Like a hurricane, Napoleon Bonaparte shook Europe, giving even more energy to the swirling movement of change initiated by the French Revolution. Although defeated and forced to surrender in 1814, with his arrival he also upset the island of Elba, of which he had been designated sovereign by the victors. The novel by Ernesto Ferrero takes its cue from that story, which lasted about ten months before the last adventure ended in Waterloo in 1815. N., winner of the Strega prize in 2000, on newsstands from today for a month with the «Corriere della Sera» on the occasion of the bicentenary of Bonaparte’s death.
The protagonist and narrator of the book is Martino Acquabona. A shy man, a lover of reading, obsessed with Napoleon like the Julien Sorel of the novel The Red and the Black by Stendhal, who avidly read the St. Helena Memorial, but far from the dream of emulating the Corsican leader. Indeed intending to kill him as another famous character in literature: the Pierre Bezuchov of War and peace, a masterpiece by Lev Tolstoy.
Elba was also touched by the Napoleonic wars: in 1799, remembers Martino, the corpses of two hundred French soldiers floated in the sea “like big red and blue jellyfish, obscenely undone by death”. But then in 1801 the forces of Bonaparte seized that territory in the Tyrrhenian Sea, which was then annexed to France like other large portions of the Italian peninsula.
Then it was the turn of the Elban, who became subjects of the empire, fight for the greater glory of the insatiable conqueror: a veteran of the battle of Essling (1809), who returned without an arm, reported that in that clash the French losses had exceeded 12,000 men, a number equivalent to the entire population of ‘island. And the few survivors of the terrible Russian campaign had brought even more atrocious testimonies than what had happened: “Here, where snow rarely falls, we have learned – reports Acquabona horrified – how the stumps of the frozen are made”.
Yet Martino in the presence of Napoleon, of which he becomes the librarian by virtue of his notorious passion for books, is fascinated by it. He is struck by the temper of a leader who, to the cold and meticulous evaluation of the problems – whether it is leading an immense army in the field or governing a smaller island in the Mediterranean – knows how to unite an unshakable decision in challenging destiny: ” thumb, this man. In vain do we try to take measurements. It is already ahead, on its way, at a gallop. We can only see the cloud of dust it leaves behind. ‘
This is also why the homicidal drive, although exacerbated by events of a private nature (the Baroness with whom Acquabona had an affair and a daughter gives herself to the leader), she is unable to prevail. “I have to kill him because it is the only way to prevent new griefs, wars, disasters … I have to remove from the body of Europe the malignant cancer that corrodes it, as a surgeon could do,” Martino repeats. But he knows well within himself that the task is far beyond his strength.
The intimate reflections of the irresolute and melancholic Acquabona offer Ernesto Ferrero the starting point to question the myth of an exceptionally complex character, to whom he has also dedicated useful works of non-fiction.
In Bonaparte there is the excess that inspires in the pages of N. the detailed and penetrating comparison with Alexander the Great. But in the emperor confined to Elba also emerges the bourgeois, pragmatic spirit of a «Corsican landowner who knows how to manage his assets like no other». Then he undertakes to clean up and rearrange the property that has been assigned to him, even if he has certainly not given up trying his luck again in France which already regrets him in the face of the flat and oppressive climate of the Bourbon restoration.
In the story of Napoleon it is not known whether to admire the work of the statesman, which reassembles and channels the ideal impulses of revolutionary France, for example with the civil code which has remained as the cornerstone of a new legal civilization, or executes the insatiable ambition of the conqueror who always raises the stakes and sacrifices soldiers with absolute cynicism , until the Russian catastrophe of 1812, an inexorable turn towards sunset.
We are facing a complex figure, which straddles different periods of history, is influenced by them and at the same time conditions them. Judging him on the basis of current sensitivity, as some have done in recent months, is undoubtedly a mistake, but we must not forget that he also divided his contemporaries between admirers and detractors.
It certainly affects us, as does Acquabona in Ernesto Ferrero’s novel, the impersonal coldness of a leader who is primarily moved by the ambition of power and does not seem to know spontaneous impulses: «In every gesture, even the most innocent, I feel the calculation, the evaluation of the effect it will make. If he caresses a child, if he hugs a grenadier, it is for someone to see him, and tell stories ».
It can almost look like a monster, Napoleon. It is difficult not to remember the tremendous disappointment and the equally strong indignation of Ugo Foscolo at the handing over of Venice to the Austrians with the Treaty of Campoformio of 1797, concluded by a Bonaparte who was still a simple general. «What does it matter – reads the novel The last letters of Jacopo Ortis – who has the vigor and thrill of a lion, if he has a fox-like mind, and is pleased with it? ».
However, to leaders engaged in diplomatic strategies, inevitably based on the estimate of the balance of power, it is improper to ask for fidelity to sublime ideals. In the same way, by completely legitimately reproaching Napoleon for having suppressed liberties, it is underestimated what dramatic chaos the French Revolution had resulted in. The argued condemnations of Bonapartist despotism by liberal thinkers such as Benjamin Constant and, in the twentieth century, the Italian Guglielmo Ferrero are largely convincing, but they fail to erase the impression aroused by such a fulminating epic, destined to leave traces deep. For this reason, two centuries later, we are still here to discuss it.
A commemorative stamp is also on sale
The novel by Ernesto Ferrero is out on newsstands on 4 May with the Corriere della Sera N., at a cost of € 9.90 plus the price of the newspaper. Two hundred years after the death of Napoleon, who passed away on May 5, 1821, this book, winner of the Strega prize, remains on newsstands for a month and offers the reader an original perspective on the Corsican leader. The novel, which “Corriere” publishes in collaboration with the Einaudi publishing house, is set on the island of Elba, which was entrusted to Napoleon by the powers that had defeated him in 1814. The narrator is Martino Acquabona, who becomes librarian of Bonaparte during that ten-month period. The volume closes with a dialogue on the figure of Bonaparte between the author Ernesto Ferrero and Franco Cardini, edited by Antonio Carioti. Furthermore, from tomorrow the «Corriere» and «La Gazzetta dello Sport» present with Poste Italiane a special edition dedicated to Napoleon. Inside a binder, they offer an unpublished card, a postcard and a collector’s stamp, all at a cost of € 12.90 plus the price of the newspaper. The initiative is carried out in collaboration with the European Federation of Napoleonic Cities, chaired by Charles Bonaparte, a descendant of the emperor.
May 3, 2021 (change May 3, 2021 | 20:22)
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