#marius pontmercy napoleon

[a-heart-full-of-dumb]

The way I'm currently on Corsica, have been to the city Napoleon was born and will be on Elba in a week. I'm literally living Marius's dream.

[cerasifera]

history nerds <3

[oldbookist]

one ticket to the napoleon movie please

[alilsakurablossom]

marius pontmercy: one ticket to napoleon, thank you.

[0zzysaurus]

He has a ouchie :[[

[sereendy]

we don’t talk about combeferre and “to be free” enough

[thepigeonsfanart]

I had promissed myself i wouldn’t shitpost in this blog (the napoleon pic is not mine I stole it from tiktok [@ in the image])

[autumnalmess]

Horror of horrors, I'm becoming obsessed with Napoleon. Don't get me wrong, I hate the guy. I just can't stop thinking about him. Like, the battle of Austerlitz 1805? Fucking mental stuff, ruthless tactics. It was so calculated, it's almost satisfying thinking about his plans falling into place. It was obviously awful (as wars generally are) in bringing about so many losses, and fun fact, he actually drowned about 2000 people. How insane is that?! But bloody hell, I will never not be utterly fascinated by him.

Am I Marius? Has it finally happened to me? Is this how he felt? Was his neurodivergent brain also tingling and jingling with intrigue?

Send help x

[thepiecesofcait]

For The Literal Love Of My Life and overlord of the Empereur's Mercy corner of this cursed site, @shitpostingfromthebarricade

Four years of knowing you, and what a delight it has been <3

[dolphin1812]

Although Marius’ speech is embarrassing (both because of the Napoleon content and because of how quickly he’s taken down), it’s also fascinating in that it reveals so much about his character through his politics. 

“I am a newcomer among you, but I will confess that you amaze me. Where do we stand? Who are we? Who are you? Who am I?”

Marius starts with “we!” He’s including himself in this organization, even if he’s confused about their ideas and his position within this group. His own beliefs may be against those of Les Amis, but this is a major change from his earlier isolation. He’s not only surrounded by people, but viewing himself as part of them, and not just in an abstract sense (he started to think of France as his community after reading about his father, but Les Amis is a more concrete group). 

“I hear you say Buonaparte, accenting the u like the Royalists. I warn you that my grandfather does better still; he says Buonaparté’. I thought you were young men.”

I’ll talk more about the focus on “great men” as a way of determining one’s politics in the next line, but I think this is also suggestive of Marius’ lack of exposure to other ideologies. Not having met many republicans outside of Les Amis, he sees Bonapartism as the most legitimate alternative to monarchism, and he associates criticisms of Bonaparte with royalism because that’s the main context in which he heard them. Gillenormand’s “ultra” politics also factor into this, as Marius lambasts them for saying “Buonaparte.” He implies that, if they’re already royalists who despise Napoleon to the point that they pronounce his name like that, they may as well accent the final “e” as well, thus assuming that the most extreme stance possible is the goal. In reality (as stated in the last chapter), Enjolras is the only Ami who says “Buonaparte;” the rest say “Bonaparte,” and Jean Prouvaire sometimes says “Napoleon.” None of them are pro-Napoleon, but they dislike or disagree with him to different extents, and they respect their differences instead of trying to reach the most intense position possible. 

Moreover, Marius’ objection to their hatred of Napoleon on the grounds that they’re “young men” implies that he too believes in a form of “progress,” only his form of progress has Napoleon as the ideal instead of the Republic. It’s one thing for an old man “stuck in the past” like his grandfather to disavow Napoleon in favor of the monarchy, but he can’t see why men his age would hold a similar distaste for the man because he thinks Napoleon is the “next step” in governance. 

“Whom do you admire, if you do not admire the Emperor? And what more do you want? If you will have none of that great man, what great men would you like?”

Marius is very prone to idolizing people. His Bonapartism came from idolizing his father, and he now idolizes Napoleon as well. That Les Amis don’t have one figure that all their politics revolve around, then, is bizarre to him. Of course, they have figures that they admire; they just don’t all agree on them, and their meetings don’t center around a single historical character. Enjolras, for instance, admires Rousseau, but Courfeyrac does not. 

