of memories from picturesque tales of Napoleon’s delivery. Here is what is written about it from Sunday 27 to Thursday 31 August 1815:

« Napoleon was born on the 15th of August 1769, the day of the Assumption, around noon. His mother, a strong woman, both physically and morally, who participated in the war while pregnant with him, wanted to go to mass because of the solemnity of the day. She had to come back quickly and didn’t even have time to reach her bedroom and laid her newborn on one of those old antique carpets with great characters, those heroes from legend or may be from l’Iliad: there was Napoléon »

 

His mother, Letizia, explained away the romantic decoration « It is a tall tale to have him born on the head of Caesar; he did not need it. We had no carpets in our Corsica houses »

But the rest of the story stays the same: « When arriving at home – it was around noon – she had no time to go up to her bed (…) and gave birth almost immediately … » says again André Castelot in his « Bonaparte » (Academic Library Perrin 1967).

And we still have other precisions on this birth : 

« With the help of her sister in law Gertruda Paravicini – her husband’s sister – she went back home hastily to her house on Malerba street. As soon as she arrived, she had no time to go up to her bedroom : she made her way to the sitting room, laid down on a green couch and almost immediately gave birth with the help of her sister in law who acted as a midwife. It was around noon … » (André Castelot « Madame Mère » in his « Histoire Insolite” (“Lady Mother” in his “Unusual History”  (Academic Library Perrin 1982).

 

Finally, we can consider that he was born around 11h30 am, with a rough estimate of 15 minutes more or less, which is not too imprecise. This was the horary version that I suggested in « Le Lion » (“Leo) from the Zodiac Collection of Editions du Seuil (1958) and in my book « Traité Pratique d’Astrologie » (“Practical Treatise of Astrology”) (Le Seuil, 1961)

Outside of France they went through the same laborious discovery. In Belgium, Charles de Herbais de Thun bears testimony to the fact when he selects in his archives the time of 9h30, then gives 9h50 in his « Synthèse de l’Interprétation Astrologique » (“Synthesis of the Astrological Interpretation” (Demain 1937), while he reminds us of Juvelno, Picard, Choisnard (version of 10h00 in “Influence Astrale” n°4 (Astral Influence)). Jany Bessière even discovered in her files a version of 11h50 (without any justification) given by Eugène Caslant in Chacornac’s Almanach 1933).

In Italy, after having adopted the time of Choisnard recommended by Grazia Bordoni (Date di Nascita Interressanti …) various versions were proposed in Linguaggio Astrale : 11h00 with Natale Maione (n°97) and Davide Ferrero with Franco Orlandi (n°105) ; and 11h30 with D.Valente, C. Cannistra, M. Malagoli (n°78) and Rocco Pinneri (n° 103).

In Germany, confusion started early. As early as July 1910 in Zodiakus, Albert Kniepf complained about this horary uncertainty which made him doubt the veracity of the date of February 5, 1768 given by Bonaparte as the date of his wedding contract . The same confusion also worried Reinhold Ebertin, who came back to it several times (Meridian 1982/1), while he proposed in Koshlisher Beobatcher (annex of Kosmobiology) an almost similar chart with the Ascendant at 18° Scorpio, without justifying his choice.

“Well, says Henri Latou, the uncertainty of the birthtime of Napoleon discouraged our colleagues from Germany. In the third volume of “Horoskope Lexikon” (1992) Hans Hinrich Taeger, without justifying his sources, proposed eventually a chart for 11h30 also without justifying his choice in comparison with the other proposed times.

Finally, in the USA, Stephen Erlewine uses 9h45 in “The Circle book of Charts” (1972) while 11h30 is preferred by Lois M.Rodden in “The American Book of Charts” (1980).

 

A conclusion is necessary: the confused question of the birth of Bonaparte kept astrologers overcautious because there never has been any consistent text of interpretation which could retain their interest. At the very most, we can refer to some mumblings and eventually some small analysis such as the ones for the public at large in the “Petit Dictionnaire des gens du Lion” (“Small dictionary of Leo people”) of “Zodiaque” Collection, Le Seuil Edition”. There still lacked a real interpretation of the chart of Napoleon, one as large as his character. It is this “première” which is attempted here with the hope that the transcendental dimension of an archetypal figure will be reached.

 

A masterly star figure

 

 

According to the fundamental criteria of astrology and in regard to the exceptional character that faces us, the celestial figure of Napoleon is the sort of chart which should quite fulfil our expectations. The somewhat apologetic delight it gives us comes from many directions, and mainly from the convergence of a double prominence: the convergence of an exceptional “background”, an unexpected carrier environment, and a quasi omnipotent “signature”, the ultimate essence of space-time.

 

 

A prodigious generation

 

At the root of the celestial stars of Napoleon, the initial overture that forms the basses of his inner orchestration, a triple trine of the three slowest stars crops up in an already prestigious manner, like a crowning: the equilateral triangle between Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, this unique phenomenon of the millenary which serves as an apotheosis.

 

 

As a decisive crossroads of history: it is at the precise moment of the preceding triple conjunction Uranus-Neptune-Pluto in 575 b.c. that humankind as we know it came about, with the advent of great prophets (Zarathoustra, Deutero-Isaïe, Pythagorus, Buddha and Confucius), or in other words the advent of oriental religions and of a budding faith which is still alive in the greater population of today; and also the advent of Greek rationalism, the seed of our modern civilization, the real dawn of human knowledge as we know it, buoyed by the philosophers of Ionian cities (Thalès de Milet…), .

 

In the process of the cyclic development generated by the conjunction, its first phase (0°) is to the trine (120°) what the beginning of life is to a full life, in such a way that the triangular convergence of the three trines of this astral trio represents a highest development of society, which, because of its degree itself, necessarily promises a great historical turning point. It is in a way like the apex of the golden age.

