Jean-Baptiste Pérès
Encyclopedia
Jean-Baptiste Pérès was a French
physicist
best known for his 1827 pamphlet
Grand Erratum - a polemic
al satire
, translated into many Europe
an languages, that attempted "in the interest of conservative theology
, to reduce to an absurdity the purely negative tendencies of the rationalistic
criticism of the Scriptures
then in vogue" (as Frederick W. Loetscher described what he called "the celebrated pamphlet" in The Princeton Theological Review 1906) through humorously suggesting ways in which the history
of Napoleon Bonaparte
could be shown to be an expression of an ancient sun myth.
Pérès was professor of mathematics
and physics
at the University of Lyon
, later a government attorney
and finally librarian
at Agen
.
The pamphlet's satire was directed at Charles François Dupuis
(1742–1809) and his influential work Origine de tous les Cultes, ou la Réligion Universelle (1795), which attempted to prove that all religion
s were equally valid and based on common and universal imagery and magic numbers.
Pérès presents an overly rationalistic interpretation of the analogies and etymologies of elements in the popular understanding of Napoleon's life in order to show how, just as the Scriptures or other religious texts could be argued to be mythical
, so could Napoleon's life.
The name of Napoleon is suggested to be similar to that of the Ancient Greek
sun god
Apollo
- the name supposedly from the verb apollyô or apoleô, "to exterminate" (the initial N in "Napoleon" could be derived from the Greek prefix nè or nai, "veritable"). Pérès derives the name from the event during the Trojan war
when the Sun shone with unusual force, killing many of the Greek
soldiers, as revenge for Agamemnon
capturing Chryseis, the daughter of the priest of Apollo, Chryses. The family name Bona parte ("good part") could be seen as coming from a dualistic view of the good or light as one extreme, with mala parte ("bad part") being the opposite, darkness or hell (Pérès refers to the proclamation abi in malam partem, made by the priest during the ritual of exorcism
).
Several other aspects of Napoleon's origin and family could also be cast as betraying supposedly mythological
origins:
The location of Napoleon's birthplace, Corsica
, in relation to France, corresponds to that of Delos
, which is the mythical place of Apollo's birth, in relation to Greece
.
Napoleon's mother's name was Letizia. The mother of Apollo was named Leto
. Moreover, the name Letizia comes from the Latin word for joy, "and does not the dawn's light spread joy in nature when it opens the portals of the East to the sun?" (Sonnenfeld p 33). The three sisters of Napoleon could be seen as corresponding to the Three Graces
of the court of Apollo. Napoleon's four brothers could be understood as the four seasons. Just as three of the seasons are kings (spring rules the flowers, summer the harvest, and autumn the fruit) dependent on the power of the sun, three of Napoleon's brothers reigned only thanks to his power. After the end of Napoleon's reign, the fourth brother is said to have received a principality near Canino
, the name of which is derived from cani, "denoting the white hair of old age" (Sonnenfeld p 34). Napoleon's two wives are the barren moon (Joséphine
) and the fertile earth (Marie Louise). His son was born on March 20, at the time of the vernal equinox.
Napoleon is seen as ending the French Revolution
through being crowned Emperor. The word revolution comes from revolutus, "applied to a curled-up serpent" (Sonnenfeld p 35). This is could be seen as analogous to Apollo's slaying of Python
, which liberated the Greeks from terror.
Napoleon had at one time sixteen marshal
s, of which four were inactive which could be said to represent the twelve signs of the zodiac
and the four fixed cardinal points.
Pérès also suggested that Napoleon could be said, like the sun, to have been militarily successful in the South but failed in the North. And just as the sun rises in the east, out of the sea to someone on the other side of the Atlantic, and sinks in the sea in the west, Napoleon could be seen as having come over the eastern sea from Egypt
(where Apollo was said to have been originally worshipped) to rule France for twelve years, representing the twelve hours of the day, and then sank into the sea in the west (St. Helena).
