Talk:Napoleon

Napoleon and Joseph Fourier

Fourier went with Napoleon Bonaparte on his Egyptian expedition in 1798, and was made governor of Lower Egypt [2] and secretary of the Institut d'Égypte. Cut off from France by the English fleet, he organized the workshops on which the French army had to rely for their munitions of war. He also contributed several mathematical papers to the Egyptian Institute (also called the Cairo Institute) which Napoleon founded at Cairo, with a view of weakening English influence in the East. After the British victories and the capitulation of the French under General Menou in 1801, Fourier returned to France.

1820 watercolor caricatures of French mathematicians Adrien-Marie Legendre (left) and Joseph Fourier (right) by French artist Julien-Leopold Boilly, watercolor portrait numbers 29 and 30 of Album de 73 Portraits-Charge Aquarelle’s des Membres de I’Institute.[3] In 1801[4] Napoleon appointed Fourier Prefect of the Department of Isère in Grenoble, where he oversaw road construction and other projects. However, Fourier had previously returned home from the Napoleon expedition to Egypt to resume his academic post as professor at École Polytechnique when Napoleon decided otherwise in his remark ... the Prefect of the Department of Isère having recently died, I would like to express my confidence in citizen Fourier by appointing him to this place. [4] Hence being faithful to Napolean he took the office of Prefect[4] . It was while at Grenoble that he began to experiment on the propagation of heat. He presented his paper On the Propagation of Heat in Solid Bodies to the Paris Institute on December 21, 1807. He also contributed to the monumental Description de l'Égypte.[5] Fourier moved to England in 1816. Later he returned to France, and in 1822 succeeded Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre as Permanent Secretary of the French Academy of Sciences. In 1830, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 1830, his diminished health began to take its toll: Fourier had already experienced, in Egypt and Grenoble, some attacks of aneurism of the heart. At Paris, it was impossible to be mistaken with respect to the primary cause of the frequent suffocations which he experienced. A fall, however, which he sustained on the 4th of May, 1830, while descending a flight of stairs, aggravated the malady to an extent beyond what could have been ever feared.[6] Shortly after this event, he died in his bed on 16 May, 1830.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Fourier ThiagoBarbosaSP (talk) 23:25, 23 April 2012 (UTC)

Why should we copy huge chunks of the Joseph Fourier article into the Napoleon article? ==R'n'B (call me Russ) 00:02, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. --Tyrannus Mundi (talk) 22:39, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

Napoleon stripped of rank ?

The article states that Napoleon was promoted Captain in July 1792, but Napoleon was already Lieutenant colonel since April 1792 ! Was he striped of his rank of Lieutenant Colonel and latter promoted captain ? I don't think so, I think someone made a mistake... At least, it needs to be clarified. By the way, someone removed my edits which were explaining why Napoleon abandonned his Corsican nationalist views to embrace French Republican views. Soon I will source this with Jean Tulard's Napoleon. DITWIN GRIM (talk) 11:51, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

I revised that paragraph to make it clearer. In 1792, Napoleon was a first lieutenant in the regular French army (on leave of absence), but also a lieutenant colonel in the Corsican National Guard. Two different services, two different ranks. After returning from Corsica, he was promoted to captain in the regular army. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 13:19, 26 April 2012 (UTC)

Academic review? and too long

Article over 11 000 words, there's a very good case for cutting down. Can move stuff to other articles if not already there. We should be ruthless on duplication. If anyone wants to start this and not use hatchet then it's a wikiworld! In particular the later sections seem unwieldy e.g. Reglions and propaganda. the titles section has no references.

A couple of years ago i asked an academic to review the article but he was busy writing a Nap biography, got no answer from another so if anyone's got any good ideas on this front... Grateful for thoughts Tom B (talk) 12:38, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Bourgeoisie society

I reverted changes where the word "Bourgeoisie society" were repolaced by "Middle classes". The paragraph concerned has remained stable for at least the last five years - See an old version here. I do have a problem with the citation in the current version - the book cited was published in 2008 and the WIkipedia text concerend dates back to before 2007.