The outcome of this inspiration is the rising of the philosophers “of light”. Through them, come to the fore the great liberating aspirations that have led to empty the world of the presence of God in order to better position the human being, who can take a more active role in the management of his own destiny. This humanism could do so thanks to the emergence of technical scientific progresses which help man control matter (the three stars are in a triplicity of earth: Taurus – Virgo- Capricorn). It is under this umbrella that the industrial revolution starts, with its instrumental creations that revolutionize everyday life and lead to a new age. The Philadelphia Congress in 1774 gave it a concrete expression as a foreword to the American Independence, with a human rights declaration modelled on the principles espoused and communicated by French philosophers: humanity was entering the modern era with its concurring leadership of materialism and Goddess-Rationality. Not without, one must admit, being escorted by the best and the worst.

It is therefore to be expected that the generation which comes at the crossing over of these two worlds of civilization would crop up and give birth to giants, not only Napoleon but also Hegel, Beethoven, de Cuvier and Chateaubriand … And not to forget the emperor and his opponents: Metternich and Wellington, and its shining army of generals and marshals: Bertrand, Bessières, Caulaincourt, Davout, Desaix, Duroc, Drouot, Hoche, Junot, Lannes, Marmont, Molitor, Murat, Ney, Rapp, Soult….

 

It is around this prestigious cohort that men of the time will be led to live the amazing epic of the Napoleonic empire. A generation sown with seeds of romantic heroes, as in the example of this soldier of the Great Army: “Our target was glory. It was a vast target as was the great epoch our youth was living in“… This generation was also making the transition between the Ancient Regime and modern times.

 

 

The socle of Neptune

 

From this first central triangle of the three slowest planets, let’s now consider the five-sided polygon formed with the addition of two more planets, Jupiter and Venus  making a splendid trine parallel to the axis Uranus-Pluto which forms the base of the pentagon and both equidistant to Neptune becoming the top. The big top of a pentagon made of a quadrilateral surmounted by an isosceles triangle.

 

As a result, the fundamental particles of the triangular nucleus become heated, dilated, magnified by the breath of air of this planetary duo (Venus Jupiter) which is itself in its phase of full expansiveness. Here is the dynamism of the chart that takes form and movement, the heavy trends ascending promisingly into spectacular configurations, in the splendour of their exegesis.

 

In the many sextiles successively formed by Uranus-Venus-Neptune-Jupiter- Pluto, a special pattern is formed by the isosceles triangle Venus-Neptune-Jupiter which overhangs a big rectangle Uranus-Venus-Jupiter-Pluto.

 

 

 

At the core of this sumptuous structure, the central position is occupied by Neptune in Virgo who, with its implications in the whole chart, is the great collector of the components of this configuration. In this configuration one can sense a human miasma full of a great common dream, a collective escape of souls driven by a high tide of passion, whirling along a grandiose historical adventure.

 

 

The Dome of Mars

 

Now, Mars arises as the keystone to this temple

Before looking at Mars alone, let’s overall appreciate the actualisation of the triangle of the transsaturnians which are united together by the isosceles triangle Venus-Mars-Jupiter. There is nothing better than the hot participation of this “carnal” trio to animate its quaver and bring it to a peak of existence. There could not have been any richer frame to bring to life the exceptional generation of the super trine Uranus-Neptune-Pluto.

The summit of the building is still Mars. Supported by Neptune in a harmonic field, it occupies a central position at the same distance by sextiles, to the trine Venus-Jupiter – the most beneficial aspect that ever existed as far as a sense of ease, auspiciousness, or even the natural advantage of a combination of circumstances – and, by trines, to the trine Uranus-Pluto. This heart is nothing else but the convergence of twelve major harmonics, among which five belong to Mars! This mechanism can then be evaluated as a record: the configuration of Mars in the chart of Napoleon is practically the only one of its kind and reaches a top.

 

Should it surprise us then that Bonaparte instinctively reacted to this extreme sign by entering the Military School of Paris in 1784, thereby obeying Mars and its configurations, and that his military genius made him the equal of Alexander, Hannibal, or Caesar, the greatest captain of all times? For, in spite of the shocking reality of the horrors of war, we can’t help viewing the story of the Great Army, spreading in all directions over Europe, as the most stunning, the most prodigious of all “chansons de geste”.

  

  

The splendor of this platform should not blind us to a pragmatic conclusion and the need to compare the Mars of Napoleon with the Mars of great military figures of history. The idea is so self-evident that it dominates: the meaning of the configuration of Mars in a soldier’s life is a precursor of his military journey, in accordance with the general background of his personal chart. The best way to determine this is to refer to typical historical examples by comparing extreme facts, brilliant victories, with disastrous defeats, the laurels of glory with military collapse.

 

The work begun with Didier Geslain gave me the opportunity to confirm this theory through empirical evidence. This was verified over the birth data points of a hundred marshals of France and the Empire, of all great generals of the time, including principal military opponents of the Emperor. The result is stunning: none of them has a position of Mars comparable with that of Napoleon. The best off among the greatest have only three major harmonics, exceptionally four, as for instance in the chart of the great marshal of Luxembourg. By comparison, the contrast is striking between these harmonic configurations and the disharmonic ones of Mars in the chart of the admiral François-Paul de Brueys who died in the defeat of his fleet at Aboukir; or of the admiral Pierre-Charles de Villeneuve, made prisoner in the defeat of his fleet at Trafalgar; and, more, (four major bad aspects to MC-Sun-Jupiter-Uranus) of the marshal François Achille Bazaine who surrendered without fighting in open country at Metz in 1870, condemned to military demotion and to death, the worst French military punishment.

 

 

A signature in apotheosis

 

We not only have a background which emphasizes a monumental Mars: with the steed comes the rider. The astrological signature which, for its part, brings out the intersection of time and space, the ‘here and now’ of the natal chart, is also colossal.

 

At the place and time of his birth, there is indeed an extreme convergence between planets which is rarely if ever seen. At the exact same moment, Jupiter rises in Scorpio, the Sun culminates in Leo, and Uranus sets in Taurus– a collusion between the three most powerful stars and the three strongest signs – linked to one another by aspect to the Medium Coeli where Mercury in Leo is also. A configuration which entails four angular conjunctions and five squares in a straight-angle triangle with the base being the opposition Jupiter-Uranus. We must even add to this tight concentration Moon in Capricorn. Difficult to top!

