The other day, I picked up a wheel of Brie. Two things attracted my attention: its sale price - I'm a sucker for a good deal, and its name - it evoked memories. I thought of my late uncle, Pedro Pablo Benedetti. His Corsican ancestry demanded that he wax poetically on a fellow paysan, none other than Napoleon Bonaparte. My Dad being his good friend - meaning my uncle's, not Bonaparte's - would follow through by bringing home the stories of Napoleon and his soldiers. Not surprisingly, I paid homage to the effigy of the Emperor, when I visited New Orleans, years later, and sipped kir at Napoleon's Bar, nearby. But I digress...
As Bonaparte unfurled the glories of France, from the late 1700's to the early 1800's, he cemented his mark on history. Today, his military and legal legacies are legend. For one, the Napoleonic Code forms the basis of law in many regions around the world.
But there's a more sinister side that rarely surfaces. Bonaparte's rapacious exploits were of such magnitude that, at the time, Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia branded him as 'an enemy of humanity'. As a result of his conquests, Bonaparte caused an estimated number of deaths, ranging from 3.25 million to 6.5 million. It is a total that does not include the maimed, nor the missing, among civilians and the military of five countries.
Over a century later, another fellow with delusions of grandeur caused the death of 50 milion people and involved over 50 countries.
Clearly, Hitler and Bonaparte shared more than megalomania, overconfidence, and a disrespect for the Russian weather.
If we were to compare the number of untold inhumanities of each of these men, using the same time frame, we might do so on the basis of population growth. As such, we might estimate that between the late 1700's and the mid 1940's, the world's population rose by 275 percent. Applied to the estimate of deaths in the Napoleonic Wars, we could deduce that, had the Emperor lived in the mid-1900's, he might have caused fatalities in the neighbourhood of 18 million.
One can readily understand why there'll never be a Cambozola called "Hitler". Still, the atrocities of Napoleon were so extensive that one wonders why a cheese maker would choose to name his Brie "Bonaparte".
Maybe the realities of history get erased over time. Or, maybe they don't apply to the naming conventions for cheese.
Regardless of polemics, allow me to say that Brie Bonaparte is delicious and hails, not from France but from la belle province, Québec, home to great cuisine and other distinctions, including the Napoleonic Code.
2 comments:
I remeber visiting the tomb of Napoleon in Paris and thinking I´d never seen anything that beautiful and magnificent. It can tell you that french probably ackknowledge only one side of the coin. Not surprised at all. I am happy that they didn´t destroy such a magnificnt building though. Long live to french civilization and the way they preserve their culture. I don´t know what will happen with it 20 years from now due to the amount of arab muslims who live in france now, who don´t eat pork (le cochon), etc etc.. you know? Kind of a clash of uncompatible cultures in there.
"Or why there will never be a Cambozola "Hitler"."
Probably because Adolf wasn´t french mon cher.
Funny that you compare both individuals, both used Neo classical roman arquitecture for their period, needless to mention their fascination with the roman empire. I wonder if there´s some other real conection, beyond than what meets the eye, with those two and ancient rome.
I have a friend whose last name was corsican background and I remeber their family also been very proud of it, on a "Bonaparte" particular kind of way, ha ha. I guess only few wackos from Adolf Hitler´s hometown in Austria really are proud of Adolf been born there.
Things that make you go hmmmm... Hitler, a vegetarian who lived for a time in Vienna, adored pastries. I wonder if he ate Napoleon(s).
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