The Soul of Napoleon

The Soul of Napoleon (L?âme de Napoléon originally) by Léon Bloy is a poem in prose on the great general?s achievements and greatness but it is more than that it is a re-assessment of his significance from a Catholic and a Catholic eschatological point of view as perhaps no other writer than Léon Bloy could have put down on paper. Written in 1912 it is also like many of Léon Bloy?s writings prophetic in an eerie way of near-term events to come a prefiguration of both WWI and beyond.The history of Napoleon is quite certainly the most unknown of all histories. Books that claim to recount it are innumerable and there is no end to documents of every sort. In reality Napoleon is perhaps less known to us than Alexander and Sennacherib. The more one studies the more one discovers that he is the man whom nothing resembles and that?s all there is. It?s the unfathomable gulf. One knows the dates one knows the deeds victories or disasters one knows a bit or quite a bit of the famous negotiations that are today merely dust. His name alone remains his prodigious Name and when it is pronounced by the poorest of all children it is enough to make a great man blush no matter whom. Napoleon is the Face of God in darkness.There is in the humblest churches of France a poor lamp lit night and day before the Holy Sacrament of the Altar. The thought crossed my mind absurd perhaps that that lamp is something like Napoleon?s confidence.