 

How can we not see in this extreme concentration a man with a hyper ego, bursting with willpower, devoured by the demon of ambition, entranced by the idea of power, all energies focused towards authority, supremacy, prestige, greatness, hugeness, and the epic?

 

What a thrust to make the most of the resources of the Mars platform! An immense personage with vast capabilities and driven by a profound confidence. How could such a man not have an immense faith in what he called his “lucky star”, because he felt he was “destiny’s son” called to a mission as others are to a supreme ministry? If Mars is the arbiter of his destiny, there is no doubt that it is in respect to and according to his hypertrophied astrological signature Sun-Jupiter-Uranus, that he drinks avidly off the dizzying cup of Fortune: politics, the great purpose of modern tragedy. It is that which will lift his destiny to breathtaking summits.

 

  

There is good reason to question why, in spite of this colossal Mars, the Napoleonic epic ended so tragically. The answer may be found in the rest of the chart, which leads us to the conclusion that it is the statesman (with many dissonances) and not the military man who was responsible for his fall.

 

The pre-eminence of the war general can be seen from beginning to end in his life journey. If Napoleon eventually lost the war at Leipzig, it was not due to a field mistake; it was simply that he could no longer fight a united European front, the biggest France had ever had to face. The specialists are unanimous in their opinion that the 1814 campaign of France is a masterpiece of military art.

In spite of waning resources – a single soldier for every four of the armed continent – he still managed to beat in separate campaigns the Austrian field marshal Schwarzenberg, the Prussian general Blücher, the Cossacks of Platov, the soldiers of Wurtemberg (nine victories in forty five days). The Allies even doubted for a moment that they could win and the emperor, renewed in his arrogance, thought he was closer to Vienna than the emperor of Austria was to Paris… But the game was far too unequal, besides the fact that the Saxon support did not materialize, and, above all, that his comrades-in-arms were abandoning him.

 

Neither was there a mistake made at Waterloo where the defeat (by a thread) was due to the absence of participation of the army corps of Grouchy. Sooner or later, there had to be a mistake made to bring an end to this intrusive statesman unwanted by the sovereigns of the reigning dynasties, themselves determined to bring France back into line. Moreover, it was by training at his ‘school’ that his military opponents managed to beat him: making sure above all, on the recommendations of Bernadotte, one more Swedish enemy, to systematically evade direct confrontation and to only fight his lieutenants. The prestige of the Great Army Chief remained intact, as well for the people who mostly remembered the panache of his brilliant victories as for the military experts who kept thinking he was the greatest captain in history. The Napoleonic epic still impresses posterity.

 

 

 

The Heir of French Revolution

 

 

First of all, what does the main figure - the conjunction Mars Neptune - tell us?

An initial meaning arises from a historical perspective as we meet the same conjunction in the charts of the three leaders of the French Revolution:  Danton, Robespierre and Saint Just; its meaning is consolidated through its repetition, the same index appearing also in Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin’s charts of the Bolshevik Revolution.

This common core expanded to the marshals of the empire:  Augereau and Massena who already won in 1796 and 1797;  Pérignon, a noble man devoted to the Republic, and especially Kellerman, the man of Valmy, the symbol of the triumph of republican armies.

 

The fabric of history is woven from the cycle Mars Neptune which gave emphasis to the reign of the revolutionary Commune, from the conjunction of August 10, 1792 when king Louis XVI was dethroned, to the one that accompanies Thermidor 9th (July 27, 1794) when Robespierre was overthrown.  This same Mars - Neptune conjunction came back for the third time on the 18 of Brumaire, year VIII (November 9, 1799) the date of the coup that put an end to the Directoire and brought to power Bonaparte, the First Consul.

 

- “I am the French Revolution”

 

Through this self renewing cyclic current, Bonaparte feels he is the continuous link through the new manifestation of his generation, like a melting pot of civilization where men of the Old Regime mingle with the children of modern times.

With this conjunction in the mutable sign of Virgo, Napoleon first drinks from the popular revolt, all the way to its "sans culottes" tones, which help create the soldier of year II, re-made in the revolutionary cauldron and carrying beyond the borders the torch of the new age, while reigning in the national haemorrhaging of a regicide France, lost in chaos and tragedy.  It is the end of the quagmire: through him, order reigns again.

The duality of the mutable sign Virgo is passed from Bonaparte on Napoleon.  The emperor is the man through whom the Revolution’s work keeps being done, so much so that, for the European nations, "his passage was felt like the night of August 4" (George Lefebvre) as he introduced the Civil code into all the annexed countries and the vassal kingdoms of his vast empire.

 

This Revolution had destroyed the old world. The emperor establishes a new world, the present time starting from it. But he rebuilds according to the principles and the rights of the Revolution which are going to make there way everywhere in particular through this Civil Code, giving a lasting and universal radiance to France. These great and beautiful truths have become immortal.

 

"They will be the faith, the religion, the guiding principles of all people, and this unforgettable era will be related, in spite of all, to my own person, because after all was said and done, I made the torch shine, I established these principles and today persecution has finally succeeded in making a Messiah out of me" (Memorial)

 

This is the final contradiction. The pompous drums of the empire, while covering the lamentations from the horrors of war, cannot make us forget that the heir to the French Revolution is a tyrannical ruler, dictatorial, animated with the " unquenchable need to be the center of attention" (Mollien), making all yield before him.

 

- « There is but one secret to run the world, it is to be strong, because in strength there is no mistake, no illusion; it is the truth laid bare”

 

This is a dangerous trap when strength is blinded by an excessive self-confidence fanned by an infinite ambition.

