I am going to be boring and simply name Napoleon. The hammer of progress. The man who put a bayonet on the Enlightenment. What is there not to love and hate about him?


Quote Originally Posted by scipiosgoblin View Post
If you go to Waterloo, it looks like a shrine dedicated to Napoleon. Wellington is barely mentioned in any of the monuments or literature.
I'd say that is because Wellington wasn't all that important. In fact, neither was Waterloo. Napoleon had been decisively and irreversibly defeated before the Hundred Days, well before Wellington dared to ride out openly against Napoleon.
Russia, Leipzig, the Russian winter, the tactic of avoiding open battle with Napoleon and instead engaging his marshalls, a war of attrition. These defeated Napoleon at last.

Napoleon's short return from exile culminating in Waterloo was not important. It did serve to offer Wellington and Britain at last an opportunity to get a shot in too. Like a matador who hides backstage, waits for the bull to be defeated, and upon seeing the dying bull reaching up his head for a last gasp of air, quickly runs into the arena to stick his sword in and then claims glorious victory.


Quote Originally Posted by Tristuskhan
Jean Meslier: the first one who dared writing "there is nothing like a God". And he was a priest, mind you...

And La Mettrie, surgeon and philosopher:
Great choices! I love the combination of the two.

Et des boyaux du dernier prêtre serrons le cou du dernier roi...