During the 1790s, there was considerable sympathy outside France with the ideals of the French Revolution; but a decade later, after Napoleon had come to sole power, active sympathisers were much reduced in numbers:^[1] the collapse of Beethoven's Napoleonist Family romance, on hearing of Bonaparte's coronation as emperor, is a prime example of the change.^[2] Those Napoleonists that remained, however, came from all sides of the political spectrum - ranging from Queen Caroline to Radicals like William Hazlitt - something that has prompted a psychological explanation of their underlying motivation.^[3]

The common factor in that syndrome is taken to be an ambivalent relationship to the parent or parent of origins, leading to a rejection of national authority, and its projection abroad.^[4] The argument is particularly convincing in the case of a group of Radicals including Leigh Hunt and William Godwin, as well as Hazlitt - all the sons of dissenting ministers, whose religious beliefs they had rejected but whose influence on them remained substantial nevertheless.^[5] Their common revolt against their fathers led to a counter-identification with the heroic figure presented by Napoleon^[6] - his Promethean challenge to the existing order^[7] seeming to offer a stark contrast to the narrow authoritarianism represented both by their own fathers, and by the British royal family.^[8]

Nineteenth-century examples

Literary analogues

See also

References