 

            - "True glory consists in putting oneself above one’s status"

 

The fascinating glory of Napoleon, betrayed by his own blinding power, can finally be reduced to a synthesis of the pros and cons

 

The Great Captain

 

 

Here are the initial signals of the conjunction Mars - Neptune:  while finding his way in the Brienne school, the young Bonaparte first saw himself as a future royal commander with forty guns, a project thwarted at once by the “madre”, anxious at the idea to see her dear Nabulio at sea.  A transient foreshadowing of the future, quickly outmatched by history, when the background with Mars merges with his signature.

 

Let’s first consider the entrance of this raw commander-in-chief of the Italian Army, 26 years old, small, thin, pale, dry, with a sallow complexion, the Vendemiaire general welcomed by its well established seniors.  Augereau, Masséna, Sérurier, generals of fortune risen from the ranks and having proved over and again that they were reliable, these strapping fellows, aloof, coarse, full of contempt, eyeing him harshly.  But this runt can stare down anyone, almost to the point of scaring these tough guys

And right away, in sharp tones, he exposes his plans, gives orders with an imperious tone and dismisses them.  As he has spoken to the petty chiefs as a Master, it is in the same vein that he gains control over his undisciplined troop of hungry and ragged beggars, close to anarchy.  You should hear him mobilizing his soldiers for the conquest of Italy, his famous speech waving like a flag.  He is already full of the charisma that will make him the most extraordinary leader since the time of Alexander. 

 

The neptunian magic of his military genius, is that, instinctively, he knows how a  private lives, thinks and likes, how to talk to him and what to tell him. He very quickly establishes excellent communions with his men, almost to the level of a mystical experience, the legendary figure of the "small corporal" with his grey frock coat, his two horn hat and his hand in his waistcoat, standing out in the shadow of the soldiers.  Nothing better portrays the depth of this intimate knowledge than the quote that follows one of his well-known field inspections of the troops:

 

            - "I draw my plans of battle from the dreams of my sleeping soldiers"

 

Fascinated by the genius of their leader -  maker of their dreams as in the image of the energetic "Bonaparte crossing the Alps" (1800) of Jacques Louis David -  these men are won over by the collective trance so much so that they worship and serve him as if there were no greater happiness.

He can ask them for feats of courage, of resistance, of heroism and of sacrifice: coming out of the Boulogne-sur-Mer campgrounds in 1803, transported by an indescribable passion, they are ready to follow him to the end of the world.  He is one with them and it is an invincible army which follows in this giant’s footsteps on his imperial flight, the "grognard" (= soldier of the old guard of Napoleon I) and "his" emperor, the "small close shaven man” even becoming a lucky charm.  For Napoleon is not afraid of exposing himself to enemy fire; he risks his life on the battlefield: ten horses will be killed under him.  In short, he is one of them.

 

            - "My soldiers were well at ease, very free with me; I have often seen some addressing me as one of theirs. I was seen as terrifying by the officers and perhaps by the Generals, but never by the soldiers. They had the instinct of truth and of sympathy, they knew me as their guardian and, if need be, their avenger "(to Las Cases).

 

- “….One has never seen such devotion from soldiers as from mine.  In all my misfortunes, no soldier, even while expiring, ever complained about me; no man has been served more faithfully by his troops than I was.  The last drop of blood flowed from their vein with the cry of "Long live the Emperor" (to O’Meara).

 

Hyperbole, as always, for this man who forgot he was hated during the worst moments of these battles where he asked his soldiers for the impossible. It still remains quintessentially true to the end of his adventure. 

If he "electrifies" thus his soldiers, almost as if they were in a trance, it is because he is hyper energetic, driven himself by a fantastic history.  As soon as he appears on the battlefield, victory rushes up to meet him and for a full ten years he remains invincible.  Thus, in a dazzling manner that feeds imaginations, we see the eagle fly from victory to victory, from one European capital to another, from Lisbon to Moscow, from the drums of Arcole to the knell of Waterloo.

 

Let’s notice in passing the neptunian note of an illusionist strategist, an expert in mystifying the opponent, an artist of the trick of smoke screens, as when he makes a racket with his drums to impress the enemy or when he distracts them by fanning the fires in his camps, thus manipulating the enemy into moving their apparel and better fall into his trap. 

 

Another angle comes from the resources of the opposition Jupiter Uranus which makes a triangle to the conjunction Mars Neptune.  It gives this tumultuous genius unprecedented daring, beyond the comprehension of his enemies.  Thus the feat of Bonaparte who has his army of Italy crossing the Great Saint Bernard pass, a horrendous expedition, a titanic adventure! 

 

As a military genius of powder, he "moves like a flash and strikes like lightning", already proclaims "The Mail of the army of Italy" on October 23, 1797.  Its main strategic quality is to upset the established order while initiating the technique (uranian) of the lightning-fast war, so appropriate to his striking glance. In the military annals of all times, there are no more brilliant accounts than his campaigns which lead to the immediate surrender of the opponent, and nothing equals the dazzling war pomp of Austerlitz. Starting around seven in the morning on June 14, 1800, with an enemy greater in numbers, the battle of Marengo ended brilliantly around 8 pm.  At Austerlitz, with a single French man for two Austro Russians, the engagement of December 2, 1805 started around seven am and ended around 5 pm with a complete victory and a legendary charge of the Guard.  Notwithstanding two victories in a single day, at Iéna and Auerstädt on October 14, 1806, when Prussia collapsed, nor the two-hour victory against the Russians at Friedland on June 14, 1807 …..

 

- "Soldiers, we must finish this campaign with a roar that annihilates our enemy’s pride!"

 

 The whole style (Sun - Jupiter - Uranus) of the character is here. It is so in the full conviction of the emperor of the best days. 

 

- "Before tomorrow evening, this army is mine!"(One day before Austerlitz)

 

- "I have them in hand!  In one month from now we will be in Vienna!  " (He will be there three weeks later). 

 

And in the bad days, the same state of mind turns to arrogance, an excess of confidence contributing to his downfall. 

 

His hyperactive rhythm is that of a troop that moves through forced marches.  The grognard wages war with his legs and walks fifty kilometres a day, always ahead, always faster, in the same manner his cavalry burns the pathways and he himself is always breathless, tireless, everywhere.