In addition to these supposed mythological parallels, Pérès suggested that King Louis XVIII issued decrees in 1814 dated to the nineteenth year of his reign, which might be used to suggest that Napoleon could never have ruled France.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
best known for his 1827 pamphlet
Pamphlet
A pamphlet is an unbound booklet . It may consist of a single sheet of paper that is printed on both sides and folded in half, in thirds, or in fourths , or it may consist of a few pages that are folded in half and saddle stapled at the crease to make a simple book...
Grand Erratum - a polemic
Polemic
A polemic is a variety of arguments or controversies made against one opinion, doctrine, or person. Other variations of argument are debate and discussion...
al satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
, translated into many Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an languages, that attempted "in the interest of conservative theology
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
, to reduce to an absurdity the purely negative tendencies of the rationalistic
Rationalism
In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...
criticism of the Scriptures
The Scriptures
The Scriptures was Christian Death's fifth album and is seen as an essay on comparative world religions. The liner notes state that the work is "a translation of world beliefs by Valor." The album, like Atrocities, is split into two acts, though later reissues would omit these subtitles...
then in vogue" (as Frederick W. Loetscher described what he called "the celebrated pamphlet" in The Princeton Theological Review 1906) through humorously suggesting ways in which the history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
of Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon I of France
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
could be shown to be an expression of an ancient sun myth.
Pérès was professor of mathematics
Mathematics
Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
and physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
at the University of Lyon
University of Lyon
The University of Lyon , located in Lyon and Saint Etienne, France, is a center for higher education and research comprising 16 institutions of higher education...
, later a government attorney
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
and finally librarian
Librarian
A librarian is an information professional trained in library and information science, which is the organization and management of information services or materials for those with information needs...
at Agen
Agen
Agen is a commune in the Lot-et-Garonne department in Aquitaine in south-western France. It lies on the river Garonne southeast of Bordeaux. It is the capital of the department.-Economy:The town has a higher level of unemployment than the national average...
.
Grand Erratum
The pamphlet's complete title in French was Comme quoi Napoléon n’a jamais existé ou Grand Erratum, source d'un nombre infini d'errata à noter dans l'histoire du XIXe siècle ("As if Napoleon never existed or Grand Erratum, source of an infinite number of errata as noted in the history of the 19th century").The pamphlet's satire was directed at Charles François Dupuis
Charles François Dupuis
Charles François Dupuis was a French savant, a professor of rhetoric at the Collège de Lisieux, Paris, who studied for the law in his spare time and was received as avocat in 1770...
(1742–1809) and his influential work Origine de tous les Cultes, ou la Réligion Universelle (1795), which attempted to prove that all religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
s were equally valid and based on common and universal imagery and magic numbers.
Pérès presents an overly rationalistic interpretation of the analogies and etymologies of elements in the popular understanding of Napoleon's life in order to show how, just as the Scriptures or other religious texts could be argued to be mythical
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
, so could Napoleon's life.
Summary of the pamphlet
(The following summary is based on Sonnenfeld; see below. Direct quotations also come from Sonnenfeld.)The name of Napoleon is suggested to be similar to that of the Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
sun god
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
- the name supposedly from the verb apollyô or apoleô, "to exterminate" (the initial N in "Napoleon" could be derived from the Greek prefix nè or nai, "veritable"). Pérès derives the name from the event during the Trojan war
Trojan War
In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...
when the Sun shone with unusual force, killing many of the Greek
Ancient Greece
Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...
soldiers, as revenge for Agamemnon
Agamemnon
In Greek mythology, Agamemnon was the son of King Atreus and Queen Aerope of Mycenae, the brother of Menelaus, the husband of Clytemnestra, and the father of Electra and Orestes. Mythical legends make him the king of Mycenae or Argos, thought to be different names for the same area...
capturing Chryseis, the daughter of the priest of Apollo, Chryses. The family name Bona parte ("good part") could be seen as coming from a dualistic view of the good or light as one extreme, with mala parte ("bad part") being the opposite, darkness or hell (Pérès refers to the proclamation abi in malam partem, made by the priest during the ritual of exorcism
Exorcism
Exorcism is the religious practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person or place which they are believed to have possessed...
).
