• DOI:10.1086/237315
• Corpus ID: 3270766

Napoleon and the Age of Nationalism

@article{Kohn1950NapoleonAT,
  title={Napoleon and the Age of Nationalism},
  author={Hans Kohn},
  journal={The Journal of Modern History},
  year={1950},
  volume={22},
  pages={21 - 37}
}

• H. Kohn
• Published 1 March 1950
• History
• The Journal of Modern History

A SINCERE patriotism, a deep attachment to the soil and people of France, inspired Robespierre. It provided a moving lyrical undertone to the tragic sternness of his reports: "Yes, this delightful land which we inhabit and which nature caresses with love is made tobe the domain of liberty and happiness; this sensitive and proud people is truly born for glory and virtue. O my fatherland, if fate had caused me to be born in a foreign and distant country, I would have addressed heaven continuously with wishes for thy prosperity; I would have been moved to tears by the recital of thy combats and thy virtues; my attentive soul would have followed with a restless ardor all the movements of thy glorious revolution; I would have envied the fate of thy citizens; I would have envied that of thy representatives. I am French, I am one of thy representatives. ... 0 sublime people! Accept the sacrifices of my whole being; happy is the man who is born in your midst; happier is he who can die for your happiness.", This feeling for France was unknown to Napoleon. At no time in his life had he the desire to die for the happiness of the French people. He knew patriotic sentiments in his youth: the rhetorical patriotism of a late-eighteenth-century adolescence which had been instructed by the classics and Rousseau. It was, however, a patriotism directed against France. Napoleon the Corsican shared his fellow-countrymen's hatred of their