 

 A volunteer of 1803 will estimate he covered thirty six thousand kilometres on foot in ten years.  The geographical extent of the campaigns of Napoleon is unparalleled:  it covers Europe, from Portugal to Russia.  This continental intermixing by the grognards - older than their leader - concerned a particular generation under the passages of Uranus in Pisces (1752-1759) and Aries (1760-1767).

 

The uranian emphasis of Pisces split two populations because of the double character of the sign.  On one side, the extreme contraction of the self, fully experienced during the tragic time of the French Revolution: detention, captivity, prison (the Tower of the Temple, the Conciergerie, Sainte Pelagie, Luxembourg) on top of the emigration, and on the other side, the extreme expansion of the self through cosmopolitanism, conveyed after the American adventure of La Fayette and the Lameth, through this dizzying military flight that will mix for a few years over ten different populations.  In the end, all languages are spoken in the Grand Army.

 

 This is due also in large and possibly greater part to Uranus in Aries – a signature common to half the marshals of the empire, a particular element of a generation that, from its deepest innards, releases and spurts out an explosive force that will naturally find its preferred expression in perilous adventures, the feats, the climaxes, a risky extremism. In a way, this is a generation of tough guys and loose canons, if not black sheep.

 

The great captain also had his breakdowns:  he had not sought after improving the weaponry inherited from the Ancient Régime, he had not used the surveillance balloons of the hot air balloon pilots….  But the fate of his reign would be settled elsewhere.

 

- "There are only two powers in the world, the sabre and the mind.  In the long run the sabre is always beaten by the mind”

 

Alas!  The sovereign did not have always the mind on his side.

 

 

The Statesman

 

 

By way of introduction let’s start with a comparison.  Among the two hundred European monarchs of whom we have the birth data, the one who is the most like Napoleon astrologically speaking, who shares with him two common major positions, is Louis XIV, whom incidentally he admired enthusiastically.

 

- "Starting with Charlemagne, who is the king of France that we can compare him to in all regards?”

 

Both have Jupiter in Scorpio conjunct Ascendant and Sun in X conjunct the MC, Jupiter making an aspect to it. And, if on Bourbon’s chart the diurnal luminary is in Virgo, at least he has the Moon and Venus in Leo. Are they not the two French notorieties of the absolute power? And also, didn’t the Sun king already carry the royal staff in his crib?

 

In the emperor‘s chart, the Jupiter Sun duo that we find also in the chart of Louis XIV, expands itself to a triumvirate completed by Uranus, these three components constituting the buttress of his internal structure. Each one of the three reinforces the other two to unite in a midpoint where the whole being imposes its passion:  the dizzying elixir of strength, the ecstasy of power, the intoxication of glory.  The true passion of Napoleon is not war and, for a time at least, the civil leader in him is greater than the captain.

 

Since the key word “passion” has been uttered, let’s recall that, in his "Treaty of Characterology" (PUF, 1945), René Le Senne draws Napoleon as a passionate individual (Emotive-Active-Secondary).  "I am the State” is the motto of this type of man, "man of the highest activity", because always driving "to the full the mobilization of his personal forces" and replacing "all passions by a SINGLE passion that is the driving force of his life; a major passion that can lead to excesses, to tyrannical hypertrophy of the willpower… A focused whole of which aspects we can find in his three inner characters

 

At the root of Jupiter rising in Scorpio, a vigorous animal vitality emanates:  an exuberant temperament with imperious desires and demanding aspirations, and that fully affirms its vitality.  There is a kind of a strong physical presence, with an attractive personal magnetism, whose egocentric demands, natural authority, and power of conviction exert a more or less enthralling dominance over others.  It is that which is already felt in the young Bonaparte and which has been compared to the power of the eagle.  This is also expressed in his morphology, at times expressed by portraitists (Guerin, Museum of Versailles; Horace Vernet, Tate Gallery London):  an angular face, with, crossing the look of lightning-filled set eyes, a nasal bridge underlined by hollow cheeks and high cheekbones, in short, a mask of a bird of prey.  Straight to the point!

 

- "There is no ifs, ands or buts, one has to succeed.

- I have myself but one need, to succeed

 

As for the culmination of the Sun in Leo, it indicates mainly the upward vertical tension of an ego which longs for greatness.  The ego which wants to be radiant is primarily looking for authority, supremacy, nobility, prestige, brilliance, opulence, at the risk of being theatrical. The eagle wants to soar and glide in all its majesty, wrapped in glory.

 

 

 

 

 

-  “What I seek above all, is greatness:  what is great is always beautiful (to Denon)”

- A new-born government must dazzle”.

 

The air we breathe here is heroic, reminiscent of Greco-Roman Antiquity.  One also muses back to the prestigious pump and circumstance of the Empire, to the dazzling luxury of the Court, which exceeds the splendours of Versailles.  Not only is he a great master in his talent for leadership, Napoleon is also a marvellous actor, but even more is he the greatest director of the story of a prestigious time.

 

- "I was born in a poor family and I now hold the greatest throne in the world.  I have laid the law on all of Europe. I have awarded crowns.  I have given millions….

- "I am so identified with our wonders, our monuments, our constitutions, all our national acts that one could not take me out of them without insulting France"

As for Uranus of Taurus setting, one can hear in it a transcending call that gives voice to the tyranny of a passion that passes through the individual to then go above it.

 

- "The great man is in nobody’s way.

- I won’t be born of anybody” (while refusing the title of king)

 

In a focused awareness, his ‘concentration-driven’ mind draws fully inward on his inner life: the quasi paranoid or obsessive way of the inventor who forgets all, wife, children, social relationships, to focus single-mindedly on his invention and who thinks of it constantly and exclusively, like Kepler did with the orbits of planets. This explains all the more his confidence, his persuasiveness, his striking impression.  It also explains the hyper activity of a luminescent man, driven to frenzy, given to the vertigo of excess, living life at an exhausting pace that condemns him to a premature collapse like the brief blaze of a shooting star.