Several other aspects of Napoleon's origin and family could also be cast as betraying supposedly mythological
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
origins:
The location of Napoleon's birthplace, Corsica
Corsica
Corsica is an island in the Mediterranean Sea. It is located west of Italy, southeast of the French mainland, and north of the island of Sardinia....
, in relation to France, corresponds to that of Delos
Delos
The island of Delos , isolated in the centre of the roughly circular ring of islands called the Cyclades, near Mykonos, is one of the most important mythological, historical and archaeological sites in Greece...
, which is the mythical place of Apollo's birth, in relation to Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
.
Napoleon's mother's name was Letizia. The mother of Apollo was named Leto
Leto
In Greek mythology, Leto is a daughter of the Titans Coeus and Phoebe. The island of Kos is claimed as her birthplace. In the Olympian scheme, Zeus is the father of her twins, Apollo and Artemis, the Letoides, which Leto conceived after her hidden beauty accidentally caught the eyes of Zeus...
. Moreover, the name Letizia comes from the Latin word for joy, "and does not the dawn's light spread joy in nature when it opens the portals of the East to the sun?" (Sonnenfeld p 33). The three sisters of Napoleon could be seen as corresponding to the Three Graces
Charites
In Greek mythology, a Charis is one of several Charites , goddesses of charm, beauty, nature, human creativity and fertility. They ordinarily numbered three, from youngest to oldest: Aglaea , Euphrosyne , and Thalia . In Roman mythology they were known as the Gratiae, the "Graces"...
of the court of Apollo. Napoleon's four brothers could be understood as the four seasons. Just as three of the seasons are kings (spring rules the flowers, summer the harvest, and autumn the fruit) dependent on the power of the sun, three of Napoleon's brothers reigned only thanks to his power. After the end of Napoleon's reign, the fourth brother is said to have received a principality near Canino
Canino
Canino is a town and comune of Italy, in the province of Viterbo in the internal part of Maremma Laziale. It is 15 km W of Valentano and 44 km NW of Viterbo....
, the name of which is derived from cani, "denoting the white hair of old age" (Sonnenfeld p 34). Napoleon's two wives are the barren moon (Joséphine
Joséphine de Beauharnais
Joséphine de Beauharnais was the first wife of Napoléon Bonaparte, and thus the first Empress of the French. Her first husband Alexandre de Beauharnais had been guillotined during the Reign of Terror, and she had been imprisoned in the Carmes prison until her release five days after Alexandre's...
) and the fertile earth (Marie Louise). His son was born on March 20, at the time of the vernal equinox.
Napoleon is seen as ending the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
through being crowned Emperor. The word revolution comes from revolutus, "applied to a curled-up serpent" (Sonnenfeld p 35). This is could be seen as analogous to Apollo's slaying of Python
Python (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Python was the earth-dragon of Delphi, always represented in Greek sculpture and vase-paintings as a serpent. He presided at the Delphic oracle, which existed in the cult center for his mother, Gaia, "Earth," Pytho being the place name that was substituted for the earlier Krisa...
, which liberated the Greeks from terror.
Napoleon had at one time sixteen marshal
Marshal
Marshal , is a word used in several official titles of various branches of society. The word is an ancient loan word from Old French, cf...
s, of which four were inactive which could be said to represent the twelve signs of the zodiac
Zodiac
In astronomy, the zodiac is a circle of twelve 30° divisions of celestial longitude which are centred upon the ecliptic: the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year...
and the four fixed cardinal points.
Pérès also suggested that Napoleon could be said, like the sun, to have been militarily successful in the South but failed in the North. And just as the sun rises in the east, out of the sea to someone on the other side of the Atlantic, and sinks in the sea in the west, Napoleon could be seen as having come over the eastern sea from Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
(where Apollo was said to have been originally worshipped) to rule France for twelve years, representing the twelve hours of the day, and then sank into the sea in the west (St. Helena).
In addition to these supposed mythological parallels, Pérès suggested that King Louis XVIII issued decrees in 1814 dated to the nineteenth year of his reign, which might be used to suggest that Napoleon could never have ruled France.