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josefavomjaaga · 11 months

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Napoleon’s fake letter to Murat

The first edition of Napoleon’s correspondence, published during the Second Empire, lists in Volume XVI on page 450 as No. 13696 a letter that Napoleon allegedly had written to Murat on 29 March 1808, while Murat was staying in Madrid, prior to the “dos de Mayo” uprising and the double abdication of Carlos and Ferdinand at Bayonne. The letter neither fits the content of Napoleon’s other verifiable letters that he did write to Murat, nor Napoleon’s usual writing style.

The historians and editors responsible for publishing the correspondence were probably quite aware that they were dealing with an apokryphe letter, judging from the long footnote they added to it:

This letter, of which no minute, original or authentic copy has ever been found, was first published in the Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène (t. IV, p. 246 et seq., ed. 1823). It has since been given again by M. de Montholon in his Récits de la Captivité, etc. (t. II, p. 451 et seq., ed. 1847). Like M. de Las Cases, M. de Montholon claims to have been told about it by the Emperor Napoleon himself. The authenticity of this document was accepted by M. de Bausset (Mémoires sur l'intérieur du Palais, etc., t. I, p. 151 et seq., ed. 1827); by M. le Duc de Rovigo (Memoires, etc., t. III, p. 258 et seq., ed. 1828); by M. Thibaudeau [...]

And if so many bonapartists with an interest to falsify history in order to make Napoleon look better than he was on this occasion, all agree that this letter is authentic, it must be true. Right?

The letter in question is several pages long, contains endless musings about the situation in Spain and, most importantly, lays the responsibility for the uprising that is about to happen squarely ate Murat’s feet, as Murat he had acted on his own accord instead of on Napoleon’s orders:

I do not approve of the decision taken by Your Imperial Highness to seize Madrid so hastily. The army should have been kept ten leagues from the capital. [...] Your entry into Madrid, by worrying the Spaniards, has served Ferdinand immensely.

This assumption is directly opposed to several - authentic - letters in which Napoleon, of course, sends Murat to the Spanish capital, orders him to get a hold on anything and anybody of importance and to, of course, use violence in case the population revolts.

So, to sum up, apparently Napoleon did take the pain to dictate a fake letter to Las Cases and/or Montholon on Saint Helena, in order to exculpiate himself and pretend that the whole quagmire in Spain had, at least to a large degree, been caused by Murat. Considering that, at the time, Murat was long dead, this is a truly perfidious act from Napoleon, destroying the reputation of a dead former friend.

Or so I thought. And because I thought that, I would like to publicly apologize now. Because I’m convinced, whoever invented this letter, it was not Napoleon: This fake letter is not in the original manuscript of Las Cases. It only shows up in the edition of 1823. So either Las Cases invented it out og his own volition. Or somebody gave him the idea. In any case, before publishing the first volumes of his grand oeuvre, Las Cases had plenty of time to meet with all kind of people who may have uttered wishes or suggestions.

I could come up with at least one name of a former monarch in Spain who was known to not be a friend of Murat’s, whose scruples in telling lies seem to have been underdeveloped and who in certain aspects may have held pretty similar views as those expressed in the fake letter... But that is utter speculation on my part.

#napoleon's marshals #joachim murat #saint helena #spain 1808 #dos de mayo

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cursedfodlantexts · 4 years

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I think culturally the Kingdom is homophobic even outside of Ingrid being well Ingrid if you look at all the queer characters from the kingdom either explicit or implied all of them are referred to as not fitting into the society, on the explicit side you have Mercedes who was born in the empire and only adopted by a kingdom merchant when she was older, and you have Yuri who turns his back on the kingdom to live underground on the implicit side you have Catherine who says she no longer fits (1)

this really isnt a conversation meant for the inbox, but okay anon, I’ll bite. dont know what inspired you to send this to me (at least, right now and not like. when i talked about homophobic ingrid way back when) but I’ll bite.

Hope ya like reading! :)

the FIRST thing i want to tackle before i respond to this as a whole:

“ingrid says he caused a scandal at ten by hitting on a man.”

this.. caught me by surprise. why hadn’t i heard about this before? like i heard about dorothea and edelgard’s romantic undertones in the japanese version, i heard about ferdinand and hubert’s ending being romantic in the japanese version, but i didnt hear about canonical bi sylvain? so i asked some friends for the source and maybe you should do a little research on things yourself before you trust second hand information like this, especially if its coming from Ingrid of all characters.

