Mme De Stael On Napoleon:

" Bonaparte only listened to momentary considerations, and only examined things from the perspective of their immediate use...He was not blood-thirsty,but he was indifferent to the life of men. He only considered the life of a man as a means of attaining his objective, or as an obstacle that had to be pushed off the road...Everything in the man was a means to an end or an objective: there was nothing unintentional about him,he was neither good nor evil.


Madame Stael was the staunchest critic and opponent of Napoleon. Now if we concentrate on the last line of her views on Napoleon, we find an interesting fact about despots and dictators: their personal feelings and inclination may be very different from what they actually Do!

Matlab yeh keh ho sakta hay Hitler dil ka bahot naram ho, but zulm iss liye kiye hon kay apni badshahat bachanay kay liye zaroori samajhta ho. See, iss liye tu Madame Stael sahiba farmati hain that Napoleon was neither good nor evil. Means that whatever the despot do is for the single purpose of perpetuating his rule. And that should be the criteria for judging his acts. So despot kay achay kam ki bunyad par usko acha nahi kaha ja sakta. Similarly, uskay booray kam ki bunyad par usko boora nahi kaha ja sakta. SO NAPOLEON WAS NEITHER GOOD NOR EVIL!

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