 

Naturally, all of this makes him a tireless hyperactive man who fills his days with eighteen-straight hours of activities, exhausting his collaborators.

 

- "Work is my life, I was born and built for work.  I have known how far my legs could carry me, how far my eyes could see, I was never able to tell how long I could work …. I work a lot, while dining, while at the theatre:  at night I wake up in order to work (….). It is willpower, character, diligence and daring that have made me what I am"

 

Let’s not forget, of course, that this athletic drive is aided by an immense mind, large enough to be a political demiurge.  With this crowning, the unifying agent of our three giant planets comes into play:  Mercury of Leo at the top of the chart.  We will come back on the intellectual faculties of the man.

 

Meanwhile, the mobility of the person is related to this major influence of Mercury, for this character changed considerably during the course of his life, albeit short.  One is even surprised at the metamorphosis which takes place within him during the trajectory of his life, his alteration corresponding to the migration of the centre of gravity from one pole to the other of his triad.  Admittedly, his evolution could have followed the diurnal rhythm of rising, culminating and setting by putting Jupiter before the Sun, but here the chronocratoric archetypic order prevails, that assimilates the Sun to a young man in his formative years, an Apollo in the vertical behaviour of an idealistic aesthete, and Jupiter to a mature man, a beneficial and thriving maturity, in the horizontal expansion of a realist.

 

“The king is a Sun" thus spoke the cardinal de Bérulle about Louis XIV, and François Bluche counted seventeen medals linking him to Apollon, among which the well-known medal of the astrologers, that Morin de Villefranche had minted at his birth on which he reproduced his chart: a medal always available at the Mint (“Monnaie de Paris”).  But the Sun king had precursors: the diurnal star was one of the symbols of Charles VII, and Charles VIII was explicitly compared to Phoebus in a manuscript that once belonged to Louis XII. And even before then, there had already been a budding solar theology of Roman emperors.

 

When considering the astrological symbolism of the Sun, the star presents itself as an over- denotation of the fundamental values of God, the father and the king: an analogical chain that also encompasses the State, knighthood, heroes, honours, gold, any perfection in the shape of its ideogram, a circle surrounding its central point like a royal crown.  In the collective unconscious, a bond exists between these entities: God the Father, Christ the king, and the king father of his people. All three have a common denominator: authority.  Egypt had its Sun Pharaoh and in the Incan empire, the sovereign is called: "Son of Sun".  In addition, the Sun astrologically confers its charisma to the ruler, the psychic equivalent of its blazon or its armorial bearings.

 

How, with his Sun culminating in Leo, could our ruler not have a right to his hierophany? 

 

He is a Leo - a pure solar attribute - which is the symbol of the Consulate.  Bonaparte having espoused the idea of "a lion spread over the chart of France, his paw ready to reach beyond the Rhine …” and he compares himself to the lion

 

-    "Soldiers, on June 5, we were attacked in our camp by the Russian army. The opponent was mistaken on the causes of our inactivity.  He realized too late that our sleep was that of the lion…

-  I suppose that you are not one of those who think that the lion is dead “(to Murat in 1814)

-“You fought like lions... (when he said good-bye to its Guard at Fontainebleau).

 

One can even evoke the legs ending "with claws of lion" of the armchairs and pieces of furniture of Empire style.

 

 - “I am sometimes a fox, sometimes a lion.  The key for governing is to know when it is necessary to be one or the other “(at the Council of State, March 1806).

 

The first "comes in cunningly " while the second shows himself in the open, and as for the first, the image of a stinger wrapped in silk naturally recalls the Scorpio, with its kin in the eagle atop the pole of the flags, its wings slightly spread, its head to the right, its left claw holding the quiver of Jupiter without its lightning.

 

It is as the archetypical solar man, with a roman mask, that the silhouette of the young Bonaparte stands out.  Several of his busts (Corbet, Iselin, Houdon, Canova) have a proud appearance with a stare straight as a sword, pure as gold, and a bronze profile.  And the portrait of Edouard Detaille (Museum of the army), the one of Philippoteaux (Museum of Versailles) or of Gerard (Museum of Chantilly) look like Apollo .  Notwithstanding the feverish portraits with the stare of a feline and the profile of an eagle (Boilly, Gros, David).  Whatever the case, what the soldier himself dreams of is Apollo, the romantic hero haloed by legend, in the image of Bonaparte at the bridge of Arcole from Gros, his chest first, the wind in his hair, crossing the obstacle with a sabre in one hand and a flag in the other, or that of Bonaparte crossing the Alps from David, alert on his impetuous horse, the horse rearing, his head dominant, pointing his arm towards the summit in an irresistible call.

 

Bonaparte identifies so closely to the Olympus, superbly astride his chariot of triumph, that the identification approaches perfection: it is a firework!

In his memories of youth, Marmont squarely compares him to the star:  "He was the rising Sun...".  Later, the Poles of Cracow see him in the same manner:  "Oh God!...  we see you as the sun that shines atop the sky... "And it is not a surprise that his supreme victory became mixed up with the sun of Austerlitz.

 

 

« Horoscope » of Napoleon. Estampes Museum

 

 

Isabey: The first Consul at Malmaison . Malmaison Museum

 

 

- “Great men are meteors destined to burn the ground”.

 

There is no Fire type that blazes more brilliantly and with purer a flame. 

In April 1807, he writes to Talleyrand from the castle of Finckenstein in Prussia where he is staying:

 

-“It is a very beautiful castle where there are many chimneys, which is extremely pleasing for me who gets up during the night. I like to see a burning fire”.

 

Same thing in the figurative.  At Montholon, retrospectively admiring Murat charging and his other marshals fighting, he declares: 

 

- “- They were quite beautiful under fire!”

 

And, over all, what was the great noise of the Napoleon epic if not an enormous firestorm?

 

But the sacred fire of the epic legion of the marshals of the Empire will die out.