Back to the current issue - if noted contemporary historians used the word "bourgeoisie", then we should repeat the word, not try to clarify it or to change it. An entry for the historian concerened can be found in the German version of Wikipedia. Martinvl (talk) 07:11, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Bourgeoisie society

I reverted changes where the word "Bourgeoisie society" were repolaced by "Middle classes". The paragraph concerned has remained stable for at least the last five years - See an old version here. I do have a problem with the citation in the current version - the book cited was published in 2008 and the WIkipedia text concerend dates back to before 2007.

Back to the current issue - if noted contemporary historians used the word "bourgeoisie", then we should repeat the word, not try to clarify it or to change it. An entry for the historian concerened can be found in the German version of Wikipedia. Martinvl (talk) 07:12, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

My problem is that the word bourgeoisie can be POV, marxist, and vague. According to The Free Dictionary bourgeois can mean "A person belonging to the middle class." or "A person whose attitudes and behavior are marked by conformity to the standards and conventions of the middle class." or "In Marxist theory, a member of the property-owning class; a capitalist." and can be a disparaging term, such as "a mediocre, unimaginative, or materialistic person" or "a member of the middle class, esp one regarded as being conservative and materialistic or (in Marxist thought) a capitalist exploiting the working class". Merriam Webster and Dictionary.Reference both have similiar definitions. Unlike bourgeoisie, middle-class is not vague. The Free Dictionary states it is "The socioeconomic class between the working class and the upper class, usually including professionals, highly skilled laborers, and lower and middle management." Likewise, wikipedia describes the middle class as "the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class."

I don't see the relevance of it being unchanged for 5 years. Refering to it as middle-class is completely NPOV. --Goalisraised (talk) 03:32, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

The historians concerend must have had reasons to use the word "bourgeois" - your argument reeks of WP:OR. Leave it as it is. Martinvl (talk) 04:42, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Can you say the reason the historians concerned had to make the word "bourgeois" instead of "middle-class"? Either way, middle-class is completely NPOV, bourgeois isn't. The word should be changed. --Goalisraised (talk) 06:58, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

No, it should not. The term "Bourgeoisie" defines a social class in the historic context of the Enlightenment, of the french revolution, of the Napoleonic age until the end of the (long) nineteenth century: that is, the Age of the Bourgeoisie, not "the Age of the middle class". Alex2006 (talk) 07:11, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Alessandro57. In the article, the historian Langewiesche was describing the events that led up to the unification of Germany (1815 - 1871) which is probalby why he used the word "bourgeois" rather than "middle class". Martinvl (talk) 19:44, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Let's also reject the claim that "Either way, middle-class is completely NPOV, bourgeois isn't." Either one of them could be used in a POV way, depending on the context and on what the sources say. --R'n'B (call me Russ) 20:06, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

... and Langewiesche was cited as using the word "bourgeois", so unless you have Langewiesche's (de:Dieter Langewiesche or fr:Dieter Langewiesche) text in front of you and and can claim that he was mis-quoted (or mis-translated as he was probably writing in German), then it is WP:OR to replace "bourgeois" with "middle-class". Martinvl (talk) 20:24, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Popular belief or true?

Remembering that Wikipedia is not censored, can anyone find a source on (be it confirming or refuting) the idea that he had a below-average-sized penis? Does anyone know where to find such a source for this Article? The Mysterious El Willstro (talk) 06:15, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

How is it relevant to give people a first understanding of who was Napoleon? Remember that Wikipedia is not a tabloïd, nor a list of trivia per WP:TRIVIA. Indeed, you could write millions of books of trivia about a personage like Napoleon, and that would not only make the reading of the article impossible, but also drown the important information.

Bear in mind that the main goal is to enable the readers to get within minutes an overall idea of the subject, before immersing themselves into the scholar litterature to get details.

Best regards. Mouloud47 (talk) 12:29, 23 July 2012 (UTC)