In the english version, she says he hit on a scarecrow. the direct translation she says he hit on a man in a dress. now let’s take a second here to discuss how this does not make sylvain “q*eer”...

going off how common this trope is (at least in western media), when a guy is caught hitting on a “cross dresser” its because he only saw them from behind. no “feminine” features to be seen other than a dress and long hair. this is not a man hitting on another man, this is a man hitting on someone he mistook as a woman. and, for all we know, the “man” ingrid mentions wasn’t a cross dresser but actually a trans woman. this entire thing is one giant transphobic joke! transphobic ingrid for the win!!!!

SOURCE

and now onto how i feel about the other lions being “implied” gay or bi or trans.

disclaimer: everyones allowed their headcanons, but going so far as to say intelligent systems intentionally put the implication in is a big stretch and thats what im talking about specifically when i discuss them being “explicitly or implied” lgbt

look at all the q*eer characters from the kingdom either explicit or implied

well first you didnt mention annette or ashe 🤔 they dont fit in as much as the others do but okay. hapi is from faerghus too but we’re not gonna discuss what happened to her either? and im not even gonna say a WORD about the “explicitly q*eer” part because i dont count mercedes being a bi option as an explicit bisexual character to begin with. I’ll talk more about her in a minute.

ive talked about ingrid being canonically homophobic before. I’ll link that here so i can make this post slightly shorter.

Felix being out of place, in general, is derived from Glenn’s death. He, understandably, despises his father for how he treated the death of a beloved son and brother. He despises that Glenn’s death forced him into a role he did not want. He doesn’t want to be like Glenn, so he does things his own way, and his way is being incredibly blunt with people and being a rude little bitch just in general. as for his behavior around sylvain, he just hates how noisy and nosy he is and that he doesnt work as diligently as himself. thats not because sylvain is bi.

Dimitri and Dedue.. where do i even begin with your supposed gay implications? You’re right, it has a lot to do with xenophobia and racism. in fact, thats literally all it is! the people of Faerghus talk shit about Dimitri because he thinks the people of Duscur were innocent, because he doesn’t resent them for the death of the king and his father. the people of Faerghus hate that a Duscurian is within 5 feet of their crown prince at all times. because what if hes secretly evil? what if he kills our prince when we’re not looking? is our prince crazy for letting his father’s murderer so close to him? as for Dimitri’s behavior around sylvain, he has concerns that his playboy lifestyle will cause issues for the Gautier name. literally what else would happen when your a noble openly playing with half the hearts of an entire nation.

also.. dimitri/dedue? really? their relationship is solely one large White Savior Trope. that shit ain’t healthy. Dedue feels obliged to serve Dimitri because he’s kept him safe from the kingdom’s hateful gaze. Dimitri may want Dedue to stop being so formal, but Dedue is fucking afraid to do anything else because if he acts too out of line with the crown prince, the people of Faerghus will call for his head (even more).

Mercedes has a lot going on that makes her out of place. firstly, she was born in adrestia. When her father died, her mother remarried to Barron Bartels and had Emil, which was now bad news for the two because Bartels wanted a child with a crest. so now with Emil in the picture, these two were expendable. it can be assumed their life was a living hell because what else would it be for women in medieval times. after she and her mother left Bartels behind, presumably to hide from him, she was a noble raised as a commoner in Faerghus. her adoptive father wanted nothing but the best for her, so she enrolled in teh magic academy and then garreg mach. With the free DLC that adds Jeritza, we learn that Bartels wanted another child with a crest and decided that Mercedes would be the mother. he had deliberately sought her out and found the church she was hiding at (though, jeritza does kill him before he can even reach her).

as for Yuri, i don’t know enough about the Ashen Wolves to go into detail about this but im pretty sure his being out of place comes from the fact hes a criminal? also isn’t his mother listed a prostitute in the game? i’m pretty sure thats what makes him out of place, just sayin’.

All in all it just suggests that the Kingdom is not down with the lgbt

first, thanks for the extremely hilarious round about way of saying homophobic lmao

second, I just spent like an hour debunking that blue lions is implied as q*eer, but with how racist and xenophobic Faerghus is, I would not be surprised if they were homophobic too! but I guess we’ll never know because we have no explicitly gay characters in Three Houses. None of the characters talk about how they feel disconnected from family or society because of sexuality, only because of the statuses they were born with. a bi option means shit in the face of representation when none of them talk about being bisexual.

#highdef.ask #literally what got you to send me this #ive been quiet for the last like week #long post #ask to tag #homophobia #transphobia #racism #Anonymous

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