 

In Napoleon, the solar man gradually yields to the Jupiter man, and if the emperor is still raising the imperial eagle in the air, his power is waning

How far are we from the slim and slender Bonaparte of Marengo when his son, the king of Rome, is born!  A Hero mastering destiny before it can master him, the man has thickened out, the luminous god has already become a potbellied mass.  This is Napoleon of the thick silhouette, heavy on its steed, as seen by Meissonier in 1813 (Museum of the Legion of Honor – Musée de la Légion d’Honneur), and even more by Paul Delaroche in 1814 (Museum of the army), an obese, overpowered man, broken down on his chair at the time of his abdication.

 

In the final scene, the star is setting, without a morphological equivalent.  It is the Uranus man that appears in a transfiguration beyond the dethroned Jupiter man, turning his back to him.  As the eagle falls, Prometheus chained to his rock discovers a new strength, all the way to a transcendent power.  The eraser of time having gone over the bad memories from the tempest of the empire, the people, subjected anew to the absolute power of backward-looking kings, filter his image to retain only the noble figure of the emperor “son of the Revolution".  They do the same with the French Revolution, itself cleansed of the mad saturnalia of the guillotine, reduced to its liberating ideal.  The great Army has conveyed the modern mind of civilization in its tricolour march across the continent; at least as long as it does not clash with others’ patriotism.  During the “Cent Jours” (Hundred Days), the emperor adopts the three colours, designates himself as a constitutional monarch and keeps his word.  In the end, once again a figure of progress and the guardian of promises for the future, the prisoner enters folk legend as a soldier of freedom, and the Gospel of Sainte-Hélène announces the upcoming of the liberation of nations, that will shake thrones across the world.

 

As a wonder of the astrological representation, the opposition makes two contrary individualities cohabiting in one being. It is not unpleasant to see how Michelet portrays the antinomy of this Janus Jupiter-Uranus:  "With a remarkable oversight, he was held at Sainte-Hélène, so that, from a platform so highly placed, the jailbird could make a Caucasus."  Laboratory of legends, factory of falseness...

 

 

Napoleon in 1812
Drawing painted from life at the Emperor’s chapel
Mars 8, 1812

 

A unit beyond discontinuity in an ultimate metamorphosis, Napoleon knew that he would be the prophet of new times:

 

- “As a new Prometheus, I am chained to a rock where a vulture is gnawing me.  Yes, I had robbed the fire of heaven to give it to France, the fire came back to its source and here I am!

 

As a Phoenix coming back from his uranian fire, the exile, removed from his un-disowned jupiterian throne, erases the Caesar and captures the democratic spirit of the people’s Napoleon for his benefit.

 

Let us come back to this Mercury of Leo, culminating at the nonagesimus  point:

 

 - My great talent is to see clear.  It is the perpendicular, shorter than the oblique (to Gourgaud at Sainte-Hélène).

 

A Mercury conjunct Saturn, separating from culmination.  As early as the school of Brienne, the young Bonaparte likes mathematics and at the Military academy of Paris, he is noted for his scientific aptitude.  He even said to Laplace that he was distressed - one cannot be everywhere – because circumstances had directed him towards another career, keeping him away from science.

 

But this intelligence which reigns in him, is most of all realistic, vast and powerful, with a broad synthetic vision as well as great execution talents.  Very early, his mind is full of memorized readings, covering all subjects, so that he becomes dazzling through his knowledge, with ideas that are clear, well thought out, deep, abiding to his need to bring order everywhere..

 

 

The mercurian signature of a changing man can be observed in the

writer.We are in front of a restless handwriting, with a rough line

seeming vague and careless, because of a violent hurry in an exu-

berant activity. The Fire signature has been mostly retained, the si-

gnature of a Napoleon crushing his name with a large stroke of the

pen and with the thick imperial line.

 

 

We are not surprised to see - he is but twenty-eight years old - this new general of 1796 in Italy, who, not satisfied with having won, negotiates with the enemy over the head of the Parisian authorities, before settling as prince of Milan in the Serbelloni palate, receiving ambassadors and creating the machinery of a new State as an established statesman.  Let’s also represent him, three years later, aided by Cambacères, by Daunou... (he knows then how to choose his collaborators and to listen to them), dictating the text of the Constitution of the 22d of  Frimaire, year VIII (December 13, 1799), the writing of bills and amendments of public administration. With the institution, in article 52, of the Council of State, the supreme legal authority which constitutes today the administrative system of about thirty countries.  His activity extends to everything, often simultaneously, his ideas are numerous, lightning-quick, as for example when travelling in his carriage, simply, he decides to have plane trees grown along the roads so that horses are not dazzled by the sun…

 

This man of action entirely focused on the effectiveness of his efforts, also has a great intellectual life.  He is a bookworm.  This passion for books started very early with the works of his father. As a second lieutenant in a garrison in Valence, he devours the private library of a bookseller, taking notes of his readings.  Once he is general, he builds his first library in Paris. When he leaves for Italy, he makes sure books are taken along, and even more for his expedition to Egypt.  Upon his return, the library of his Malmaison house lists six thousand books.  He plays a role in the library of the Council of State, and it is on his orders that the libraries of the Tuileries, Saint-Cloud, Trianon, Fontainebleau, Compiegne, Rambouillet are created.  His preferred readings are of course history, but also geography, law, religion, without neglecting theatre, poetry and even novel which he consumes in surprising numbers.  When he is campaigning, he has hundreds of books packed, that he reads in his carriage.  Even at Schönbrunn, unable to find readings to his liking, he prescribes the creation of a three –thousand-book library (as if he was to be frequently around), a project which was not realized.

When he leaves for the island of Elba, he does not fail to bring along books that he borrows from the library of Fontainebleau, and after Waterloo, his personal librarian is given the responsibility of assembling a library of at least ten thousand volumes, a project that is thwarted by the hostility of the stupid Blücher.