The “great man” discussion goes back to the Waterloo digression. It’s quite possible that Hugo wouldn’t object to Marius’ specific praises of Napoleon here, actually (even if personally I find his conquests awful and think it’s impossible for anyone’s bulletins to be “Iliads”). The Waterloo digression was full of compliments for Napoleon’s intelligence and skill, especially as a military strategist. The issue was that even if Napoleon was a “great man,” the age of “great men” was over; it was time for the people to rule themselves (”The disappearance of the great man was necessary for the advent of the great age, and He who cannot be answered undertook the task” - LM 2.1.13). In a way, the “to be free” scene more dramatically and succinctly reiterates the theme of that digression. Les Amis could challenge Marius on the specifics of Napoleon’s “greatness,” but they’re not actually relevant. What does matter is that being ruled by an Emperor is bad in itself. 

Most of this discussion (or rather, brief responses to long rambles about how cool Napoleon was) takes place between Marius and Enjolras, which makes sense, given that Enjolras is the most intense politically and thus seems more provocative to Marius. Still, it’s interesting that Combeferre is the one who rebukes Marius. In the last chapter, he attempted to defend the Charter before Courfeyrac burned it, suggesting that he might play “devil’s advocate” and defend unpopular positions to sharpen his friends’ ideas or that, as he believes in gradual progress as well, he’s a little more open to compromise. His comment reminds us that, even if Combeferre seems “moderate” in relation to his friends at times, he’s still very much a republican, and he’s not going to accept tyranny for the sake of keeping the peace. Again, this is a callback to his introduction, which stressed that he abhors violence - even revolutionary violence - but prefers it to “stagnation.” Going back to Bonaparte, then, would be another form of “stagnation” that Combeferre, even with his hope in gradual progress without interference, has to reject. (And given that there was another Napoleon in power when Hugo was writing, it feels especially significant that Bonapartism is seen as so unacceptable that even Combeferre has to intervene). 

[bernard-the-rabbit]

i'll push Italian!Grantaire down your throat for forever (๑˘︶˘๑)

[always-tired-plshelp]

Marius: I'm only giving my opinion! Do you always have to attack me with your words?

Combeferre: Would you prefer me to use a brick?

[alicedrawslesmis]

At The Emperor's Mercy

(yes this just happened don't think too hard about it)

there's an extra jumbo cursed explicit version on my deviantart that I cannot in good conscience post here, that I made cause I had finished this and figured, since I'm already here... you do have to have an account to see it tho. I can't just let anybody view this cursed object

[gshsjdkdoid]

[breath-of-fresh-grantaire]

titanic au but it’s marius x napoleon <3

[la-pheacienne]

"Let us be just, my friends! What a splendid destiny for a nation to be the Empire of such an Emperor, when that nation is France and when it adds its own genius to the genius of that man! To appear and to reign, to march and to triumph, to have for halting-places all capitals, to take his grenadiers and to make kings of them, to decree the falls of dynasties, and to transfigure Europe at the pace of a charge; to make you feel that when you threaten you lay your hand on the hilt of the sword of God; to follow in a single man, Hannibal, Caesar, Charlemagne; to be the people of some one who mingles with your dawns the startling announcement of a battle won, to have the cannon of the Invalides to rouse you in the morning, to hurl into abysses of light prodigious words which flame forever, Marengo, Arcola, Austerlitz, Jena, Wagram! To cause constellations of victories to flash forth at each instant from the zenith of the centuries, to make the French Empire a pendant to the Roman Empire, to be the great nation and to give birth to the grand army, to make its legions fly forth over all the earth, as a mountain sends out its eagles on all sides to conquer, to dominate, to strike with lightning, to be in Europe a sort of nation gilded through glory, to sound athwart the centuries a trumpet-blast of Titans, to conquer the world twice, by conquest and by dazzling, that is sublime; and what greater thing is there?"

"To be free," said Combeferre.