World: A Bad Case of Napoleonomania

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GOD was bored by him," Victor Hugo once remarked of Napoleon. But the French certainly do not share that feeling. Despite devaluation of the franc, France this week celebrates the 200th anniversary of Bonaparte's birth, gripped by an unprecedented outbreak of Napoleonomania. Traveling by ship and plane to Napoleon's Corsican hometown of Ajaccio (pop. 50,000), more than 200,000 tourists will enjoy fireworks and street dancing, hear President Georges Pompidou deliver the bicentennial address and watch 3,500 French légionnaires, dressed as the Emperor's grognards (grumpy veterans), parade through the spruced-up city.

The Ajaccio festivities are the peak of the celebrations. But every day in 1969 is a Nappy birthday, marked by Napoleonic exhibitions, costume parades, festivals, commemorative ceremonies, solemn Masses or pilgrimages. In one recent week, six major Napoleonic art shows opened in Paris and the suburbs alone. French TV has scheduled no fewer than 80 programs about the Emperor. Some 100 books on Napoleon will be published during the year. Paul Ferrandi, director of Corsica House in Paris, says: "Next to Jesus Christ, Napoleon Bonaparte is the most written-about subject in the world."

The merchandisers are busy, too. A bottle of brandy named for Napoleon is opened with a corkscrew bearing the head of Bonaparte. Napoleon comes in dolls, lampshades, vases, bumper stickers, two-foot-square postcards, cuff links and assorted junk. A cheese manufacturer is distributing 10 million color pictures of Grande Armée heroes. Paris hairdressers decreed the N line: a lock dangling over the forehead. For three dollars, one may acquire a replica of the Emperor's will on pseudo parchment with an imitation red seal. Says an official of the Bonapartist political party that has ruled Ajaccio for over a century: "When we Corsicans put our right hand inside our coat like the Emperor, it's on our heart. Others are feeling for their wallet."

Foreigners are making the most of Napoleon too. The Austrians produce huge red, green and gold candles in the form of the imperial eagle. The Spanish are forging Napoleon's "battle sword" at Toledo—for sale in France, since he was never very popular in Spain. The British fabricate "Napoleon soap," with a color reproduction inside of David's famous painting of the Emperor on a horse. The soap shrinks, of course, but the portrait of Napoleon stays. "Imagine being able to wash your hands with Napoleon," exults Xavier Moreschi, the chief Corsican commercializer of the bicentennial in Paris, who is already actively preparing the celebration of the 150th anniversary of Napoleon's death in 1971. "Sure, they get indignant about that back home in Ajaccio, but a guy who can sell soap when he has been dead almost 150 years must be somebody."