The Crime of Napoleon

the Crime of Napoleon is a book written by Claude Ribbe. Appeared on December 1st, 2005, it evokes, in the form of very incisive lampoon, the re-establishment of the Esclavage by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802 and the repression of resistance to this re-establishment as well in Guadeloupe as with Saint-Domingue.

Summary

According to Claude Ribbe, ace with the resistance of the French citizens that one wanted to put in slavery at the reason which they were in this situation before the rising of August 1791, Leclerc decided to exterminate the population of Santo Domingo above twelve years according to a " criterion; racial" , in particular using the gazage with sulfur dioxide, the drownings and the use of drawn up dogs. The author thinks the number of victims at several tens of thousands.

Claude Ribbe, being based on many new testimonys, also highlights the deportations in Corsica and with the isle of Elba which accompanied these massacres and the implementation, on the metropolitan French territory, of a racial legislation that it puts in comparison with the Lois of Nuremberg. The army was purified of its officers of " couleur" and the marriages " mixtes" were prohibited, in contradiction with the provisions of the civil code. Claude Ribbe stresses that Claude Ambroise Régnier, Minister for Justice and author of this initiative, dictated by Napoleon, is in the Pantheon.

Reactions

The publication of this work, which indirectly blamed the attitude of certain historians glorifiant Napoleon, made scandal at the time when the majority of them, supported by many associations and foundations, were on the point of celebrating in large pump the bicentenary of Austerlitz. Jerome Gautheret, in Le Monde , estimates that “ the Crime of Napoleon is not a book of history” and describes it of “polemical load directed against the “official historiographers”” and as “lampoon” not contributing really to a “critical second reading of the colonial fact”.

The cover of the work evokes the visit of Hitler, come to incline itself in Paris with the Invalids on the tomb of the Emperor, whom he admired, before " rendre" in overcome France ashes of the Eaglet whose coffin would enter to the Invalids carried by S. Claude Ribbe in addition reveals the existence of one film to the glory of Napoleon produces in Germany by Goebbels in the Thirties and inspired of a work of Mussolini. The book was translated into English in 2007 pennies the title Napoleon' S Crimes, has Blueprint for Hitler . In spite of the attacks very violent ranges by the historians against his author, the Crime of Napoleon seems to have moderated the French “napoléomanie”. Hitherto, no book of history used in the French schools stated only that Bonaparte had restored slavery in 1802.

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