“We Are Here To Guide Public Opinion, Not To Discuss It.”
“We Are Here To Guide Public Opinion, Not To Discuss It.”
Notes From the Field By Simon Black November 15, 2021
In the year 1804, only a few months before he proclaimed himself Emperor of France, 35-year old Napoleon Bonaparte stood before the State Council to discuss war with Great Britain. By then Napoleon had already become the most powerful person in France; he had led the Coup d’etat against the previous government in 1799, rigged the approval of the new French Constitution, and fixed his own election to become ‘First Consul’.
And as First Consul of France, Napoleon was essentially a dictator… and one who lusted for conflict.
Napoleon had actually threatened to invade Britain when he first came to power in 1799; plus he had spent the last several years deliberately provoking the British by diminishing their influence on the European continent.
Britain finally took the bait and declared war on France in 1803 as a way to preemptively safeguard their own security; they weren’t willing to sit by and wait for Napoleon to invade.
Napoleon was ready. But he was smart enough to know that he couldn’t do it alone-- he would need support. And that meant having the people on his side.
Napoleon had famously little regard for politicians, bureaucrats, clergy, and merchants. But he understood very well that it was the peasants who had risen up against the monarchy in 1789, plunging France into a decade of chaos and revolution.
So, standing in front of the State Council in 1804, Napoleon made his case for war… and selling it to the public. As he told the members of the council quite bluntly, “We are here to guide public opinion, not to discuss it.”
Napoleon was a master of censorship and propaganda. And throughout his career he meticulously oversaw every detail of what was communicated to the people.
He commissioned music, theater, and artwork that portrayed him exactly as he wanted to be seen-- powerful, heroic, victorious, and unstoppable.
He tightly controlled the press and dictated what they were allowed and not allowed to say.
(The number of newspapers in France actually fell from several dozen in 1799 when he became First Consul, to just four by 1814.)
And he completely made up whatever facts he saw fit, especially as they related to his military campaigns.
For example, Napoleon routinely issued ‘military bulletins’ which grossly exaggerated the number of enemies killed and captured, and downplayed France’s own casualties.
It is from these dispatches that the phrase, “lie like a bulletin” entered the French lexicon.
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