 

Mercury is still there emphasized by Saturn, and, what is more, we will never have seen a head of State so close to the great minds of his time.  So as to be in the company of scientists, Napoleon has himself admitted at the Institute, in the “Mechanical arts of Physical and Mathematical Sciences” section, and attends the sessions as often as he can

Already, during his campaign of Egypt, he had brought along a cohort of scientists and artists, which enabled Champollion to decipher the hieroglyphs.  He attended the meeting of the Institute on November 7, 1801 to listen to the lecture of the Milanese Volta about electricity and awarded him a gold medal for his battery, resolving to create an award aimed at focusing the attention of scientists on this field of physics, which is, in my opinion, the path to all great discoveries. He addresses without constraints all the scientists of Europe and crowns researchers from Berlin, London,  Paris.  Berthollet, Corvisart, Vat, Daubenton, Fourcroy, Jussieu, Lacépède, Lagrange, Laplace, Monge, Montgolfier, Volney... are rewarded and covered with honors for their lectures some of which are familiar to him.  .

 

-          I was the one who created industry in France. 

 

Having understood the formidable potentialities of the burgeoning industrialization, he contributed to its development, creating the school of Arts et Métiers (a higher education institute for industrial art and design) after l’Ecole Polytechnique (the Polytechnic School) and the Ecole Normale Supérieure (a High level School for training of teachers) which were coming from the French Revolution, and he extended awards to inventors of machines and founders of private establishments visited by him.  He pioneered the age of contemporary science

 

            On another level of the activity of his mind, we must mention his personal work, which is a kind of monument in itself:  the Civil Code which has his surname.  A collective work, certainly, with its 2 281 articles, but, for having taken part in 57 of the 102 meetings of its drafting, Bonaparte was its chief author, not excluding being its instigator, with Mercury of Leo as an organizer and an administrator.

 

Then again we have the Mercury of communication –

 

- “From the top of these pyramids...”

 

Through his bulletins and his speeches, masterpieces of the art of public speaking (Mercury-Leo), and using to good advantage both the written word and the image, Napoleon created his own legend while alive, a legend which will be completed with engravings, figures and apocryphal words.  He knew how to speak to the imagination of people, and the Memorial of Sainte Hélène will complete the worship of Napoleon.

 

Finally, by its presence in IX in opposition to the Moon, on the backdrop of four planets in the III-IX axis of travels, this same Mercury shows another face of the character: the itinerant.  The man was constantly on the roads, through provinces and countries, becoming one of the greatest travellers of his time. His berlin became a true travelling office, with drawers and compartments, where he processed files of all kinds and from where he remotely regulated the businesses of the State.

 

In the final analysis, what is the most difficult to deny, not to say the most obvious, is the exceptional calibre of the character, and there is no doubt that this excess was what was the least forgiven by his opponents.  All the more so as his greatness had a negative counterpart and was to end with one of the greatest disasters of our national history, the very scope of which ultimately served his legend.

 

 -“ Fortune dazzled me (to Decrès).

 

 

The inner Demon

 

 

To fall from such a high rank to the bottom of the abyss means there must have been something terribly dangerous in Napoleon. 

Were those four planets in angular houses concentrated on both plans, the horizon and the meridian, as well as the Moon in Capricorn (that we will study further), as well as so many indices aligned in the same direction until the scope was truly colossal, not likely to end in excess, until ambition became fatal?

 

Better or worse, the horizontal axis is held by the most expansionist configuration that can be: the Jupiter-Uranus opposition; which is at the same time an ultimate angular distance stretching the astral relation to the maximum, and a joining of the two most expansive planets. The fact that this configuration is explosive will be understood when we point out it is also on the meridian line of Nicolas Sadi Carnot, the father of modern thermodynamics (with his fire machine, the concept of energy takes hold in applied science) and of Albert Einstein, driven in spite of himself to the creation of the first atomic bomb.

Napoleon lives his own horizontal configuration as an inner rocket that propels him to the limits of his own self.  The man is driven by an irresistible expansive push of his being, and we may believe that this need for always more resulted in not knowing the way anymore, because he always went further, finally too far, the tyranny of his internal imperialism turning against him.

 

Charlemagne is his only reference, because what lives in him is the European dream:

 

  - « Charlemagne, my august predecessor.  –

 

- My son must be the man of the new ideas and of the cause I have imposed everywhere...to unite Europe in indissoluble federative bonds.  My destiny is not accomplished;   I want to complete what is just an outline;  I need a European code, a European supreme court, a single currency, standard weights and measures, the same laws;  it is necessary that I make of all the people of Europe the same people and of Paris the capital of the World.

 

During the year 1810 when he spoke, did not Sweden ask for one of his lieutenants, Bernadotte to be their king?  In fact, it is, neither more nor less, a question of a dream of an emperor of Occident!  Before our continent be split into nationalities which were going to turn their back on this unitary aspiration, a thing which, even today, is only realizable in part and so laboriously...  One can see the hugeness of this utopian dream!  In short, he was thinking too big for his time, much too big and about a future yet to come.

 

What he was aware of in any case, was the hugeness of his greatness; he was "the son of the sun", fully inhabited by his irrepressible expansive power.  Let us judge of the totality and perfection of his identification to power, his "mistress":

 

-          “I myself do not have any ambition or, if I have, it is so natural to me, and so innate, it is so well attached to my existence that it is as the blood which runs in my veins, as the air that I breathe...” (to Roederer, 1804).  –

 

He does not complain about it, he even prides on it:

 

          - “Finally would this be my ambition?  Ah! Undoubtedly, they will say so, and more,  but of a largest and highest kind that ever existed.”

 

He was all the more conscious that the power he possessed was a strength, which had been to some extent only delegated to him, something like a loan, nothing more: 

 

- “A higher power drives me towards a goal that I am unaware of; as long as that goal is not reached, I will be invulnerable; as soon as I am no longer necessary, a fly will be enough to topple me.

 

One can see the foreshadowing:

 

- “From triumph to downfall, there is but one step.  I have seen that, in the greatest circumstances, a mere nothing decides the greatest events”. 

 

Wellington and Blücher would not have met if the battle of Waterloo had taken place twenty-four hours e