In the minutes after Trump dodged a bullet on live television, I joked on Substack Notes that “one does not simply shoot Napoleon.” This comment proved open to misinterpretation in a few different directions, but what I meant was this: Napoleon famously led from the front, charging time and again into a hail of bullets and cannon shot, and yet not once was he ever seriously injured. Instead, he acquired a legendary aura of invincibility.
This became part of his overwhelming charisma—meaning not just his social charm but the sense of unstoppable destiny he seemed to exude. It proved so captivating to normal men that when he escaped from exile and landed alone in France to. . . well, let’s say to make his “reelection” bid, the army sent to stop him surrendered and switched sides at the mere sight of him.
Napoleon became something more than mere mortal: he was a living myth, a “man of destiny” who Providence had apparently handed some great role to play in history (for good or for ill) and who therefore simply couldn’t be harmed until that role had been fulfilled and the world forever changed. This is why when Hegel witnessed Napoleon he described him with awe as “the world-spirit on horseback”: he seemed truly an “epic” figure, the sweep of history “connected to his own person, [to] occur and be resolved by him” alone, one way or another.
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